“Health is not simply the absence of illness. Real health is the will to overcome every form of adversity and use even the worst of circumstances as a springboard for new growth and development. Simply put, the essence of health is the constant renewal and rejuvenation of life.”
Daisaku Ikeda
Your body & spirit has experienced your entire life.
We learn how to perceive, hold and move our body in response to our lived experiences of our body in this world.
Some of our experiences were positive, loving, and supportive. Others were overwhelming, scary, confusing, stressful and possibly traumatic.
We also live within family, society, and culture structures that provide experiences, teachings, beliefs and stories about ourselves, our world, and how we are expected to be and act in this world. Again, some of these may be supportive and uplifting, while others may be limiting and fear-filled.
All of these experiences and inputs touch us on a bodily, spiritual, mental, emotional, and relational level. As a result, our body has various patterns of perception, thought, belief, posture and movement that are programmed into our nervous system and entire being. Our bodies shape themselves in response to our lives.
Some of these patterns are supportive, easeful and resilient. Some patterns may be painful, limiting or tension filled. These constrictive patterns serve to protect us, but they can also limit our ability to connect to ourselves, our life force, to others and to new possibilities.
Are you interested in letting go of limiting patterns, and reconnecting to new ways to feel and move in your life?
We also live in a modern, fast paced, technology-driven culture where body and spirit and mind are often separated. We tend think and analyze our way through life with little regard for the intelligence of the heart and the body. In our very individualistic society, we also tend to “do” life alone.
When we are disconnected from our bodies and one another, we are also disconnected from our deepest resources of wisdom, compassion and creativity. This can lead to stress, dis-ease, pain and suffering. It can also feel like we are untethered and alone when facing times of transition, challenge and loss/grief.
When we experience disconnection, we can spend our lives in clenched in resistance, defense, hypervigilance, worry or fear, instead of in leaning into relationships and love. Our inner and outer world can feel divided, fragmented and unsettled. We do not feel whole. We have not been taught in our modern culture to listen to the experience and intelligence of our own body and breath that is available to guide us through the ever-changing landscape of being a human on this earth. But the hope and beauty is that we can always learn! We can reconnect to our embodied wholeness through our awareness, breath, compassion, movement and connection.
You may be experiencing a form of disconnection in your own life, which may look or feel like:
Pain and suffering that limits how you move your body
Overwhelm, burnout, exhaustion, and stress
Bodily tension or confusion
Hypervigilance or difficulty feeling settled or present
Uncertainty and lack of stability and groundedness in an uncertain, changing world
Change or decline in health resulting in loss and grief
Life transition or change, such as aging, empty nest, menopause that has you feeling confused, vulnerable, or directionless
Right now, change, connection, and healing may seem very far away – or even impossible. I understand how hard it can be to hope for something better when you are in the midst of pain or disconnection.
What if I told you it was possible to:
Receive care and support for your whole being-body, spirit and mind. You are not alone.
Return to activities you enjoy
Experience less pain and suffering
Feel a sense of stability and groundedness in your body
Soften bodily tension and open to lightness and steadiness
Build capacity and resilience to meet your life fully
Experience a sense of agency, even amidst challenge and change
Experience vitality and well-being
Meet your life with acceptance and compassion
Build connections and a sense of belonging
Remember that you are whole.
Come home to your body
At Awareness in Motion, the body is home base of our practices of awareness, embodiment and movement to support your healing, health and wholeness. We will partner by listening for your needs, desires and deep knowing and support you with our knowledge, experience and offerings. Together, we will develop a practice that supports your well-being by utilizing a combination of the following services:
CREATING SPACE:
You will be invited into a space where you are able to slow down, catch your breath, and meet yourself fully. You and your story will be held with compassion and care. We will create a secure and brave space, where you can reflect on your inner and outer world of spirit, body, mind, emotion and relationship as you move through the ever changing landscape of your life.
When we feel safe and secure, we can breathe and relax. Relaxation and rest are vital to our health and well-being. This is where our autonomic nervous system can shift out of sympathetic (stress and defense) mode and land in a parasympathetic (peaceful) space in our body. This allows us to engage in our lives, healing and becoming in a way that makes sense to our body’s neurophysiology. We become woven back into the wholeness and security of our body, even when life is challenging.
EMBODIED AWARENESS & CREATIVE MOVEMENT:
We start by bringing awareness into sensations of your body. We become aware of the histories of our lived, bodily experience, and the postural and movement patterns we have learned as a response to them. We reconnect with our breath, body, and inner knowing. As we breathe with awareness, this provides the spaciousness to unravel habitual bodily tension and movement that may be causing pain, stiffness or limitation. We build a relationship with our body instead of operating from “mind over matter”. This opens the door to experience new ways of being and moving that feel more open, fluid and stable. As our awareness deepens, we open the door to change, our inner resources, and greater possibilities of healing, growth, and connection.
Awareness can be added to any current movement or exercise program to build deeper connections and movement options within our body. We will combine embodied awareness AND the science/anatomy of movement science into embodied creative movement. Awareness opens us to more movement potential than if we tell our body to sit with a certain posture, move per a prescribed exercise, achieve a certain pose or move/be a certain way in the way. This untangles movement patterns that limit and constrict you, so you can discover new movement patterns that support and enliven your well-being.
INTEGRATIVE PHYSICAL THERAPY & WELLNESS GUIDANCE:
We will not only address your symptoms, or a specific body part, but we will reach beyond the mechanical model of the body and address your health challenges through a lens of wholeness. We will take the time to look for and address root causes instead of just addressing symptoms. We will listen to how your entire being communicates and functions as a whole body, spirit, mind, emotion-relational eco system.
Through the integration of the science of physical therapy, embodied awareness and movement and bodywork, we bring awareness to movement patterns and tension that may be resulting in pain and limitation. We will explore new movement options that promote alignment, ease and stability. You will learn home practices that will support the well-being of your whole body to help you feel empowered in treating and managing symptoms now and in the future.
Sometimes, we experience pain or limitations that are chronic or ongoing, and have limited how we move our bodies in the world. This includes living in an aging body. We take the time to accept where you are, and explore the possibilities of how to adapt and continue to move forward in your life in a way that supports the health and well-being of your whole self.
This approach can be supportive if you have experienced any of the following and are curious about an integrative approach to movement and your health:
Injury or accident
Surgery
Trauma, including medical trauma
Concussion
Chronic illness and/or pain
Musculoskeletal pain that has been addressed via various treatment approaches
Sense that pain/limited movement may also have a mental, emotional or spiritual connection
Desire a fuller way of seeing yourself and your life beyond just your physical health
Restorative and Sustainable practices for your health and well-being
INTEGRATIVE BODYWORK:
The basis of my integrative bodywork practice is neurovascular integration (based in cranio-sacral therapy), which is a science-based, light touch therapy that engages the nervous system conversation between brain and body and helps restore sensory and motor function. Within this framework, I also incorporate in my knowledge and training in Reiki, myofascial release, Zero Balancing (balance of structure and energy), and joint and soft tissue mobilization as needed. In this bodywork, we are not working on your body, but rather, with your body to support healing, connection and wholeness.
Clients often experience deep relaxation, release of tension and pain, grounding, spaciousness, and new possibilities in moving forward in their lives. Bodywork can be very supportive for healing, during times of stress, transition, growth or loss. Being met with attention and compassion creates the conditions for the body&spirit to remember itself.
SPIRITUAL COMPANIONSHIP & EMBODIED SPIRITUALITY:
Spiritual Companionship is a contemplative, reflective practice where we together take a long, loving look at the real. In the midst of the reflection of the experiences of our lives and our bodies, we listen for, feel, and nourish presence of spirit and our life force to support and guide our lives.
My approach in spiritual companionship is body-centered. I utilize the practices of embodied awareness, movement, breathing, 3 centered awareness and focusing to support the remembering, embodiment and movement of your whole body&spirit into the world.
I have found that spirituality is universal, yet deeply personal. You may sense and desire a connection of “something” that is within you but is also larger than you. For you, spirituality may be experienced or known as love, connection, life force, breath, life, purpose, meaning, or interconnectedness. Or, you name this as the divine, mystery, God, Source, Allah or true self. Through deep listening and embodiment, we will support you in exploring and connecting to this greater mystery that is within, between and beyond.
HOME/LIFE PRACTICES & EDUCATION:
In person sessions of any of the above practices is incredibly supportive of our health and well-being. The practices we repeat on a day to day basis is how our whole body rewires new patterns to enliven our being in a whole new way. Together, we will take what you experience and learn in sessions to create daily practices and new awareness that will give you agency ways to restore, nuture, and sustain your health and well-being for your every daily life.