We offer a somatic, body-based approach in reclaiming what it means to be in your body, recreating your personal narrative, and reconnecting to your innate
truth and freedom.

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It is a practice in remembering.

 
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Remembering all that you are and have always been. 

It is a practice in reclaiming your body, integrating your associated stories, and recreating your personal narrative. It is a practice in embodiment. It is a practice in finding your freedom and remembering your truth. It is a practice in taking up space and in not abandoning yourself as you and your story continues to evolve and change. 

It is remembering that this is all just a practice in awareness: life, you, me, vulnerability, health, growth, tension, joy, and pain.

There is no destination, no mastery, no end point. There is only practice.

Remembered Practice is a practice to strengthen your ability to remember, trust, and remain connected to the most important aspect to your self and your healing:

You.

 
 
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Artwork by Sarah Sun Photo by Collette Wright

Artwork by Sarah Sun Photo by Collette Wright

Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, a pioneer in trauma research, says:

“The only way you can change your survival orientation in your brain is by accessing your interoceptive world—the part of your brain that allows you to observe yourself…observing yourself, knowing yourself, being curious about yourself, befriending yourself, taking care of yourself.”

 
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I invite you to say “yes” to yourself.

 
It’s not about you.⁣ .⁣ .⁣ .⁣ .⁣ .⁣ ⁣ You don’t need fixing. You’re not hardwired to be alone. You’re not too much. You are enough. There’s nothing wrong with you.⁣ ⁣ Keep going. You and your people will find each other.
Trees are great teachers.⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ My friend Rachel of @doorwaytoself once commented on one of my previous posts about the Giving Practice about her observation of trees and I recently rediscovered it and wanted to share.⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ I wrote about how their pattern of growth is so reflective of our own. There are layers of varying size based on that year’s conditions. Rainy seasons permit more growth (I’m sure we’ve all been through our own rainy season(s) of life). Dryer seasons can feel a bit less expansive. Scars from forest fires or from weathering storms happen, but it has yet to inhibit their continued growth.⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ Rachel’s added perspective was so appreciated. She pointed out how they also reflect our relationship with energy. We mirror trees in that we both have the ability to source energy from above through our crown just as the tree does through its leaves. They also source energy from the earth through their roots just as we do through our feet. She says that we are also completely connected, and connectors as physical beings between the earth and the universe. We are constantly cycle that energy.⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ I love her perspective. We are so much more interconnected than we are led to believe. Tuning in to that connection more between us and nature, and well as each other, we open ourselves up to so many other layers of healing. We’re not really all that separate from one another or the world around us.⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ Anyway, just a little love note about our relationship with trees as a segway to share that we have donate 𝟒𝟖 𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐬 to @onetreeplanted for the month of May. Big big thanks to you all for always showing up. I love you people. For more about the Giving Practice, visit the link in my bio. 📸 @rememberedpractice
I’m tired of feeling shame for choosing inner work.⁣ I’m tired of feeling shame for choosing to heal my emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual wounds.⁣ I’m tired of feeling shame about who and what I really am.⁣ I’m tired of feeling shame for choosing myself.⁣ ⁣ —-⁣ ⁣ This work is no joke. It’s a lifelong commitment to a nonlinear, messy, unknown process. There is no arrival point. Just when you think you’ve reached the end of a cycle that required weeks, months, years of intentional gut wrenching work, it’s truly just the beginning.⁣ ⁣ This work will force you to touch on places within you that feel absolutely primal. It will reveal to you who you really are, which is often beyond what you could’ve imagined for your self. When you ask or go looking for truth, you’re going to get it. And it looks nothing like the shit people curate on their stupid Instagram feed.⁣ ⁣ Healing is no joke. Deep inner work is not a trend and it’s not some weird woo woo hippy shit. It’s full of pain, heartache, grief, tears, speaking hard truths, navigating through sometimes treacherous and unfamiliar territory, and it’s utterly raw and exposing.⁣ ⁣ People who dive in to the work of choosing themselves are fucking warriors. You have to be to deconstruct the life that you’ve always known down to the core of who you are, to then turn around and have the courage to rebuild you’re life around whatever truth it is that you find there.⁣ ⁣ Why people shame others for choosing truth and freedom is beyond me. I know it is often rooted in the fact that the people doing the work act as mirrors for those who are doing the shaming. That the ones doing the shaming have their own wounds. That the shaming actually has nothing to do with me.⁣ ⁣ Whatever the case, I feel like a warrior these days. I have fought my way back to my self and continue to do so on a daily basis. [[As a side note, the work does not always settle in such masculine energy. There are lots of moments that reside in the feminine as well. And masculine vs. feminine in regards to energy is not gender specific.]]⁣ ⁣ A bit more in comments. 👇🏼
Clay remnants. This was last Friday on my way to work. I began a six week long pottery wheel throwing workshop series last week and upon getting in my car I realized I still had some dried clay on my shoe from class the night before. I smiled. It felt like a badge of honor. Still haven’t washed it off. Pottery wheel throwing is something I’ve wanted to learn for years. I finally said yes to myself and signed up three days before classes were to start. If you aren’t familiar, wheel throwing is the process of molding clay with water on a wheel that spins. You know, like that scene in the movie “Ghost”. Sans Patrick Swayze, unfortunately for us all taking the class. The whole process that first day was so intriguing to me. You must begin my kneading the clay in efforts to rid the clay of any air, rather than adding air as you would when kneading dough. Once you’ve successfully done so, the molding begins after you throw the ball of clay as hard as you can on to the wheel so that it sticks. I’d imagine that’s why they call it wheel throwing? Might have to ask the instructor about that one. I was surprised to learn in the process that molding the clay requires more from my body than of my hands. While my hands are something for the clay to work off of, my body and the weight of it is what is actually providing the support, the power, the anchor, and the guide. And with that, there is such a felt sense in the molding. I found that I truly had to feel in to my body in order to feel in to interacting with the clay to shape it in a way that felt right to us both. There was a relationship between us. A symbiosis if you will. It felt like a true collaboration. It showed, too. I realized every time my clay became lopsided or the sides of my bowl began to cave in I was completely in my head and working too hard with my hands. When I’d recenter my self, sensing my core and using my body to navigate, the clay and I were working together again. Things evened out. We were flowing. More in the comments. 👇🏼
Resistance. Most of my own work over the years, most notably within the last six months, has been around resistance. Naturally it is one aspect of my own growth that I have seemingly expertly resisted. Resisting working on my resistance; funny how that worked out.⁣ ⁣ For a long time I put clothes on my resistance. I claimed that I wasn’t resisting something, I was actually just being really clear that the thing I was “resisting” just wasn’t meant for me. It didn’t resonate. I wasn’t resisting, I was just really in tune with what works for me and what doesn’t. Ah, spoken like a true long-term resister.⁣ ⁣ What I’ve come to know about my own resistance is that when I am resisting, I am actually living out belief systems that I’ve internalized from outside forces who have been very influential on me. When I don’t do the six-week course because it’s “too expensive”, or don’t take the trip because “I don’t have time and I can’t afford to take time off”, or I don’t eat the piece of decadent chocolate cake because it’s “not good for me”, or I don’t grow my business because I’m “not capable” or because it’s “not possible to create the life I deeply believe in that is outside of the box”, or because the qualities I want in a potential partner “aren’t realistic or don’t exist”, I’m depriving myself of all of the things I want and believe in because of what someone else told me I was or wasn’t capable of. [Yes, I always have and always will deeply believe in beautiful, rich chocolate cake.]⁣ ⁣ By depriving myself of the things that resonate with my soul I am continually giving my power to those who told me, in one way or another, to deprive my self in the first place. Even after relationships have new boundaries or after certain people are no longer in my life, I’m still giving my power away to them when I don’t allow my self to say Yes to the things that line up with the truth within me because of lies they fed me based on what others likely told them they were capable of. All lies, all rooted in someone else’s wounds and pain.⁣ ⁣ Continued in the comments. 👇🏼
Sticking around Grand Rapids for Memorial Day weekend? I’ll be teaching another movement workshop @hiveyogagr . In reflecting on recent classes, I’m always amazed by the feedback. The way movement has allowed one student to step out in to her experience rather than letting the experience define her. The way one another student shared that movement allowed her to be more present to what she was experiencing in her body. She always works toward naming her emotions in therapy; the movement allowed her to really feel the sensation associated with them, and identify where she felt them in her body. Another student shared that she became aware of a pattern through her movement where she easily identifies the needs of others and takes action to help. When it came to identifying her own, she wasn’t as skilled and often remained “stuck”. Something I hear in my one on one work with clients quite often. In identifying this pattern, she could begin to work toward moving through her perceived stuckness. Join me at 12pm on Saturday. Link is in my bio to register.
A lot of stuff going on in the world is atrocious and appalling, and a lot of people are suffering, and it’s ok if you can’t put your energy toward entertaining any of it right now because you are in the depths of your own process. Other people shaming you in to caring more about shit, or being more vocal about it publicly, rather than being sensitive to and respecting where you’re at is them projecting their shit on to you. Do you. Respect the ebb and flow. Rest when you need to. Give when you can. You get to decide what showing up looks like for you.✌🏼