Here’s my take:

Just because you’ve read books on trauma and done a few courses doesn’t necessarily mean you can call your work trauma informed. And, calling your work trauma informed before it actually is can be (unintentionally) misleading, shaming and confusing for your clients. Because it directs them to relate to trauma on the level of the mind. It can have them believing they should be able to Think their way out of a trauma state or reaction (and by trauma here, I’m referring to any frozen or reactive responses arising from the reptilian brain).

Trauma is primarily held in the reptilian brain and the nervous system and must be met on the level of the body. If you haven’t Personally experienced and tracked your own nervous system in action it can seem like trauma is something you can just talk about and that’ll be enough for those “other” people who have trauma to feel taken care of.

It’s not. Or not if you are running embodiment or therapeutic processes. Because trauma is such a Body thing.. We communicate safety to our clients with our Bodies, our energy and voices. With our embodiment.

To be truly trauma informed you need to have deepened your capacity to track your own fight, flight, freeze or fawn behaviours, to be able to stay present in your body and inner felt-sensing, and to experience the process of release and resolution of at least Some of your bound trauma or shock from the past.

This doesn’t have to be an intense process. You don’t have to go to the bottom of your barrel to be embodied in trauma informed facilitation. (In fact it works better if you start with pleasurable felt-sense processes to experience your nervous system in response to “good/ok” sensations). It doesn’t mean that you need to have “healed” your deepest stuff. Just that you’ve been willing to experience your own nervous system in action without just Thinking about it. You’ve walked the track you want your clients to feel safe to walk with you. (I see it a bit like reconnoitering before a hike.. you’ve checked out what the cliffs and ravines are like and your feet know the terrain).

So yes, having the information is a wonderful start. But if the information hasn’t moved through your body and the foundations of your work (the words you speak, the pacing, the level of choice you give and most importantly your embodied Presence) it can be a bit like a lot of “trendy” words spoken over the top of an old system. And it can be like walking your clients out on the hike with just a paper map in your hands, when their terrain is an alive, moving landscape.

This is why I’m offering an experiential training in trauma informed facilitation. 
Because I see a lot of wonderful counselors, therapists and coaches who have the information, but haven’t walked it through their body. They either don’t use the tools they have, or they talk “trauma informed” but don’t embody it, and so cant actually support someone in real time when needed. (Leading to clients staying stuck, blaming the work, and both of you losing confidence fast). Which I know is not what you want. You want to see your clients more free and happy and you want to be of service in a tangible way.

Being trauma informed to me means being more deeply human. More anchored in these fleshy vehicles. More present, compassionate and inclusive. And from that place, hearts heal. Families become healthier and poor strategies for survival are no longer chosen. You don’t need to yell so much when your nervous system, and that old wound, has been met. You don’t need to shut down and cut off from other people when your freeze response has been unwound and safety found in the body again.

Healing trauma releases a Lot of bound energy that can then be used for creating good things; more gardens, more spacious time hugging. More meditation and silence and listening to the wisdom of the earth. More good creative thinking, more systemic change that is connected to present-time Care.

Let’s do that, hey

If you want and need your work to be more embodied and trauma informed, this program will take you through 3 stages:

> Module 1: Work with the Mind to Support Somatic Healing
One of the biggest blocks to effective somatic work is the mind and the inner judge. This module will show you how to use the mind to support rather than hinder the process of resolution and healing. It’ll show you how to get deeper access to the somatic (embodied and programmed) patterns underneath thoughts and to know what to do when the ego/identity throws up defenses.

> Module 2: Landing in the Animal Body
This will teach you how to increase presence and body awareness in yourself and your clients (even the heady ones and the disassociated ones), understand and work with the body’s natural unwinding process, create emotional resiliency, and use language to create more safety and willingness in your clients body.

> Module 3: Successfully Work with Unconscious Programming
This module takes the core skills of the program and goes deeper into how to work with relational wounding, incorporate symbols and expressive arts, how to work with shame or common patterns of bracing or collapsing found when a client is facing something that has felt too big for them to digest. This third module brings the entire training to a 400hr Certification in Somatic Therapy (recognised by IICT) 

You’ll learn how to work with intention and attention in a trauma informed way, the maps to work with someone in a freeze or shutdown state. How to work with fight or flight responses in a way that invites resolution. How to use “time” to make content more manageable and you’ll master the Goldilocks Method; how to create the right balance of safety and challenge to create healing.

The training also includes a module on ethics and trauma as well as bonus teachings on creating effective secure attachment in sessions and the structural and relational elements to working with diverse clientele (multicultural, gender or sexuality).

The course is delivered online in a series of live workshops over the space of 12months:
15 classes, 16 full workshop days, with 11 x group inquiry and connection calls, 11 x practice and case consult calls, 6 x 1:1 sessions with me and 2 x 1:1 video review sessions and lots and lots more designed to help you Embody the work personally, anchor the skills and frameworks well and then naturally offer that safe and grounded presence to your clients. 

Class times are offered on Thursday mornings and Monday evenings and the workshops on weekends (AEST)

The first Module begins as soon as you are ready, and the second module starts on June 6th.

Check out the full outline here.

There are limited places as I want to ensure good quality attention for each participant. 

If you are interested, please reach out via PM (I don’t always get notifications if you comment below). I’ll ask a few questions to see if you’re a good fit for the program and we can begin with Module 1 soon as you’re ready!

Much love

Amanda

Or, to be more specific, loving when you’ve been hurt, when you’ve got no “reason to” trust, is deeply courageous.

I’ve been working a lot with people with developmental trauma lately… in some way Mum or Dad weren’t safe, weren’t there, weren’t able to create a safe ground to expand into. Life started with a preciousness in them unmet.

It’s beautiful (I Love it) to be around people who have a secure sense of themselves in love. Who love easily, who trust love, trust they will Be loved, who innately create stability in relationship. My system widens, warms and expands around them. I feel safe.

But it’s those who’ve been deeply hurt in love who are my Hero’s.

The ones who continue to walk up to the edge of opening and sometimes jump in and open wider, even though their past tells them it will hurt, even if opening their heart in those places feels like fire. Because something calls them in. Connection and longing for more. KNOWING they’re more. Fuck. It breaks me open.

It is So courageous, brave and wildly strong to love in the face of a broken heart. I bow to the power of people to renew, to face themselves and keep moving towards the truth that we are all love and Love wants to love us. In my experience, that’s not some platitude but a tangible experience when we turn and look at it.

I bow… to the beautiful, exquisite heart who believes they are broken because their earliest caregivers couldn’t reflect their glory. I bow to your courage. I bow to the beauty in you, to your still being here.. whether it is deep in the cave, protecting your heart, out on the edges of the cliff, or flying without a parachute. I see you.

And here’s a song I like about love  🙂

And if you’d like to book in a session or have a chat with me about what might be possible for you can book in here: http://www.wisdombody.com.au/book-now/

Today I want to share a love note. A bow to the humility and humanness in us all, as, perhaps you look back in reflection on your year.

At the end of every the year for the past 8+ years I have a spiritual teacher visit my hometown, and over the years she, and her teachings, have touched me very deeply and “taught me” a lot about love, about the mind and about True nature.  

A few Friday’s ago it was the first public meeting of her visit in the Shire, and I witnessed the size of her love and the way people became beautiful, authentic versions of themselves when they talked with her. My heart opened wide, I laughed till my cheeks hurt, and I remembered the incredible love I have found in her presence before, and forgotten. Again and again as I dive back into daily living and doing.

When I left that night, the laughter and love that had opened me wide again, brought up a big welling of grief. Grief for the way I’ve honoured my mind over what I know to be true, for the way I’ve chased and fed my fears, rather than the truth I found when sitting with her. A kind of desperate sadness to have lost something so precious in the flood of focus on living and survival.

And this is what I heard from inside my heart that I want to offer you.

Life will wait for you.

Your true nature, the love that is the base of you, and that is bigger than your “Amanda” or “Shane” or “Mary”… doesn’t mind if you spend 100 years chasing your tail in fear, anger or sadness.

It doesn’t mind if you give your thoughts, time and energy to your selfishness, your jealousy, your anger, your pettiness.

These things don’t touch who you are at all.

True nature is intelligent and deeply lovingly wise. You can’t get it wrong, can’t waste time. (That’s just a trick of the mind). But you can choose love and your true nature sooner. But only because something in you wants it.

Not because you should.

Be your Amanda, Mary or Shane.

Walk your walk and listen for the wise hum below and in it all.

You can’t get it wrong and love wants you as much as you want it.

And how glorious is That 🙂

Be well dear human!

with love

Amanda

In the last few weeks I’ve been doing some gentle (but consistent) energy & chi building practices and, as I feel more rested, resourced and happy in my heart, and as my life starts to reflect that inner well-being back to me via friendly, loving people & synchronistic events, a very clear realization has come to me (with some help.. let me explain below).

When energy is flowing well, it moves throughout the body freely and draws energy

… Up from the earth, from the natural environment, and from harmonious people, places, things. When it’s flowing well, it’s obvious when something ISN’T harmonious and enhancing, so we naturally will gravitate away from that thing, keeping our energy flowing and healthy.

The problem with trauma, shock or stored negativity is that they are like a block in your funnel.

A frozen place where energy gets stuck, and you therefore need to revert to “the past” to know how to respond to your environment. This is a good “survival” strategy, but not necessarily a good Thriving strategy. And being stuck in survival can feel very stressful if done over time (believe me, baby, I know)!

Trauma, shock or stored negativity can essentially keep us in a loop within our own energy system, and as Joe Dispenza says, we stay in the lower energy centers (realted to bodily survival) & we start to use our own resources of energy to run our life, rather than the energy of our own connection to source/life-force/chi (the bigger field around and inside us).

What I see in my work with trauma is that when we start touching on a trauma (with slow and present awareness), energy begins to mobilize. We are unlocking the frozen places, and this is good (it doesn’t often feel good at first, but that shifts a lot once the stored energy is mobilised/expressed).

THIS is what I want to share with you on the VALUE of getting your energy moving, and feeding your system with positive life force and self connection.

Because…

>> We can’t create (back up) what we want if we come from a depleted life force <<

We might say we have a dream, a new business idea, a plan for an awesome holiday.. but if we are stuck in survival, many of these “new” things” will turn out like the “old things”… because the system that is creating them is not able to allow new, fresh chi and the unknown IN.

It doesn’t matter what you’re drawn to here (money, love, health, inner peace) if you are depleted, it is harder to feel your natural life-force energy (and the natural joy that it is) and it’s like you dont have “credit” in your bank account.

*Cue big Italian guy at a fruit stall* “eh! Mate, what are you gonna pay for that Expansion with?!! No credit, no Expansion, Eh!!”

…

So, yes, the trouble with trauma is that it limits the amount of life-force that is able to flow through a body. But when energy is Gently mobilised with kind and soft awareness, those blockages in the funnel will soften and dissolve and you will be free from negative loops. I have seen this over and over again.

And then, and even during that, you can Really focus on chi cultivation, on breathing your energy up to your heart (a daily gratiude journal can help this), up into your throat, and brain and more expanded/connected consciousness.

So in the spirit of all of that… Here’s a little ditty of a dit. A boogey of a boog. Energy moving and chi making a giggle on a face and in some hands. (It’s a dance video.. of me.. being silly. Here)

Well, on a personal note, I see that most everything I have wished for has come to be.. eventually.

That particular quality of wild fun love, or that amount of money or even that shiny red car!

And I see this in my clients lives too. That whether we are in dire situations or feeling a quiet deep calling in the heart, life Does respond. And the main thing I want to share with you is that it ISNT your EFFORTS (or your ego) that makes it so. It’s the Nature of life itself.

… So let me be clear… Your efforts Can make stuff happen, but I reckon it doesn’t feel so good when it comes, cause often you’ve lost contact with the reason for it (feeling you wanted), or you’re so exhausted from the effort, you don’t enjoy it!

Of course, consistent effort/energy put in is necessary in many situations to get you to your goal…

But, what I have found, is that the more you think You are the one making it happen, the further you get from the experience you’re truly wanting to have (I’m taking a lot of liberties here describing your siutation.. but please bear with me.. you know I’m just talking about myself?! As always, take it all with a bar of soap and I hope its useful to the pusher in all of us!)

I believe there is a greater wisdom at work here. It’s an intelligence that orders the stars and gravity, grows the trees and moves the oceans. It is the thing that connects us all to each other and to itself. We are a part of it and we don’t need to do anything to “deserve” or create our separate pocket of goodness.

So, I’ll go a little more specific in Where I get this from

Over many years I have worked with and befriended many beautiful humans with childhood trauma. A common theme I see is that in their lack of safety in childhood, they have reached out to something else. Often in out of body states they become very good at conversing with the spirit realm, and build whole networks of connection with something outside of the body; with spirit, with non-physical guidance.

I see, even in the horrible truth of childhood abuse, a way that life comes in to create some kind of comfort. These friends and clients often work as psychics or energy workers, their sensitivities create a strong bridge to other realms that helps more earth-bound folk expand our perceptions.

What this shows me is that when the longing/need is strong, life responds and brings it rushing in. Sometimes not straight away or in the way we wish it. But it does come.

(It’s also in Diamond Essence work in the theory of holes .. when we feel and meet and get curious about a wound in the psyche (a “hole”), it will turn and often become the holes’ opposite. So sadness becomes peace and comfort

……
So, in the email a few weeks back, I said that I’d be sending an email about when we’re really Not able to relax with the way things are, or into trusting that life is going to respond.

And the keys to this are the same keys I use in all my work:

INVITE

LISTEN

ALLOW

and

INVITE again

If you are longing for more money or a new partner or more harmony in your home.. invite and call it in, ask or state that it’s here,

Listen to your inner response,

Allow the joy or tears or anger to move. Accept where you are with this… “Hold” your little one’s (old) feelings about it if they come up. Or if you’re very open to this thing you are calling for, enjoy the feeling of it running through your body! This is the feeling of life responding to your call!

And Invite the feeling of more money/love/harmony in again.

……………..

When we feel like life Suck bats b#lls, it’s a good time to have a cry, yell into a pillow, find a compassionate ear to listen to your un/reasonable feelings and let it all flow OUT. Inquire into the meat and grits of your experience, the light or the heavy, the spacious or the tight.

Cause, lovely one. Life, in my opinion, wants to love us. It wants to have harmonious flow and aliveness .. and where it’s not flowing and alive, it will welcome some sweet compassion and holding, not more pushing and should-ing.

All those intentions and things you openly or secretly long for.. it’s at its root, your souls longing for itself

It is trying to pull you Home.
Just exactly what’s in this moment,

Just exactly all of yourself,

So I invite you.. in your process of inviting, listening, allowing and inviting again.. to soften your hold on the timeline of things.

What would it be like if you had all the time in the world.. ?

What if there was never any rush and nowhere to get to? Just the process of enjoying your own soul’s call and response for itself?

In my experience, when there’s no rush, the gentle deep satisfaction of life can pour in. We can feel ourselves and what we’ve always been longing for.

I’d love to hear your experiences and thoughts on this!

With much warm and goodly love,

xx Amanda

So, I want to share what I “got” in giving away so much, and (surprisingly) it’s not Actually about money or my business.

In my willingness to “give more than I got”, and in giving my energy and presence completely, I have felt a thick, rich fullness of love coming back to me.

It’s like I started a very strong cycle of energy between me and life.

And in “giving it away”, created a feeling of real wealth in my life. If I just did this in my life and nothing else, I would feel deeply wealthy.

I’m reading this back, wondering if this would come across as mumbo-jumbo energy speak.. but really, if you’re on this mailing list, you’re gonna get that kind of thing! AND this feels like a kind of truth about life and energy.

So I want to share 2 steps you could take to experience something like this yourself:

Key 1: Give away what you Love

What I am giving away is what I LOVE TO DO. I Love to sit in presence with people. I love to sense into the body, to help create safety for a person, to feel someone dropping away their tension or holding, and finding their Self again.
It makes my heart Grow So Big.

In fact, I do all this in my free time Lots!! Not in the same contexts, or client/practitioner set-up, but I do all these; sitting in presence, creating safety in my relationships, sensing into my body and others’ on the dance floor, celebrating mine and my loved one’s growth and transformations.

So, what might you Love and do regardless of what others might give you back in response? That you could give away freely? What brings you joy in the doing of it?

Key 2: Unattachment

Aka = Be open to Wealth/Energy/Love Coming in All manner of ways.

In giving away what I love so wholeheartedly and letting go of what or “how much” comes back to me, I had a sense of gratitude everytime someone paid me (cause I was doing what I love after all!). And I was open to “more” coming back to me from many sources. Through testimonials, referrals, etc (abundance is in all of it, not just the cash). And quite a few people paid more than the half-price amount by choice!

There’s been beautiful testimonials like this:

“Oh my goodness – this woman is incredible! I don’t think I have ever felt so relaxed in my life. Highly recommend Amanda to EVERYBODY”. -JH

“I want to thank you so much for the beautiful space you held for me. It was full of allowance, so much gentleness and love, compassion and depth, and expansiveness. I felt so safe and invited to feel all that I came with and I felt so deeply felt in ur holding of my body and energy. I am deeply grateful for your sharing your gift with me and working with you” – MN

A key to this is Really Noticing what is coming back to you. Be it the expressions of gratitude and good will from others, the feeling of fullness in your heart (from doing what you love), the energetic, or material gifts that may come. Really notice and even write it down! Be generous again, with your gratitude!

If you cant quite resonate with “giving” away therapy as an example, you can also look at it like this: A few years ago, I remembered my passionate love for art as a way to communicate soul. I created a series of cartoon/watercolors with the intention to PLASTER them all over town. It was a feeling of something I passionately Love, done and shared with life in the sheer glory of sharing my love!
(ps. I didn’t Actually plaster the cartoons all over town, I got scared I’d get in trouble!)

>> So.. what do you Love to do? What would you do whether someone paid you or not? How can you do it more and offer it to the world? 

I’d love to hear what you would and could do.. and Especially, I’d love to hear if you do give what you love away wholeheartedly!

From this abundant stream in my heart to yours,

LOVE and Gratitude,

Amanda

So over the last few months I’ve been sharing my expansion into running women’s Somatic groups. It’s felt like I’ve hit the gold thread of vocation, (or maybe I’ve just been combining lots of what I love). But, I want to share more of my journey with you because right along-side that feeling of rightness, I’ve also found a deep-thread-of-Resistance.

… Not wanting to plan or to work. Sometimes, there’s just rock-hard resistance, doubt and fear… I don’t even know what Of?! The newness of things, the out-there-in-the-world-ness of things.

Riding the back of my visions into new territory…

Eek-ing f*^k!!   NEW territory!!

So, I’m sharing this with you because I see this is often the human experience. I know I’m not alone in hitting this uncomfortable patch in doing something new. We tend to do one of 3 things. We either don’t grow/try new things so we don’t have to feel these (sometimes Deeply) uncomfortable feelings. Or we Do grow outside our norm, hit the fear/doubt/resistance patch and run back to our comfort zone (SO tempting!).

OR
We breathe through the turbuent patch, hold ourselves close, keep a firm eye on those visions, and an anchor in the earth or God or whatever we call Holy…

Because I’m remembering that in life, and in my work; with expansion comes contraction. I’m remembering that this is the natural flow of things. It helps to test our direction and longings. Do we really want this new-ness? Have we outgrown the old shell enough that we’re willing to brave the Unknown?

This is how we allow our edges to show us how we are growing. This is how we turn and face what has caged us.

I drew this picture (below) for a client the other day describing how we can block out big feelings of grief or anger, but how the very act of blocking-something-out, cages us in! If we can’t face grief, we are bound to look everywhere but at grief. If we can’t face vulnerability, we are bound to always face away from vulnerability. It may sound ok, but This is how we make our worlds Smaller. Our capacity thinner. Our willingness that much more brittle and snappable.

So, my dear friend, the first step when there’s resistance, doubt or fear alongside stretch and new-ness, is to meet it with a big dose of kindness.

Cause kindness will say:

I am where I am
Things are how they are, in this moment.
And when I don’t try to make it different, I’m ok.
I’m human And I’m Divine

And when kindness has offered her sweet balm, clarity can come in and have its say.

This is what Clarity said to me today:

My mission is to bring what has been separate into one
To bring kindness, relief, deep love, play,
Connection and deep acceptance.
To meld Two into One
One Hundred into One
We are all One

This is the wild horse of my visions that I’m riding…

Want to join me ?? 😉

Bah-bah-bummmmm… drum roll.. These circles (below) are the vessel that my vision of healing the separation of mind/body/spirit/hearts and humanity is playing itself out in. I’d love to invite you to share in this experience and in this vision too..

Come join us in a Committed 6 Week Group beginning 7 February

Combining Somatic experiencing, Attachment theory, conscious dance and Diamond Essence style inquiry practices, these circles are gentle, deep, playful, informative and Fun!

These circles are wonderful for women who have taken their inner work to a certain level and know or feel that “the body” is the next terrain for them. They are perfect for women who are curious about the link between the animal instincts (in our brain and nervous system) and the soul.

These 6 week groups will help you befriend and experience your nervous system from an embodied place and soothe and feed your attachment system. Games, exercises, inquiries into life as experienced In the Moment. Presence and the felt sense, Deepening your relationship and integration with your “lizard” brain. The 6 week format allows for a deeper practicing of the tools given in circle.. so that this ground of experience becomes part of the ground of your being.

“Just exquisite, knowledgeable, wise, attentive, present with great timing with people’s processes. I felt a reconnection to my open heart, compassion for others, love and respect for myself” – Monique

“You knit a hammock we can rest into, maybe without even knowing it!
… Amanda embodies a sense of trust in the process which is reassuring, supportive and offers a sweet tenderness.” Emily

With big love to you and your wise wise Body,

xx Amanda

I’ve been thinking a lot about attention lately.

Where I put it, and the effect it has when I put it there.

As a mum,
An employee or business owner,
A householder  …. we get called and asked to be these things 100 times a day, and so the attention naturally sticks to these definitions.

We generally get recognised for the Doing that we Do.

The other day a dear friend gave me a beautiful gift. I was complaining of how busy I was and how much energy parenting was asking of me, whinging that my life was too full, too scattered. He reminded me that 5 minutes before I had been describing a lovely peace and space that I had been feeling after a weeks holiday hiking in the bush. He didn’t just point that out to me, he described it with details like “I saw your whole face relax and get shiny, your muscles soften”, and said that “I felt happy hearing you describe how you felt, it was contagious”.

It was like he was taking a stand for the sacred and spacious in me and I so appreciated it. 100 times a day I get recognised for how much I get done (or don’t get done!), for what I “do” in the world. The spacious in me rose up to meet his words, almost blossomed like a flower and I knew myself as relaxed and shiny, soft and at peace, and this lasted as I went about my doing-day.

What I know from giving regular sessions through the week is that it’s profound what happens when we take our attention away from the habitual places of pain or worry and put it on that small quiet whispering of peace or joy or just plain ok-ness. It can unravel whole wildernesses of unchartered peace, well-being and inner joy that aren’t just emotional states, but are also physically tangible experiences in the muscles, organs, bones and skin. When attention is experienced in the body like this it can change our entire experience and create transformation on a deep level. Yes even physical healing of disease and pain. So simple and so profound.

So, a question for you:
Where do you put your attention? Is there a way you could put your attention on the parts of you that deeply satisfy you? You know, not just that you ticked off the things on your list, but that the aspects of the deeper you – Like your ability to enjoy a great meal, meditate in deep silence, dance like crazy or lie in bed and just feeeeel that cosiness?

And how could you give the gift of your your awareness/attention to sacred parts in those around you? How could you help your loved ones “flesh out” their experience of peace, joy and ok-ness with the way you reflect back what you see?  (Hint: it may be very small and fleeting to begin with and using details to describe helps it to build)

If you do decide to explore this, I’d love to hear how you go and if you notice changes in your relationships or the way you experience life!!

With warm love to your sacred-ness, 

xx Amanda

Ps: Something lovely to put your attention on 🙂 ….
This is me… hiking on a recent trip to the rainforest in New Zealand… a truly happy me.. glorious nature, a good friend, lots of fresh air, exercise, new foreign friends every day and swims in a cold lake! Yumm!! 

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