Body-Oriented Psychotherapy in Denver, CO
Transforming Lives One Nervous System at a Time
Who seeks out therapy?
- People committed to enacting positive changes in their lives.
- People who dream of feeling better than how they’re used to feeling.
- People who struggle to know where to begin or how.
The fact that you’ve begun this journey by looking for THE therapist for you is a big damn deal.
It tells me that you know what’s at stake here:
- Your happiness
- Your peace of mind
- A more positive sense of yourself
So, I want to share with you a story of what’s possible.
The Anxiety Hamster Wheel
My phone rang. I picked up, and on the other end was a woman (I’ll call her Kelly) who heard of me through a previous client of mine with whom she was friends.
Anxiety was wreaking havoc in Kelly’s life. She slept poorly. Her appetite varied wildly from wanting to eat everything in sight to wanting to eat nothing. She had begun isolating herself from friends and family due to how easily she felt overwhelmed. She wasn’t taking good care of herself. She constantly felt run down and exhausted.
When she walked in my office, the first thing I noticed was how tense her body appeared: her breathing was shallow, she held her shoulders up by her ears, she immediately started fidgeting while her eyes welled up with tears.
She looked as if she’d been holding her emotions inside for a very, very long time
She told me her story. Her Inner Critic had shamed her into submission.
As a result, Kelly often felt paralyzed in her daily life. She had trouble making even the smallest of decisions. She got caught analyzing “appropriate” responses to anything and everything. She spent a ton of energy trying to please others at the expense of her own needs. Most of all, she had difficulty being present in her most important relationships because she was trapped in her own head.
And what confused Kelly the most was that from the outside, everyone thought she had it all together. However, to put it bluntly, Kelly was distracted, tense, and miserable.
Her constant drive for achievement and “perfection” was systematically destroying her confidence and solid sense of self.
Despite her best efforts to think positive thoughts, practice gratitude, and enjoy her life, Kelly felt STUCK.
She called me feeling skeptical; it was her last line of defense. She wanted lasting solutions to deal with her anxiety once and for all, but she had been in therapy before and still hadn’t gotten to the root of her challenges.
One thing that I tell nearly all of my clients is that if they could have already fixed what ails them, they would have. If they could have already THOUGHT their way out of their struggles, they would have done that too. Everyone agrees with this statement when I say it to them.
Bringing Your Body into the Therapeutic Process
My approach differs from traditional talk therapy because I bring the BODY into the therapeutic process. This is called somatic psychotherapy.
Traditional talk therapy often leaves the body out of the process as the practitioner focuses on thoughts and emotions. However, a great deal of research suggests that including the body in therapy leads to more beneficial outcomes.
Back to Kelly. We started meeting once a week. Kelly showed up willing, motivated and persistent in her pursuit to feel better.
Early on, I gave her practices to not only attend to her thoughts and emotions but also to listen to her body in specific ways.
Kelly noticed that her anxiety was beginning to decrease as she learned to put her attention where SHE wanted it to go instead of getting hijacked by her habitual thoughts. She learned to listen to and respond to her body’s cues.
The Root of Kelly’s Distress
Kelly shared that growing up, she had experienced physical abuse and emotional neglect in her home. She often experienced her mother as overly critical and her father as dismissive, even shaming at times whenever she expressed her emotions or her needs. This had a huge impact on how she learned to relate to herself, her needs and her emotions.
Additionally, she had experienced a traumatic sexual assault that she had never worked through.
Kelly began to identify the patterns and programming that contributed to her anxiety and kept her feeling stuck and insecure. She started to feel empowered to choose how she wanted to respond instead of getting hijacked by those old tapes.
Kelly learned how to track her in-the-moment bodily experiences as important sources of information that she could use to lower her anxiety. She noticed feeling more compassionate and less judgmental of herself and her experiences.
Kelly’s Transformation
Over time, Kelly reported a quieting of her Inner Critic.
She noticed that she had more access to pleasurable states like joy, ease, and being in the flow. She learned to slow down and allow her anxiety to settle instead of over-riding her body’s natural impulses for rest, play and ease
The thoughts and experiences that used to send her running for the hills had way less charge than ever before. She had more mental space to dream and be creative as well as more energy throughout her day to focus on enriching her life.
Eventually, Kelly went on to complete grad school and find the love of her life.
Choosing Triumph and Wisdom
While Kelly gained much from our time working together, the process was not without discomfort and fear. However, Kelly realized that she had been uncomfortable and full of fear anyway. Now, instead of avoiding her fear and discomfort or making herself wrong for these experiences, she had a solid skillset, mindset and compassionate relationship with her body to deal more effectively.
The process of therapy is about transforming tragedy into triumph and wounding into wisdom.
IF YOU ARE READY TO ENGAGE YOUR OWN TRANSFORMATION, I offer a free 45-minute phone consultation. CALL NOW: 760.889.9319
IF YOU ARE READY TO ENGAGE YOUR OWN TRANSFORMATION
I offer a free 45-minute phone consultation
760.889.9319
Free 45-minute phone consultation
maira@mairaholzmann.com
Via E-Mail
