OAK PARK and Evanston, ILlinois | 708-289-3899 | nancy@lyricalhealing.com
"The important thing to remember about dragons is that they guard our treasure. When a dragon appears, it means gold is right behind it -- if we have the courage to stand our ground and fully meet it.
Sera Beck, from Red, Hot, and Holy
Art by William Blake
"...the traumatized body can be reawakened thanks to the attention, sensitivity, and capacity of the other/analyst to really believe in the painful story that the patient brings to therapy; it is the emotional participation of the analyst that makes the body a sentient body and restores unity where there was fragmentation."
Sandor Ferenczi (from https://doi.org/10.1080/0803706X.2017.1362502)
Photograph by W. Eugene Smith
“Every pain, addiction, anguish, longing, depression, anger or fear is an orphaned part of us seeking joy, some disowned shadow wanting to return to the light and home of ourselves.”
Jacob Nordby | Art by Kathe Kollwitz
We all have these feelings. Let us honor them.
I can help you to feel those feelings, and honor them, just because they are part of you...
Noirmaste -- the dark in me honors the dark in you.
And I can help you "feel it to heal it" when that's appropriate.
No mortal, or fairy either, can tell where Fairyland begins and where it ends."
George McDonald, in Phantastes
Art by William Blake
...and who can tell where the Sacred begins and where it ends?.... Can we see the Transcendent? Is it "in" our souls? In our hearts? If it's in our hearts is the Transcendent pumped through our veins? If so, is it in our muscles, skin, and organs?
Lyrical Healing sessions are based on the understanding that WE (including our bodies and our emotions) are of The Transcendent.
The shadows in this shell delineate its lovely curves,
just as your shadowy parts enhance your radiance.
EMDR, in effect, brings light to the dark places in our psyches.
CranioSacral therapy involves "listening" to, and honoring, our pain and discomfort (and also our ease). We created the dark place(s) in an attempt to protect ourselves or others. We have needed the dark. Let's honor that. And also honor the comfort... and joy ;-)
"Be conscious of this unconscious prayer (of your breath),
For she is the most holy place of pilgrimage.
She wishes for you to enter this temple,
Where each breath is adoration
Of the infinite for the incarnate form."
Shiva Rea,
from Radiance Sutras by Lorin Roche
Art by Mark Rothko
"The strongest, surest way to the soul is through the flesh."
Mabel Dodge
Photograph by Edward Weston
Dr. John Upledger, founder of CranioSacral Therapy (one of my favorite modalities), talked about placing hands on the body and touching the soul.
This photograph hints at the poetry, beauty, and wisdom of the body. Through CranioSacral therapy, empathic listening, inner dialogue, and other body/mind approaches, I access, and help you to access, the wisdom of your body. You might consider that wisdom your soul.
To illustrate the power of EMDR, I’d like to disclose my own healing experience. Actually I’ve had a few amazing EMDR experiences, but the most recent feels like the most powerful. Because of childhood mother-daughter dynamics I’ve spent most of my life feeling like what’s inside me is threatening. As a child I sensed that connection was scary for my mother, so I stayed away emotionally. I knew subconsciously that disclosing, sharing myself would frighten my mother. So I hid.
Recently I’ve been feeling 1) that I’ve been “coming into my own” — finding success in love and work, and 2) feeling physically like I’m falling apart! I set out time this morning to become my own client; I put my hands on my body to sense what was going on physically and emotionally. I did not back away from the feeling of anxiety that I felt in my gut/belly. After a while I realized, understood, that what I was fearing was that I would hurt someone by disclosing/sharing myself. I realized that subconsciously I feel that sharing myself would poison my mother/partner/friend/other.
Then the EMDR; I brought up the feeling of being poisonous, bilaterally tapped on my thighs, and KNEW that the truth; that what I have to share, what’s inside me is love, enlightenment, and caring. Not poison! EMDR helped me FEEL the truth and overcome my irrational fear. Wow.
"I was looking for the feeling that I knew, in some unnameable way, was the locus of both my fragile humanness and my divinity. The intersection between me and that which was greater than me. The grace inherent in every moment, every person, every pebble...."
Regena Thomashauer
Photograph by Edward Weston
In Lyrical Healing sessions, we experience your "fragile humanness" as well as your divinity. Humans are like this leaf -- wounded AND beautiful.
Come be mindful of who you truly are.
"Healing...depends on experiential knowledge: You can be fully in charge of your life only if you can acknowledge the reality of your body, in all its visceral dimensions."
Elvin Semrad as quoted by Bessel Van Der Kolk, in The Body Keeps the Score
Photograph by Edward Weston
It is important to me to give my clients an experience of themselves, and an experience of awareness and acceptance. I want to enable clients to feel their feelings, accept the parts of themselves that have felt unacceptable, and know their own wisdom and strength. An integral part of this process is tuning into the body.
