I just got this great letter from the folks at Somatic Psychotherapy Today!

We’re pleased to introduce you to our newest columnist, Aylee Welch, LICW, the founder and director of the Seattle School of Body-Psychotherapy. She will be writing monthly about cultural and psychological trends from a Core Energetics perspective.

Her first column, Toward a Healing Society: A Core Energetics Perspective, is now available on our website. Aylee starts strong: “America must awaken to sexism, classism, heterosexualism, and unsustainable ecological practices. Beyond obvious prejudice, behind superficial masks of equality, beside our continued denial of rights to the vulnerable and the disenfranchised, we must openly acknowledge insidious issues that have been both denied and accepted as long as human beings have been alive. Exposing what has been obscured is essential to facilitate change.” 

She explains that trapped energy from unexpressed emotions and childhood wounds creates a mask known as the lower self. “In Core Energetics,” she writes, “we work to develop the capacity to perceive and to penetrate the superficial mask-self to reveal the lower self. Through movement, expression, acceptance, and compassion for the original situation and our responses, we make room for new and more authentic experiences. We begin to free ourselves from reacting to past situations that are no longer present.”

To read more, please visit our website at www.SomaticPsychotherapyToday.com

IS THIS YOU?!

If so, consider taking some pressure off via Core Energetics.  And check out my new articleA Look At Core Energetics and other Somatic Therapy Approaches that, while comparing Core with other somatic approaches, also explains how our work frees us from our our old unwanted reactions.  After working through the long held tension from our lower self it is much easier to be in the present, to say what we want and what we don't want with grace.  It impacts our tendencies toward judgement and reaction patterns and affords us more pleasure in life. Read it here: http://www.bodypsychotherapyschool.com/new-blog//a-look-at-core-energetics-and-other-somatic-therapy-approaches

The Anatomy of A Bouquet at SSBP

This picture is of the bouquet that we had at the Seattle Find Your Joy workshop last weekend.   All of these flowers were picked from the Sacred Plant Sanctuary at Seattle School of Body-Psychotherapy and they were picked with specific properties in mind meant to enhance the material we covered in the workshop.  Herbs have the power to impact our physical health, and they also can influence our mood, our mind, and, tradition tells us, our energy.  There is much lore around which aspects of our life different plants can influence.  And from that perspective I began this bouquet with two spears of Centaury, standing like pillars on each side of the vase in deference to it's power to protect and heal (this is the plant Chiron the healer, of Greek God fame, used to heal his wound from a poisonous arrow), and to remove negative energy and facilitate meditation and insight.  What a great invokation for our weekend together! 

I added Digitalis, once one of our main medicines for emergency heart problems, Agrimony which, on the subtle levels, is very useful for those who have difficulty getting along with a boss or someone of power in their life.  Valerian is the key ingredient in Valium and was added to help us deeply relax.  Fireweed is a "first responder" plant that goes into devastated ecosystems to rebuild soil and allow for new life to take root.  I tried a Rose in this bouquet and it didn't look great so I added the Rose Campion, because don't we know that Rose is for emotional healing, for love and creativity.

Yarrow was included to minimize fever and infections, metaphorically, in participants, and Arnica to help them modulate trauma and help with the impact and integration of the material.  Rue is ruled by the planet Saturn and therefore can clear away old unwanted material.  It is used in purification rituals.  Yep, that is a goal, to remove the old unnecessary thought fields in order to thrive.  Calendula is an important flower for our skin, and skin is directly related to our gut and to our nervous system, so I invited her to help soothe us in the rawest part of our being.  And that Daisy, riffing on the Daisy ritual, "she loves me, she loves me not."  i invited her into the room to help people and our client's address the common therapeutic theme, am I lovable, am I welcome. 

And I think, indeed, with the wonderful and magical help of these beautiful plants, that we all felt loved and welcomed by the end of the weekend!  I hope you have a wonderful summer and enjoy the beauty and healing capacity of all that surrounds you.
 

A Challenging Solstice Thought

I was going to say something about welcoming summer this morning but I found myself conflicted. It is such a difficult time and yet most of us watch it from our familiar perch of comfort. As the warmth and light invites us to relax and take in our surroundings, beckons us into nature; as some of the basic survival needs are less pressing this season, perhaps we can contemplate how we might each dig a little deeper and risk a little more, step out and do something on behalf of the oppressed and marginalized people outside of our sphere.

We can do it with our thoughts and prayers, with our outrage, or with our money. But what about our time and presence, actually showing up somewhere and doing something new and different that will make a direct impact on someone's life? I must admit this will be a challenge for me in the midst of my busy-ness that I call busi-ness.

But I think, as this post unfolds, so does a challenge to myself...

Exposing the Mask

Me too, too - and I have been thinking hard on why I would share this info or not. We are reacting not just to sexual harassment and inequity, not just to Weinstein and Cosby, and the president of our country. I decided to say it because the most important thing happening, in my opinion, in this era, is that the Mask of our country is being exposed.

We have developed laws in many areas to protect people and to restrain those with power of one type or another and this appears good and important. But the problem with legislating morality is that it hides much of what is actually occurring behind a veneer of political correctness. And it creates resentments which lead to indirect expression of hostility and negative outcomes.

Right action does not come from obligation to laws or anything else. When there is obligation or fear of punishment there is no chance for Love. It is essential that this Mask be exposed and we look at the true underbelly of the culture we have created, society itself must be transformed on a much deeper level.

Austin Texas too!

We've just added a new summer workshop in Austin Texas July 29-30th!  Find Your Joy, our introductory workshop is hitting the road this summer.  We will be in Seattle June 24-25, in Salt Lake City July 15-16 and now in Austin Texas July 29-30th.  This is going to be a lot of great fun.  Find more information on the Special Events page.