How we respond to and recover from the challenges of life is an indicator of our wellbeing and ability to learn and grow. It begs the question of how one faces the trials, tribulations, and traumas of life. Understanding the connection between our mind and body can play a crucial role in this process.
“Feel your feelings.”-it's a phrase you hear in the world of self-help and therapy but it can be an especially difficult concept to grasp when the demanding and fast-paced world we live often forces us to put our emotions aside and prioritise thinking and doing. The tendency to ‘think our way through life’ means that it can be difficult to tune into and fully feel our feelings, making it easy to lose touch with our inner emotional landscape. However, understanding how to properly ‘feeling your feelings’ can be a powerful skill to make our selves more at easy and our lives more satisfying.
Traumatic events that are not fully or properly processed can cause post-traumatic stress and symptoms. EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing) is a type of structured somatic therapy that has been shown to be effective in healing our brains from trauma as well as a range of mental health issues including anxiety, depression and OCD. Read more about what EMDR is and what to expect if you are considering this therapy approach.
Walk and talk therapy integrates aspects of traditional talk therapy with ecotherapy and somatic therapy. These sessions are unique in providing a tangible way to engage the mind and the body as well as allow our natural surroundings to help with the therapeutic process. Read more about how this approach to therapy is beneficial and whether this something for you to try.
Therapy can seem shrouded in mystery, a process done behind closed doors with noone else to witness it apart from you and your therapist. Knowing what to look out for when determining the effectiveness of your therapy sessions can help you reflect for yourself whether therapy is going in the right direction for you. Here are some things to consider throughout your therapy process.
A major part of what makes therapy effective is the relationship between you and your therapist. Finding the ‘right’ therapist is all about finding a therapist who is a good fit for you and what you need. There are several things to consider both before and after the first session that will help determine whether a therapist is a good fit for you.
Our skin crawls when we are disgusted and our heart feels like it is about to burst when we are full of joy. We are left breathless in the face of beauty and our stomach drops when we receive a fright or shock. These expressions are not a coincidence. What do they tell us about about the link between our mind and our bodies?
Many of us have a complicated relationship with food. Most of us have at some point been on a form of diet and for many more of us, the relationship we have with our bodies is a constant struggle between dissatisfaction, ignoring it, and paying a lot of (self-conscious and/or self-critical) attention to it. What might patterns of overeating or restrictive diets be reflecting about our emotional health?
Even though our attachment style can be traced back to our earliest relationships, it isn’t set in stone and it isn’t the case that it cannot be changed. The extent to which we are able to become securely attached later in life is fortunately determined less by our early relationships and more by a combination of how aware we are of ourselves and strengthening the skills for healthy, secure attachments.
