My 2021 Reflections and Learnings

It certainly has been an interesting start to 2022. I think many of us imagined that by now we would be feeling some sense of normalcy and "getting back to life" post holidays when it fact its been quite a bit more of the same old same old.

I suppose a helpful lesson of the times is to let go and trust in the unfolding of things, which is of course something I always try and practice, and yet this all can still feel hard on the heart.

I am writing you from my loft office perched in the trees as I do some reflecting on the past year and how much my business and I have grown together.

I kicked last year off by diving deep into yet another Breathwork + Somatic Training with Numa Somatics lead by my great mentor and fellow Canadian teacher Trevor Yelich. We spent one 4 day weekend a month for the entire year journeying into our inner landscapes all well grounding in new trauma-informed techniques as facilitators. To say it was deep work would be an understatement. I think one of the greatest gifts I took away from this training was the subtlety and nuance of this work. It can be so gentle, so safe, so simple. It doesn't have to be big to be effective. The early days of breathwork and many functional facilitators can often serve the practice up in a way that feels intense or overwhelming to the nervous system (I was guilty of this when I first began too), like you've gotta push to "make the healing happen", to "get the release", "to have a breakthrough". This training really taught me how to dance with the nervous system in a way that is subtle, yet so effective.

Over the summer I did some further studying of a framework for healing I use a lot in my private coaching practice called Internal Family Systems. A group of 1000 coaches embarked on journey of learning how to integrate this therapeutic technique into their coaching to help their clients get even greater and more powerful results. I attribute this modality for helping me finally heal from years of chronic illness. It was the one thing that helped me understand how my mind was setup around my identity as a sick person. I could go on for hours talking about my work with this, but lets just say, we all have many parts of ourselves, many voices inside, and as we get to know them and understand them better there can be much more room for compassion, peace and ease in your inner system and world.

This fall I felt the call to learn from someone I deeply admire, Rachael Maddox, and so I took her Rebloom Foundations: Somatic Skills for Post Traumatic Growth Training. Rachel's trauma resolution work focuses on helping humans move from sexual, complex or developmental trauma into pleasure, power and trust filled relationships. WOO! I adore her witchyness along side her big giant inclusive heart and learned so many practical somatic skills from this training that I now use with my clients on the daily.

I write this all of this in hopes of sharing a bit more of my life and learnings behind the scenes of my work. I am deeply committed to healing, expansion and liberation for myself and all of us. I feel and know that as I acquire more tools, skills, and knowings in my body my capacity to be with people as they move through the road bumps of life expands. All of these teachings and courses above have helped me to become an even more whole human and that, I believe, makes me an even better coach, guide, teacher, mentor, facilitator.

My hope for us all this year is that we continue to do the work to return to and remember the deep knowing within our own hearts that we are loved and always have been.

xo
Jenn