From a mental emotional perspective, my Bodywork has for the last 12 years been underpinned by training in the models of Transactional Analysis and after further, deeper training (which is ongoing and supervised) I now am able to work with clients seeking support on a deeper Mental-Emotional level too.
These sessions help people to understand themselves more – their actions and reactions to life. Why they react in the way that they do when something comes up to stress them and gives an insight into other actions and reactions too. By understanding ourselves at a deeper level, we are more able to recognise when we are getting triggered and what it may be connecting to on an even deeper level still....there are more levels to being who we are than are noticeable on the surface.
For me, by understanding myself more – I am more able to be the person I want to be ~ and all that I can be!
The Processes I use are:
Sessions of Brief TA; Psycho-Tactile Treatments; Rewriting Your Life Script through the process of Fairy Tales
Sessions of Brief TA
In these sessions we look at the various TA models, plus a few more useful models and how they connect with what you are seeking help with.
I also include Resilience Analysis in this process too - looking at what your Resilience tools are so that you can use them to good effect and to know which to turn to at any given moment. This takes self-care to beyond a superficial plaster, to a much deeper restorative level.
Some of the models are:
Drama Triangles and The Games people play. This is a great model for helping people to recognise whether they are stepping into Victim, Rescuer or Persecutor modes and importantly - how to step out of them.
The Ego States – how we can recognise our inner voices, both in our self speak and in communication with others – Critical/Nurturing Parent, Panicky/Pleasing/Adaptive Child - and how we can work with them to understand ourselves more and to Strengthen our Adult voice.
The Ok Coral – I'm Ok~ You're Ok and how this helps us to recognise we all have “stuff” going on. This is also about how we see ourselves in the world too.
Autonomy and Agency – Recognising that we are all important, we are all valid, and being able to be tolerant of others whilst also taking back more control over our own lives, so that we can be all we can be ~ all we want to be, but whilst recognising that others have that right too.
Window of Tolerance – a great model to help us to self assess - an aid to keeping ourselves safe in an ever stressful and fast paced world. helping us to recognise how and where we might get stuck in stress, and then if we know how tools enough - what we need to help support us.
I loved doing this process for myself and am much more able to self-monitor and to self-correct, and to understand not only my life in the here and now – but back in the there and then situations too. So much easier too to recognise drama triangles - especially the ones that aren't mine so I can choose to not get involved in them, or carry them!
For those who want to go deeper still – who feel that they aren't getting from their life what they really want, don't feel that they are living their truth, or feel there is something that is out of their reach in life, they keep getting the same results not recognising and realising they have repeat patterns going on, so are just going round in loop with the same old same old reactions, responses and results happening, then perhaps Psycho-Tactile therapy or Rewriting your Life Script through the Fairy Tale process could be the next step for you!
Psycho-Tactile Therapy
Sometimes in a Transformational Journey, or even just on our journey through life, we can feel mostly resilient in the face of stress, experience normal 'ups and downs', sometimes feeling overwhelmed, occasionally getting a bit irritated at things (why we would not feel like that at times), but most of the time we are able to self regulate and self soothe, generally able to rebalance from life's experiences.
Whilst most of the time we are happy, we can sometimes get a feeling like we could do more with our life, or do 'better', or live life more fully. We might have a vague sense of 'something is missing', or we might know what that something is - but it always seems to be elusive - we never quite make it, or it never quite works out. The loving relationship we always wanted, the absolute success in business, close intimate relationships with family or friends that seem to be more Drama than true Intimacy. Perhaps feeling like you are going round in circles the "why does this keep happening to me? feeling.
This could be down to what we call "Sticky Trauma". ...... The deeply hidden subconscious Self Sabotages that we don't even know we are doing.
Where the TDT massage releases Ambient Trauma (build up of daily stress and tension), Sticky Embedded/Encoded Trauma is "stuff" that hangs around much much more deeply than we could ever imagine.
It can affect how our whole life plays out, and stops us from truly achieving what we want to achieve - are capable of achieving, and really holds us in it's subconscious grip.
Maybe we remember an incident that we can connect with, how life has played out for us, perhaps we learnt that life as a child "was always a struggle" - perhaps we took on the life script of "not good enough", "must please others", "I'm not important", "never gets anything right" - and yet for all the "work that we've done" - something still is sticking! For some people, in my experience, this can come up in regular sessions of TDT, IF the person has also done a certain amount of talking therapy, and then TDT work, but for others not so - it still is buried somewhere really really deep.
In Psycho-Tactile Therapy sessions we surround this truly deep work with 2 mini sessions of Nervous System Discharge, using slightly different techniques, but not dissimilar from the TDT massage.
So first we soothe the nervous system, and then we do the deeper work with the more "embedded/encoded, deeply rooted trauma", and then we soothe and rebalance the nervous system again.
This is an amazing and extremely beautiful way to do some really deep psychological/psychotherapy work on our more deeply hidden aspects of Life Scripts.
Before I take clients here though, I need to know that they have enough robust resilience, so that if-when we rattle those more deeply held shackles and chains of the deep Life Script - that outwith the sessions you can use your self support tools, sit with what might come up and be ok - even if you not ok and feeling slightly wobbled as your whole being rebalances to the shift.
So I will always take time to make sure that the client understands this, and if needs be do some TDT sessions, go over your resilience tools - check out how robust the legs under your Resilience table are. I will also not work with someone at this level without a true and firm commitment to working through this process - you can't do this half heartedly, or with just ad-hoc sessions. As the saying goes "if you feel like you are walking through treacle - just keep going".
But if this is where you feel you are - oh my goodness it can be Truly Life changing - Extremely Liberating - and Amazingly Transformational.
I make no apologies (or maybe I do) - for that sounding a bit hard, and potentially scary. The point is - I will always, always have a clients best interests at heart. It is not a process to be taken lightly - but oh my goodness a process that if you are truly ready for it - is pretty darned awesome too.
If this process interests you - please do reach out and we can set up a zoom chat to discuss where you are and if the time is right for you, and if not discuss the 7 step process that I work with to help you to get to where you want to be!
The Fairytale Process
The Fairy Tale process looks more in-depth at an issue you want to change, and the impact it would have on you if you don't change it – but also the impact and difference it would make to you if you DO change it. We look in greater depth at:
What drives you (be strong, try hard, please others, be perfect, hurry up);
The stories you were told around “don't” e.g., don't succeed - don't be you - don't exist - don't make it - don't get close-be loved - don't feel – don't think – don't be important....
The "Injunctions" (the labels) that were "given" - either told verbally to us by caregivers, parents, siblings etc, or we heard indirectly, or felt viscerally (physically) in our tissues, that then became our hidden beliefs about our selves and our perceptions of how life was lived - what we had to do to survive and make sense of how life was lived - how we needed to live it, to get our needs met. We did this through our eyes as a child (usually age 3 to 5 or 7) ......that we then subconsciously wrote into our "Life Script" which is still affecting many aspects of our life in the adult world. We wrote this as a Fairy Tale, so to rewrite our Life Script - we have to rewrite our Fairy Tale.
Then after a further process of looking at life now and what you want to be different in it – I support and walk with you as you explore what Fairy Tale you might fit into, have written subconsciously for yourself, – and then you rewrite it! But instead of just “and they all lived Happily Ever After”, you get to write how you want your happily ever after to be.
We do this by changing the Injunctions - the "Don’ts", for “Permissions to”.... writing into your Fairy tale the permissions to: Be You; to Succeed; to Belong; to be Close; To think; to Feel; To Be Important; To Make it – giving yourself Permission to be ALL that you WANT to be ~ ALL that YOU can be! Reclaiming your actual truth to being who YOU truly are!
We also Anchor our "New" Fairy Tale into the subconscious, using various techniques, so that we can sense it and feel it - emotionally, mentally, energetically, physically, spiritually - connecting more with our place in the "here and now Adult" world - giving ourselves permission to truly embrace the "happier ending" that we crave - and deserve, whilst still connecting on an inner child level - because it was our child who wrote it, so our inner child needs to feel it, and carry it with us at that deeper inner subconscious level too. The more we can connect with it, the more we can anchor it - the more we can be it!
For me – having taken this whole journey – from TDT massage treatments, SEM, the sessions of Brief TA, The Life Script -Fairy Tale process helped me to put my early years into even more perspective still. It helped me to remember some good times, to connect with things I had forgotten, to take the hurt and pain out of it – and actually to add humour, which helped to further dissipate and soothe the deeper held Traumas and pain.
After I had done the process, I felt like so much weight had been lifted, it was so cathartic, so releasing. I felt like I was more in control of my life, where it could go – where I could go, what I could achieve – and who is to say that I couldn't!! It is after all only someone else's opinion which had been buried in the very depths of my subconscious. It was – and is (in my opinion) a very empowering process, feeling like I am more in the driving seat of my life.
My Training and Supervision work as a Psycho-Tactile Therapist is via the Gerry Pyves Academy of Psycho-Tactile Therapies and Accredited by the National Council of Psychotherapists.
Aromatherapy
Put simply - Aromatherapy is the use of Essential Oils to bring about change in the body.
Essential Oils are oils that are present within the root, bark, leaf or flower of an aromatic plant. The oils are contained in the form of tiny droplets which are extracted from the plant matter using various methods, the most common being steam distillation. Although they are called “oils” they have a non-oily feel and generally, with only a few exceptions, essential oils should not be used neat on the skin.
They have many properties and uses. As well as being known to calm, relax or de-stress, they can also be energising, stimulating, or uplifting; many are known to have anti-viral, anti-bacterial or anti-inflammatory properties and uses too.
As a caution, there are also some oils which shouldn't be used with some medications, medical conditions and during pregnancy, and that is why I always check for contra-indications prior to blending for clients.
As a Clinical Aromatherapist I am trained to blend, so I don't use pre-bought/blended oil mixes. So just as I tailor each and every massage treatment to the client’s needs and outcomes from each session, I blend specifically for the client. That way I can tailor the blend to suit the client’s needs, making each treatment session totally unique and why no two treatment sessions are ever the same.
Any massage treatment can be an "aromatherapy" massage just by adding essential oils into the carrier oil (Please note there will be an additional cost for the oil blend). However, because I blend specifically for the clients needs at the time of the treatment session, additional time will be required to do this, so it is best to be absolutely clear about what you want to achieve from the treatment session so the focus can be making sure the blend is right for your outcomes and needs. Please be sure to let me know when you book your appointment that you would like aromatherapy oils to be used in your treatment. I may sometimes suggest a blend that I have had previous success with, if dealing with a similar ailment. e.g., the blend I mixed for a client who successfully came off his migraine medication with the approval of his GP; The main blend tweaked slightly by adding Tea Tree to help his athlete's foot problem. And would you believe that blend/cream was used on the feet – yes, the feet to help with migraines! - using a treatment called Swiss Reflex Therapy, which links Aromatherapy with Reflexology I have used other blends I made to help with OCD, another client said the blend I made for Stomach issues was the best thing that they had tried for their IBS in 21 years - I had also used the same blend for Pelvic pain and Digestive/Upset stomach from food poisoning - all to good effect.
Although most people know Aromatherapy as being used in relaxing massage treatments, there are many other ways of using essential oils too. I quite often reach for essential oils and make a blend for my bath if I have some “mind stuff” going on, or if I have aches and pains and in need of anti-inflammatory oils; I might use a compress for headaches or stomach upsets; put essential oils into a body lotion; and I also use them when I am cleaning - people often comment on how lovely and fresh my home feels and smells. Perfumes, the good ones, are a blend of a variety of essential oils and you can really tell the difference in the aroma.
Please note that I only blend for people who attend as clients. Due to new EU regulations, I am not able to sell on blends to non-clients. BUT that has its advantages as it means I can TAILOR make a BESPOKE blend specific to you.
