Questions -
1. What
is healing?
2. How
do people heal?
3. What
is successful therapy?
4. What
are the drawbacks?
My name is
Charlotte Brammer; I am a Psychotherapist, Hypnotherapist and Equine
Facilitated therapist. I have been practicing for 8 years and have been soul
searching for most of my remembered life. I currently work part time at Mahaya
offering Psychotherapy, Hypnotherapy and Reiki. I also work at The Oasis Farm
and Wellness Centre in Peterborough where I offer Equine Facilitated Therapy,
workshops and retreats and 360 Wellness in Peterborough offering Psychotherapy, Hypnotherapy and Reiki.
My intention for
today is to create a new paradigm or relationship to how we think
of and define healing and therapy. I believe there is so much potential and benefit for
all involved if only we can change the unhealthy views that create the major
draw backs to healing and therapy in general.
It is armed with true
knowledge and wisdom about the human experience that we can actually create
lasting, sustainable change.
What is Healing?
Healing is
returning to a natural state from an unnatural one; the reason we heal is to
improve our quality of life.
How we define ‘quality
of life’
will ultimately guide what we work on healing or changing first. Our quality of
life is basically a holistic look at our lives, from being financially at ease,
to feeling fulfilled in what we do, to living to our full capacities and
experiencing new things, to enjoy physical health or even simply feeling at ease
with ourselves. Quality of life is basically living to our highest joy, peace
and fulfillment in all areas now. Living in a natural state aligns us closer to
this ideal; while living in an unnatural state keeps us stuck in place living a
life mostly unfulfilled, stressed out and suffering on some level.
How Do People Heal?
When it comes to
timelines, each individual has their own. As we learn about healing, and get
better with practice, we can speed up the time it takes to get from awareness
of an issue to its completion. When it comes to specifically diving into belief
systems or aspects to heal, there is no a,b,c,d, that everyone follows; the
issues we are dealing with are the ones that are currently affecting our lives
in this moment. In other words they are the ones that we are aware of because
they are active. There is however a basis for commonality within healing. In
order to return to a natural state we all must reclaim a healthy connection to
our:
·
Physical bodies
·
Emotional sensations
·
Mental faculties
·
Live with Direction (some call this our
spiritual nature)
·
and finally we must integrate our holistic
experience of life (how all these aspects integrate as one experience creating
our external circumstances.)
·
Make Changes to our external circumstances
There are infinite
modalities for each of these 4 aspects; fewer on how to integrate them. Which
modality is chosen will depend greatly on the person and their own unique
makeup along with their own personal interests, needs, and in the end all roads
lead to Rome.
That being said
there is another aspect to healing that must be looked at and it is how we
affect and create lasting sustainable beneficial change. This is something that
has inspired me, driven me crazy passionate to clarify and understand. It again
goes back to the aspects of life. I call it the Formula for beneficial change.
It deals with how we enter into an unnatural state in the first place and then
how we can heal and return back to a natural state. Without going into a long
winded speech as this could be its own talk, in order to create change we have
to re-write the old way at every level. From the mental belief, to the
emotional reaction, to the physical holding patterns inevitably to the choices
we make creating different outcomes then the ones we are used to.
We can't become
aware of something to heal until it activates within our lives enabling us to
bring awareness to it. Our ability to be vigilantly aware of ourselves as well
as our readiness to work with and address the dynamics that are active will
also have a lot to do with what our timelines end up looking like.
In my experience
the art of healing goes in waves, it has peaks and it has valleys. There are
times where we are actively engaged, cleaning out and making changes; while at
other times we completely surrender, relax, go with the flow of life,
experience, live in joy and rejuvenate.
What is Successful Therapy?
There are a few main reasons why
people come to therapy:
1. To
get an education in how to heal
2. For
support
3. To
gain a different perspective and to have their unnatural beliefs challenged
4. To
achieve specific Goals - To Heal
In life we are so
busy that it is hard to be able to become an expert in everything. We can go to
school to be an accountant but still need to hire someone to do our graphic design;
marketing and so on for the financial firm we just opened to drive business.
The same is true for healing, one of the biggest reasons we seek out health
experts is that we don't have the time to become masters and so utilize their
time, learning, expertise and passions to help educate ourselves quickly on
what we need to know in order to create the goals we desire.
The other reason is
most human beings on this earth can only offer us so much support. Everyone is
busy and leading full lives, health professionals are just one more person, one
more tool in your toolbox to give you support when you need it.
The third is to
gain an educated and different perspective on an issue that you are dealing
with. Health professional have gone through years of schooling, years of
research and client based learning as well as hopefully years of introspection
on themselves all leading to what hopefully is a beneficial service that helps
you achieve your goals and heal.
Here is where my
definition of successful therapy diverts from the mainstream view. Normally
when signing up to see a therapist, whether it is a psychologist or
psychiatrist it is a very long commitment to that therapist who promises to fix
you as long as you do a gruelling amount of work and everything they say.
Instead I believe we need to change our relationship to healing, instead I see
it as a commitment to ourselves, a commitment to care for and make fulfilling
beneficial steps to improving our quality of life.
Instead of seeing
one person I believe in a community of healing which not only includes
professionals, but yourself, friends, family - a ‘tribe’ that gets you and supports you as
well. While yes it takes a lifetime, as we are never truly done growing and
learning and healing, therapy like healing should go in waves, as you need it.
The therapist is there to help educate, support and challenge you when you need
it. In this way I see therapy as more flexible, working with the natural flow
of change and healing instead of as either a one shot go or extended weekly
sessions for the next 10 years. Psychotherapy, Hypnotherapy and Equine
facilitated therapy work with all the other modalities to offer you what you
need when they call to you and not otherwise.
In this way we work
alongside our needs, our nature, our desires instead of against them. We strive
for organic growth instead of driving for unhealthy shifts based on out-dated
views of clients being sick and needing to be "cured." In this way
everyone finds benefit and we create health based on community and giving back.
We simply strive for betterment in every moment or allow ourselves the
compassion and understanding when we have run out of gas and can only cope, giving
ourselves space and time. I believe our definitions that create the structures
of therapy need to grow, change and heal along with us, so that therapy can
continue to hold benefits and gifts for us moving into a future of change.
Thank you
Questions and Feedback? Leave below!!
