S.E.L.F. _ “System for Embodied Living and Freedom” is composed of three steps  to feeling safer, stronger, freer, and in sync and flow with life.

The first step is Coming Home.  Stop fighting or denying your feelings  and recognize “what is”…. which may be suffering, anxiety, or feelings of not being good enough/strong enough/intelligent enough…whatever lack you perceive or feel, in whatever way you feel it now. Stop fighting with your beliefs and what life is dishing up for you. Allow and learn to feel, observe, and let things be the way they are, for now. (No easy feat, particularly when you’re in pain or unhappy, but this process can help  …).

Step two revolves around an individualized program of gentle accompaniment to acquire new responses, beliefs, and choices. This stage requires practice developing will and discipline to wire in new habits of thought and being, sometimes pretending (to start with) if you’re not yet convinced, acting ‘as if’.  Willful Practice helps you recognize fears and limiting beliefs, dis-identify from them to release their power and emotional charge… You can choose how you see yourself and how you feel, releasing unconscious ‘automatic’ reactions with mindful awareness.

In this second step, Willful Practice, learn to choose life-supporting ways of thinking,  and responding to situations and people, instead of powerless, habitual responses you have repeated much of your life.  Without new tools and awareness learned in this step, triggers from the past re-traumatize and reinforce habitual, unconscious responses, deeping the rut you feel trapped in. Survival beliefs and somatic responses allowed you to survive traumatic situations in the past, when there was no other way. But these powerless responses have outlived their use, though they live on in cellular memory in the nervous system and kick in when you feel threat. Your autonomic nervous system is doing what it knows to keep you safe, but today things are different. You are a new person and can learn to go beyond conditioned responses to discover new responses, better suited to today’s challenges and desires. Learn to free your body, unwind, relax…and breathe!

Willful Practice leads to stage three, Embodied Living and Flow. This stage is about embodied, grounded, confident living, similar to the stage an athlete, accomplished musician or linguist acquires after sustained practice of their discipline. This stage feels peaceful, flowing, yet powerful and easy; you no longer need to work hard to call up a feeling of power and freedom. The foundations of stage two buoy you up so life-affirming responses become ‘natural’.

The three steps or stages of S.E.L.F_System for Embodied Living are circular, not linear; like seasons they return at different moments in our life.  Once internalized and mastered, these steps become foundations to rely upon when life throws a curve ball or unexpected challenge. These tools help us to be resilient, and bounce back despite challenging experiences.

To feel free we must learn to accept and allow people and events  to be as they are. We can create meaning from all life experiences and reappropriate personal power to reconnect with authenticity.  S.E.L.F._System for Embodied Living and Freedom allows us to do  this… regardless of how we have lived up to now.

For more information or to embark on your accompanied, individualized program to S.E.L.F. take a first step and contact me through the ‘contact form’ below:

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