The Poetry of Psychotherapy

Studying to become a psychotherapist has brought me home to myself in a way I didn’t know possible through a job or career. I’ve angled myself as a purpose coach over the last 6 years to give me license to have the deeper conversations with people that I believe stand to make the most difference to someone’s life - especially when trying to find themselves again, or a new direction and meaning for their life. And now that I’m diving deeper into the mechanics of the mind, how we heal and models like Internal Family Systems it’s only strengthening my conviction that our body - our unconscious (AKA - our nervous system!) is a data storage centre for our most significant and difficult experiences. Sometimes our reactions seems bizarre and if I had a penny for every time someone has sat in front of me during a session and said “I don’t know why I’m crying about this”, as if to try to invalidate their experience in the here and now, or to apologise or something, I’d be a rich woman.

But the truth is if we stop avoiding what’s presenting itself here, now - the tears, the panic, the urge to run, the anger or frustration - and if we face what’s happening in us here and now with someone safe and trusted, who can guide us with some compassion, we start to slow down the experience and get curious rather than judging what’s happening. It’s quite incredible what can happen from there. How we have to surrender, and begin to process in a much more impactful way. And of course, I can’t help myself but do this through the eyes of the Enneagram, offering my clients an experience into themselves to find how certain parts of their nervous system became calcified and protective patterns began to repeat. It’s so much more interesting for the client, and most importantly, it’s so much more healing in a transformative way.

I’ve always stayed away from using the word “transformative” on my website because I don’t like that it implies that we are supposed to change - become something more or better than we are now. But in this instance it sort of is a transformation… but not a personality change, more of a relaxing into. More of a gentle healing that allows us to let what’s not serving us drop away, so we can be more true and reminded of our essential nature - which is something we all forget most of the time. The therapeutic coaching space I try to create for people is a place where I try to help people see what they’re doing first, so that we can begin to work with it and gently we begin to find what’s underneath it. We’re all so scared of what’s underneath it. But when we get there, every time, we find it’s much more real, much more vulnerable, and much more sacred that we could have anticipated. Every human is their own healing vessel - we have everything we need inside of us already. We just need a safe place to land, and someone who’s walked the path (and continues to walk it every day - even though it means facing our flaws) for us to find our way to our own self-healing capacity. With all this observation going on for me lately, this poem came tumbling out of me.

Body Knows

I was coaching this young woman and when I asked “are you sure?” she started to cry

And as the tears started to well up in her eyes, she said “I don’t even know why I’m crying about this”

I’ve heard that so many times now that I wanted to share something we weren’t often taught, that we totally missed,

The body has this intelligence that is so big that it hides in plain sight, and it’ll blow your mind

She remembers, independently of your conscious thought - wait - no - body remembers in SPITE of your conscious thought 

She remembers what happened once before when you tried - you really, really tried - but you lost despite how hard you fought 

Body remembers that your intentions were innocent and pure, and how misled you were by those who made you unsure

You’re not crying for no reason, it’s not random or wrong, you’re not being dramatic or taking too long

You’re crying because your body is trying to communicate with conscious mind, even when you try to brush it aside, time after time

Your body - she knows what is happening even when you don’t - it’s a sentient being that remembers even when you won’t 

I once went in for surgery and when I awoke my body was shaking, I had a lump in my throat, and I began crying with my eyes still shut

The nurse reassured me that this was quite normal for folk, my mind was switched off but body knew she had been sliced and prodded and poked…

So it’s not as simple as saying “it’s not that deep” - because if you keep denying what your body really needs 

You’ll compound the issue for further down the line, when you find you can’t eat or sleep - and actually - you’re not fine

You see your body has this intelligence - that directly competes with repressing your emotions & trying to sound eloquent 

Sometimes body needs to be vigilant and she’s smart enough to know when something hurt so badly many years ago that she panics and she tries to say:

- Wait! Stop! Slow… signals our body doestry to show

If only you could stop making body wrong - and listen to her, you’d discover she’s actually strong

Body is an animal - a wise, ancient creature built by nature inextricably connected to all the world’s features

Body longs to live in tune with planet Earth, with this spinning rock from which we all sprung from the dirt!

Body knows when it needs to stretch and move, and equally sometimes a yawn comes over you 

Because she also knows when it’s time to rest, when she quietly aches and knows “Bed would be best”

On a hot summer’s day body’s eyes want to gaze at a beautiful lake, and how her skin longs to feel the cool water on body’s face

And how the breeze on her damp skin makes body feel fresh & alive - then it changes and she yearns for the warm touch of sunlight

A gentle kiss from our sun a whopping 93 million miles away - reminding us we’re not alone, we’re not astray

We feel it all right here where we belong - the primal urge to tap your feet to the beat of your favourite song 

Body wants to feel the feelings that music creates - even when that feeling is pain - it teaches body to feel again

It lets her know that another body has also felt this way before - and when that empathy hits we connect more and more, not just to each other but to ourselves…

We start to come home to what’s real and true when we stop disagreeing with body - let her move through you

I know it’s fucking scary and we all think we’re the one who everyone should be wary of… that we’re the one not really worth of love

But I’m telling you now if you give it a try, you might free yourself and that might make you cry - but take solace in knowing sometimes this is you body’s way finally taking a deep sigh… of relief

From there we begin to process the grief… just do it with someone you trust in a safe place - your body deserves to do this with grace

<3