September New Moon Healing Ceremony Benefits Texans Hit by Hurricane Harvey

Join Body Talks Therapy’s next New Moon healing circle, Friday, September 22, at 6:30pm to 8:30pm. Cash donations paid upon arrival will benefit people and pets via the United Way of Greater Houston and the Houston Humane Society. Suggested donation is $10.

We’ll open sacred space, sing, set intentions for the new moon cycle, send healing to those hit hardest by the 2017 hurricane season, and engage in group sharing and connection.

Bring a journal, an object sacred to you for the altar, art supplies you’d like to use, and your authenticity. All open-minded highly sensitive people are welcome regardless of spiritual background or beliefs who share the desire to impact the world with your inner light, wisdom, and love.

If you would like to share a gift, meditation, prayer, ritual, or heart-thoughts with the group, please contact me by September 20.

Space is limited to participants who can arrive in nine cars or fewer, so please RSVP here in advance and update me as soon as possible if you cannot attend. After you RSVP, I’ll send you the address of our meeting in rural Lititz, PA, as well as parking instructions. We’ll gather outdoors, weather permitting, so please bring a lawn chair or blanket and mosquito spray if current climate conditions still require it.

I look forward to creating miracles with you!

(Note: Proceeds from our August New Moon ceremony are being donated to the National Urban League to support civil rights for Black Americans. Deep thanks to all who contributed!)

—Allison Brunner, LCSW, RM, Body Talks Therapy

Hold Steady the Light: How Empaths Can Impact the World More Powerfully

You and I have realized either in childhood or not long ago that we’re on the planet at this time for a reason. I’ve heard many of you say you’re compelled recently to arise from your yoga mats and meditation cushions and do more than cultivate a practice of inner healing and personal transformation; you’re ready to take action.

Meanwhile the noise of our external world seems to have reached a crescendo—enough to make this empath want to hide in a corn field most days and ring in autumn with the crickets. In this era in which the brightest and the darkest in all of us has risen to the surface, it can feel increasingly uncomfortable to engage with people—especially amidst so much suffering. If we don’t know how to stay centered, we can get lost in the drama and aren’t much help then to anyone.

What I hear many of you asking, whether rhetorically or directly in our one-on-one coaching sessions, is how can we as highly sensitive people maintain a healthy nervous system as we go out into the world and carry out our missions, whether in our careers, volunteer work, or while simply walking down a city street?

I’m relieved we’re having these conversations. Now more than ever, I sense the urgency of pausing, taking a breath, and responding in a conscious, more deliberate way versus reacting in a manner that creates more chaos and conflict. More important than what action we take these days is how we move forward.

“Stay centered, do not overstretch. Extend from your center, return to your center.”    —Buddha

From my days as a highly sensitive child, I rushed to the scenes of people in need or stepped into the fires of conflict and tried to mediate. Worse, I didn’t know what an empath was or understand that I was one; when I’d hear that someone was in pain, I’d take it on unknowingly by running their energy through my own body to try to prevent them from feeling it. Half the time, I interpreted what I felt as personal mental illness. I operated this way until burnout rendered me exhausted, sick, and chronically depressed in my late-thirties.

As many of you know, I spent much of this summer alone, engaged in a personal retreat. During this time, I learned how to manage my energy by holding steady the light so that I could impact the world more powerfully. I promised to share what I learned, with the help of Jim Self’s Mastering Alchemy courses, by summer’s end. I’ve never found tools (including the shielding and grounding strategies most empaths have been taught over the years) more helpful than these for myself and for my clients. These days, I feel stronger, more capable, and more energized.

I now practice twice daily, a couple of minutes in the morning and again in the afternoon, or as needed (e.g., when entering crowded public spaces, speaking with an unhappy customer service representative, or being exposed to TVs broadcasting bad news). After familiarizing yourself with the techniques, you can practice them just a couple of minutes on your own.

On the evening of the solar eclipse, I created “Own Your Space,” a downloadable mp3 you can access here. The thunderstorm you hear in the background is not ambient; it’s real, so enjoy!

 

—Allison Brunner, LCSW, RM, Body Talks Therapy

A New Way to Love: Put Yourself First and Allow Others Their Journey

— Allison Brunner, LCSW, RM, Body Talks Therapy

Rewire Your Brain for Pleasure: Be Mindful of What You Love vs Resisting What You Don’t—and Impact the World in a More Positive Way

How often do you have a thought similar to “When this happens, then everything will be alright,” or “I’ll be happy when I have x, y, or z”? You may even worry about something real or imagined to come.

Meanwhile the sun shines over a bright-blue sky, a chorus of songbirds whistle, and the temperature is perfect. In addition, much of your life is going quite well, and there is much to celebrate. But you don’t notice. You’re busy thinking about how you wished your life could be better or how to avoid the thing you fear.

Thus you create your own suffering.

I’ve noticed that people who have struggled with depression and worked hard (and successfully) to heal hurt parts of themselves seem to have a default setting (an identify, even) for the blues. Joy has been out of their realm of experience for so long, they’re not sure how to access it when it’s right within their reach.

I empathize, because I’ve been there. The good news is that we just need to do a little rewiring of our brains. All it takes is a slowing down and a willingness to notice the marvelous in the mundane.

Come experiment with a group of us (and have some fun in the process) on Thursday, April 13, 7:15pm to 8:45pm in a workshop called “Rewire Your Brain for Pleasure: Be Mindful of What You Love vs Resisting What You Don’t.”  Join us online via Zoom or in-person at Mulberry Art Studios’s Mulberry on King location, 253 W. King St., Lancaster, PA.

Bring or have handy some paper and a pen (and as a list of a few other objects I’ll e-mail to you in advance), as well as a willingness to sing (or lip sync if you’re shy) a few tunes as a group. For this won’t be just an ordinary workshop. Nope, this will be mostly hands-on with a little teaching of Quantum physics and brain neuroplasticity that I guarantee will neither bore nor mystify you.

During our time together, we’ll also do the following:

• Experience the effects of sharing pleasurable experiences vs misery with others.
• Connect to all five senses in the present moment to experience increased pleasure.
• Create “quantum moments” in the brain in order to rewire to default settings of well-being and joy.
• Learn how to use positive visualization in a more powerful and effective way to bring about desired outcomes in life and to create shifts in your subconscious beliefs.
• Realize the power you have (and how to) impact the world with your thoughts and emotions.
• Become familiar with your home “frequency” and learn how to dial it up to impact the world positively.
• Shift your focus to create more of what you want vs more of what you don’t.

Call (717) 340-2096 for more information, or RSVP and pay here in advance. Cost is $25.

I look forward to spending the evening with you!

—Allison Brunner, LCSW, RM, Body Talks Therapy

Return to Your Body in a Celtic-Inspired Movement Medicine Class

Join me on Thursday, March 16, St. Patrick’s Eve, for a special Movement Medicine class, 7:15pm to 8:30pm. To music recalling an era in which the Celtic Nature traditions lived embodied, we’ll dance beyond thought back into our own bodies. This authentic movement practice offers a fun and safe way to realign the physical, mental, and spiritual aspects of ourselves and to reconnect our hearts with the perfection of our humanness.

For centuries, we in the Western world have hungered for an antidote to the collective wound created when Christian Romans in the 1st Century AD and the Saxons in the 5th Century AD nearly wiped out or drove into hiding a culture that understood that the higher intelligence and expression of Source energy (or God/Goddess) runs through all living things (our bodies included), that human beings and nature are interdependent, and that truth and divinity are within.

The Christians of that era labeled Celtic lifestyles primitive and their beliefs blasphemous toward the patriarchal version of God who reigned from on high. They taught us that human beings (women especially) and our bodies are inherently evil, emphasized reason over intuition, and urged us to beg for the deservingness of redemption.

The truth is, though, that we’ve never required redemption, were never less than deserving, and were perfectly imperfect all along. But such disempowering teachings (and others like them) have contributed to the suffering of most people on this planet from the distorted notion that we are bad or unlovable and that we must spend our lives proving our worthiness.

Together, we’ll heal these ancestral injuries with somatic practices that include breath awareness,  the exploration of old, familiar patterns of seeking refuge in our thoughts (and honoring the safety this provides), connection to our five senses, body scanning, emoting though movement, and allowing our bodies to express what within us longs to shift, let go, and forge a new way of being.

Please note: Because this dance community has outgrown the space on King Street, Movement Medicine classes will be held every first and third Thursday of the month at Mulberry Art Studios‘ main location, 21 N. Mulberry St., Lancaster, PA. Thus, classes are now $20; but when you bring a new class member, each of you pays half. RSVP in advance to pay by credit card or pay cash in person. Drop-ins are now welcome!

— Allison Brunner, LCSW, RM, Body Talks Therapy

Movement Medicine: A Dance Class for Non-Dancers

This authentic movement class isn’t about looking good when we move. It’s not even about the dance. It’s about moving what has been stuck, stepping out of an old story, exploring our power, and walking a new path more in alignment with our true selves.

Last week’s class was exquisite in that all participants created a safe, judgment-free environment. One worked through sadness. Another experimented with staying in her own corner as she moved through her resistance and disdain for dancing. Yet another tended to a self-judging part of herself by staying seated on the floor through every song.

We each participate in our own way, and it’s all perfect.

Join us on Thursday, March 16, as we continue to cultivate and create this space for inner-transformation.

(Please also keep checking back here or join my mailing list at BodyTalksTherapy.com for updates. As our community grows, we are preparing to move this dance class into larger space at Mulberry Art Studios’ Mulberry Street location. This could happen as soon as mid-March!)

Our beautiful space at Mulberry Art Studios’ Mulberry on King, 253 W. King St., Lancaster, PA

—Allison Brunner, LCSW, RM, Body Talks Therapy

Connect to the “Now”-Moment to Soothe Your Nervous System

What happens when you simply notice a sound or two as far away from you as possible? Or if you’re in a room filled with noise, connect instead to the sound inside of yourself. Try it now for just a few seconds. Then notice your breath, and deepen your inhale and exhale if you’d like.

Come home to yourself, to your body, in this moment. Allow everything to be as it is. There is no tomorrow, no yesterday; sit with “now.”

What just happened to your nervous system? Did you notice a shift?

Photo by Amber Johnston Photography

For the 15 to 20 percent of the population deemed Highly Sensitive People (or HSPs), some type of mindfulness practice (including the simple one I’ve just described) can increase the likelihood that our sensory processing sensitivity trait feels more like an asset than an annoyance.

HSPs are much more aware of our surroundings than our peers. We’re more easily stimulated and expend more energy processing what we perceive—thus increasing the release of stress hormones (including cortisol and adrenaline) into our bodies. While this can serve us in many ways, we also need to relax and recharge in order to maintain overall balance.

Another of our tendencies  is to wander off in thought, coloring with our rich imaginations all sorts of scenarios. On one hand, we’re more creative as a result and can foresee and address problems before they arise. On the other, we risk becoming anxious or paralyzed with inaction. It all depends on whether we’re able to return to center.

“With the act of breathing in mindfully, you go inside. Your body is breathing; and your body is your home. In each breath, you can come home to yourself.” —Thich Nhat Hanh

Among the services Body Talks Therapy offers to support your nervous system is Mid-Day Mindfulness, a 20-minute practice in which we can participate together, Tuesdays at 12:30pm, either in-person or online via Facebook Live (in the closed Body Talks Therapy: HSP Community group). If you’re busy at that time, you can watch the videos later.

Unlike formal sitting meditation, in this practice you’ll be guided on where to focus your attention (whether on physical sensations, body parts, watching your breath, connecting to your five senses, or witnessing thoughts and emotions). From time to time, I may also suggest we tune into images or consider ideas to address some of the psychospiritual or emotional issues we’re facing as a collective. (Watch or follow along with the video below for an example.)

You’re welcome in advance of each session to cue me in on a topic you’d like me to include in our sessions.

To join me in person at 237 N. Prince Street, Suite 303, RSVP here. Otherwise, I’ll sit with you all in cyberspace. 🙏🏻

—Allison Brunner, LCSW, Body Talks Therapy

Be the Joy You Wish to See in the World

“I don’t know if I have it in me,” a friend confided in me recently. He was referring to the work that lies ahead in restoring harmony and peace on the planet following the election of Donald Trump for U.S. President and the outbreak of hate crimes and hate speech that have ensued.

Some clients and friends carry the heaviness of the world on their shoulders and in their hearts. In their commitment to alleviate post-election division and stand up for human rights and the health of our Earth, they seem exhausted, worried, and intensely focused.

While their emotions are warranted, I wonder how often they’re laughing.

Following several national tragedies last spring and summer, people processed their pain by doing what’s human and considered a natural stage of grieving: drawing attention to the problem, railing against a broken system, and posting violent videos on Facebook. Then I encountered in my newsfeed a photograph of a butterfly on the beach. A therapist friend musing at that day’s magic at the Jersey Shore had taken it.

She worried it was inappropriate, she later shared with me in a text. She didn’t want to seem insensitive.

Together though we intuited that it was exactly what the world needed. People were spiraling into a pit of despair; someone who was able needed to anchor some light.

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” —Martin Luther King, Jr.

Albert Einstein proved that all matter is comprised of energy. Emotions are energy as well. According to the Law of Vibration, energy is always vibrating. The speed at which energy vibrates can be measured in hertz (Hz); one hertz equals one vibrational cycle per second.

Joy vibrates at 540 Hz, or 540 cycles of vibration per second. Anger vibrates at 150 Hz.

The lower the vibration, the slower the vibration; the higher, the faster. Fear vibrates at 100, for example, love at 528 Hz. [i]

When large numbers of beings not only focus their attention on but experience such high-frequency states as oneness, unity, forgiveness, communion, gratitude, and generosity, there is a palpable shift in our collective vibration. We feel it on Thanksgiving or Christmas Day, for example, and it’s measurable and explained by science.

Raising the planet’s vibration affects the way we think, feel, and act. It can impact the trajectory of our evolution.

The same thing occurs when we focus collectively on the world’s troubles and the weight of what lies ahead.

“If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration.” ―Nicola Tesla

Make no mistake: we must feel our feelings in order to avoid suppressing and experiencing them later as physical, mental, or spiritual illness. As we’re called then to participate in our own way to create solutions, we can do so more powerfully and without burning out if we allow such higher-frequency emotions as joy, compassion and inspiration to motivate us.

It doesn’t always have to be difficult; it can be as simple as inviting friends to a good meal, hiking on a beautiful day, hanging holiday lights, singing out loud to music that moves us, dancing, gazing at nature’s wonders, and, most importantly, laughing.

For we must be that which we long to manifest in the world.

How do we do that when we’re upset or afraid? First, we cultivate self-compassion for the parts of ourselves that are hurting. Remember that emotions are impermanent and move through us in waves. As much as is tolerable, become present to what is and trust that it will pass; we cannot resist or will ourselves to feel differently. See if you can observe or witness your experience rather than identifying with it until the pain begins to shift. (For more, read “One Way to Heal Emotional Pain: Do Nothing.”)

Quantum physics’ principle of resonance states that when two frequencies are brought together, the lower will always rise to meet the higher. By stepping into joy and embodying our best selves, we transmute greed, separation, fear, and the like. With every thought, word, giggle, and guffaw, we can change the world—and yes, even those who hold political office.

[i] Letting Go: The Pathway of Surrender, David R. Hawkins, M.D., Ph.D., Hay House, Inc., 2012.

—Allison Brunner, LCSW, RM, Body Talks Therapy

Love Yourself to Heal Our Nation

Following is an essay I wrote almost two years ago; following the U.S. Presidential election of 2016, its relevance remains:

Tuesday, November 25, 2014, about 18 hours after the announcement in Ferguson, Missouri, that White police officer Darren Wilson would not be indicted for fatally shooting unarmed, Black, 18-year-old Michael Brown last summer:

Helicopters hover about a quarter of a mile from my office on the ninth floor of a skyscraper in downtown Philadelphia. I’m trying to communicate something to my client but am distracted by the noise and the emotions it evokes. Thwop, thwop, thwop, thwop, thwop. The chopper blades quicken and seem to multiply, and my heartbeat hastens to match their cadence. I stop mid-sentence. “I’m sorry,” I tell my client. We exchange pained looks. We know that just a few blocks away protesters are chanting through megaphones as they prepare to march up Broad Street and demonstrate.

I can feel our nation’s collective rage, grief, indignation, and confusion gnawing at my heart and my gut in a way that briefly interferes with my ability to stay in my body—because I feel like I should be doing something. Part of me wants to cradle the nation in my arms and soothe it as I would a distraught child.

I look at the human being sitting across from me. I know that this is where I’m called to be, in this moment, supporting her on her journey so that she can heal and go into the world and touch others similarly. I breathe, bow inwardly to what’s present, and focus my attention on her.

In the moments that follow, the separation between her, me, and the hurt people all over the country dissolves. By touching into the place in myself and loving that which is human in me, I am anchoring the space and holding compassion for her humanness, for everyone’s humanness. Here there is unconditional positive regard and love for all beings.

At the close of my work day, I tend to e-mails, text messages, and missed phone calls. I’m invited to an organized rally in which its photograph on Facebook is, I’m told later, of a protester throwing a molotov cocktail back at the police who threw it into a crowd. Why would they post a photo that could mistakenly lead people to believe their aim is violent, I ask organizers. I’m attacked for my ignorance regarding the “iconic image” and sent private hate mail to my Facebook inbox. “A violent system must be overturned by a violent revolution,” a stranger wrote to me.

My body moves as if underwater, and my thoughts disappear into fog. I decide before I meditate to check my Facebook newsfeed to find out whether the protests taking place all over the country have remained peaceful. What I discover is that people are not just hurting. They’ve lost their minds. I scroll through my smart-phone and see folks lashing out via social media, using terms like, “punks, pigs, Nazis, animals, bigots, racists, animals, savages,” and on and on. One article after another emerges, pointing fingers this way and that. No one is listening to anyone else. Most have become hypnotized into an “us vs them” mentality.

Everyone has a right to their anger, I tell myself. You’re a therapist, you know this. Rage comes out sideways. It must be felt before it can heal, I repeat the mantra I tell my clients. Then my own tears begin to fall. “I have a right to my grief, too,” I whisper. Just as I counsel others to do, I allow the sadness to move through me, give it time to just be.

I sit in meditation afterwards, asking then letting go of the question: How can I serve the greater good in this turbulence? The answer feels warm in my “gut” and then translates into words, for me, for you, for all who wonder, what can we do?

Everyone’s role in healing our planet is unique. For some, it’s writing, acting, painting, or singing. For others it’s legislating, organizing, rallying, or wearing a police badge and enforcing the law. Still others must raise a new generation who will change the social climate. And others will change the world by being their best selves. Only you can access the wisdom within yourself to know exactly how to play it.

But the message is this: It starts with you. Love yourself. Because if you don’t, then you cannot fully love others in that deep and selfless way that facilitates the mending of others’ hearts. If when you witness other people’s behaviors and are quick to label them with hate or with even the slightest tinge of judgment, then you do not love yourself—for the external is a mirror to your internal world. If you accept your imperfections with full compassion, then your perception of the flaws in others will shift as well. Rather than a “punk or a pig,” you’ll see a human being who is afraid, suffering, or does not love himself.

You’ll see something else: that he is you. That they are us. That the only distinction between yourself and others is three-dimensional in space and time. You’ll know on a level beyond reason: We are ONE. There is only one human race, indivisible. Separation is an illusion.

—Allison Brunner, LCSW, RM, Body Talks Therapy

One Way to Heal Emotional Pain: Do Nothing

As a client, I fell in love with experiential psychotherapy with each shift from emotional or existential anguish to insight, clarity, and release. Like any human being, I long for relief, and my clients do the same.

Often, though, we circle back to a clearing, and there is no place else to explore. We’ve done all we can “do.” We’ve examined every angle, we’ve scoured the unconscious, perhaps we’ve even reintegrated fragmented parts. But the present moment now calls us to sit with what is, even if what’s present is uncomfortable.

Often, that’s what life asks of us: to sit with discomfort instead of trying to fix it.

A therapist friend and I joke that we are addicted to self-growth. Like an artist who cannot not paint, she and I cannot stop reflecting, stretching, and navigating the depths of our underworlds. I wonder too, if like me, she prefers this “doing” to “being.”

Other non-clients look to me for answers: Should I break up with so-and-so; should I take an antidepressant; how do I forgive this-or-that person? What should I do?

Even if I had the answers, they’re not mine to give. So I sit with people in the questions and be a loving presence as they dip into their angst. That is where much of the healing lies, in the murky waters where we can’t see where we’re going or do much while we’re in it. Sometimes the most healing thing we can “do” is nothing.

The trick is to be mindful when doing nothing. Alternate between feeling your feelings and observing them with some distance. (Do not get mired in or over-identified with how you’re feeling.)

First, see if you can rest in your emotion, whether it’s sadness, anger, depression, fear, etc. Identify where it lives in your body. Say hello to it. Notice its size and the boundaries or edges of it. If you’re able to tolerate it, then I ask you this: Can you purposely feel it even more? (You may think me harsh, but to resist your feelings strengthens them.) Notice what happens as you do this. Take your time.

Next, add a special ingredient—one that can transmute your suffering over time: awareness. Observe the emotion that is present. Notice that it is part of and not all of you. Now re-label it energy.

You’ll note that, as Quantum Psychologist Stephen H. Wolinsky, PhD, explains, you, your emotions, and everything around you is basically energy. The matter you can perceive with your eyes (e.g., furniture, the walls of the room) is denser energy.  Your emotions and the space around you are lighter, less condensed, so they seem invisible. They are energy too.

See if you can rest your awareness in the space around you, then to the space beyond (perhaps outside the room and into nature). Imagine now that some of the molecules of that space enter your body and float between the molecules of energy we formally referred to as emotion. Spend some time here. Notice the way it feels.

Finally, allow even more space to enter into the formally denser energy of what we called your emotions, your body. Re-label all of it energy. There is no longer a difference between any of it. It’s all just energy.

You can use this exercise as often as you’d like, but its purpose is not to get rid of your pain. If your intention is to surrender to what’s present, over time you’ll likely see a shift and find relief. For everything is temporary and this, too, shall pass.

Disclaimer: The exercises, tools, and insights I offer on this blog will not work for everyone. Each of us is unique, and I am not the expert of you, your mind, your body, or your experience. Listen to your own body-mind wisdom. None of my writing should take the place of a licensed mental health professional if you are experiencing unyielding or overwhelming distress. If you are having thoughts of harming yourself or others, I urge you to call (800) 273-8255 or go to your nearest emergency room. 

Acknowledgments: This exercise combines techniques originated by Quantum Psychologist Stephen H. Wolinsky, PhD, and author of The Open Focus Brain, Les Fehmi, PhD. But I credit my own therapist foremost for introducing me to this work, for guiding and supporting me through my dark nights of the soul and in inspiring me to become a therapist and to integrate her knowledge and methods into my own skill set. She’d likely have written this differently, but I confess unabashedly that I’ve modeled most of my own therapeutic approach after hers. From the bottom of my heart, Martha, thank you. 

—Allison Brunner, LCSW, RM, Body Talks Therapy