What Exactly is Deep Healing and Transformation?

what exactly is deep release and transformation?

Deep release and transformation include release of old wounds, release of old patterns that no longer serve you. This helps move towards healing and transformation. You release old stories about yourself which are no longer true.

This deep release opens up space for coming home to yourself after a long time or finding your self for the first time.

How do we do deep healing work?

We meet you where you are. Right now. So if we notice that daily meditation isn’t working, we aim for 2 or 3 times a week. We observe honestly what you do have space for and we start there.

This is not about perfection. It’s about the commitment. The commitment to come back to the practice to come back to yourself.

So each week, when we meet and I ask you how the week before went, how you showed up for yourself, I’m not listening for the things you did not do (and most folks will feel bad and say, “I didn’t meditate everyday!”). I’m listening for what you did do. And then I reflect that back to you. How you did show up for yourself. We are doing more than we realize. We are so used to being hard on ourselves, we aren’t used to celebrating what we are doing well. That’s what I’m here for. That is the muscle we support you in building.

trauma-informed healing

My commitment to trauma-informed healing and self-compassion is the foundation of my work.

Trauma-informed means meeting you where you are, not where I want you to be.

It means offering many different ways of doing things and seeing what you find supportive, versus forcing you to use just one technique and making you feel bad if you "fail".

Trauma-informed work is rooted in safe space.

Space where you don't have to do the labor of explaining your identities. They may be shared with others, or there are others who have their own multiple identities and therein lies the understanding. I don't jolt your nervous system with assumptions that I share your exact journey either because that can feel just as violating, and it’s just not true.

Being a trauma-informed practitioner means I am in dialogue with you about everything and how it feels, how you receive it, how we must change it so it works for you.

“you are enough”

Many of us spent our lives being told we were less than. Here, the message is always; “you are enough”, just the way you are.

With me, the message is always: you are doing enough. Whether you practice at home or not, whether you forget to do some of the techniques one day or one week or one month, we always start over.

I am always here for you, without shame or blame. Because we are all human. We work with your humanity not against it.

why this approach?

We approach this work in increments. With self-compassion, self-forgiveness, moving towards self-love. Why?

This work of self-empowerment starts with picking ourselves up out of the rubble, tending to our wounds, internal and external, and then applying the balm of healing modalities.

From there, we stand up. We lift our heads high. We come into the full extent of our power. Our lives are never the same again.

How Individual Healing Works

intentional self-care means commitment

Part of our work together is to help you build a sustaining and consistent home practice of self-care.

Self-care is not about sitting to meditate when you feel like it, going to a yoga class when it fits your schedule. This is self-care for radical change, for transformation. This is self-care for resilience, for social change. This is self-care for radical self-love.

This self-care is mandatory. It is intentional. Thus, it takes commitment. It takes consistency. Like eating every day for your survival, you must tap into your self-care every day. To survive. And eventually, to thrive.

Over time, I offer you tools such as meditation audio recordings, grounding practices to infuse into your day, and more. You begin to integrate them at your pace. I want to help you develop a self-care practice that becomes second nature, like putting on your clothes every morning, not because I told you to, but because you value it, you value you. This in itself will be a journey towards self-healing and self-love.

The other part of our work together is the weekly sessions. I work with folks for a minimum of three months. Why? So you learn to show up for yourself on a regular basis. So the tools and practices integrate more fully and deeply. And faster! Each week, we do a check-in to see how the self-care tools are integrating into your daily practice. You share your victories (or I point them out to you!). We honor your process and celebrate it whole-heartedly every step of the way.

Before-and-After Photos of a Self-Care Practice

My close friend and mentor teaches boot camp in the next room from where I hold my self-care classes. She is able to post photos on social media showing the “before-and-after” effects of these workouts on her clients. You can see the weight-loss, you can see the slimmed down bodies. 

I scratch my head: how can I, too, show the before-and-after effects of a self-care practice on my students?

How do you take a photo of a person who has sat in their 5 minute morning meditation and is moving through their day feeling a little lighter, more grounded than they used to. 

How do you take a photo of that same person’s calmer nervous system in that exact moment when someone cuts them off in traffic but because they meditated that morning, they don’t cuss a storm or clench their fists or grind their teeth like they used to. 

How do you photograph that moment when someone says no to an invitation because they are exhausted from the week and are choosing quiet time over obligatory socializing? How do you capture the feeling of guilt or shame they might initially feel but also a feeling of self-empowerment: they are finally putting themselves first. The thrill of it. In their heart, in their spirit. How this small change will lead to big results in the coming months and years as they create more and more time for themselves.

My friend posts videos of her workouts. It is noisy, it is fun, people are dripping with sweat. Very engaging, external signs of the work.

My self-care classes have deeply personal discussions around why we come to these practices and how difficult they are to maintain. Honest discussion in safe community. Knowing you’re not alone makes the work so much more accessible.

My videos, when I do make them, show folks who look like they’re asleep on the floor. I can’t photograph the deep relaxation their nervous system is experiencing, or the release of childhood trauma that their body held for decades which releases slowly every time they are in this carefully set-up restorative pose.

In a society obsessed with the external, with legitimizing every moment with a selfie, the work of self-care can easily take a back seat. Because the work brings up all the feels, and then helps us move through it to a more grounded, easeful place. This work is internal, it is personal, it is hard, it is unglamorous. 

It asks us to get quiet. Sit with ourselves. Reflect. Rest. These things are increasingly difficult to do in a society that asks us to do the opposite all the time. 

And when we do, when we show up for ourselves, over and over, day after day, change happens. Unphotographable change but deep, lifelong change. We get lighter, not in weight but in our hearts, our spirits.  We get powerful not from the heavy weights we lift but from each time we take care of ourselves, put ourselves first.

We show up for ourselves and love ourselves and people will see it, trust me. They may not be able to put their finger on it, you may not be able to at first either, but you will inspire your loved ones when they see the results of your self-care journey written all over your body, mind, spirit. 

You may not photograph it, but you will be walking proof of it.