Imaginal odysseys into the sentience of corporeality

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This workshop is for psychotherapists who want to do deep work with the body and bodyworkers, massage therapists, sound healers and energy practitioners who want to work with the psyche.  Dreaming Soma is a holistic practice that is designed to make working with the body and imagination more effective and exciting.

 

When dealing with any life process that involves the body, massage and movement are sometimes the only way to access the deepest layers in which a process is stored; even if you feel you have rationally worked through something, many associated emotions or holding patterns contained in the body keep the issue returning. Equally, when we contact a body feeling in a massage or when doing a stretch, we may find an area that feels like it contains a world rich and dense with tension and material. However, we may find that bodywork only temporarily alleviates the issue or does not bring into clarity why that tension itself is there at all. Sometimes it feels that no matter how much the body is manipulated internally or externally, some processes are “not ready to open up” “not ready to release” and so on. Sometimes this is put down to the need for more bodywork focused sessions over time, rather than looking into the psychic reasons that tension is not ready to be let go of. If asked to speak from such a dense area in the body to work through this psychic cause, it may be very hard to find any words to bring to it, especially if this tension has been there in the person since before language has developed.

 

A productive partnering therefore to bodywork is working with the imagination. Imagination immediately can bring vague or subtle tensions into a series of clearly defined images and narratives that we can identify and actively work with creatively. Yet, when we work with the imagination we often find that even if we have a good session, the body still firmly holds the last vestiges of the tensions associated with the issue we have worked through, and we are told that it simply "takes time" for the changes to take effect. 

 

As such, bodywork and imagination work can be productively used in tandem to work with the material and psychic aspect of the same process simultaneously; this can be done by journeying into the imaginal worlds of feeling inherent in the origin of bodily tensions whilst working that tension from the outside at the same time. If we expand the scope of the term body to include the energy body, and also keep in mind that the physical body can be “touched” and effected by sound and energy, then we have 5 mediums of working dynamically at once – touch, movement, imagination, sound and energy.

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Learning Outcomes 

• Learn the different aspects of the body system that can be engaged such as cerebro spinal. muscular skeletal, fascial, trigger points...   

• Learn the different ways of applying touch to a body point 

• Know how to use sound and energy to contact body systems 

• Creatively co-journey into body symptoms using a clear understanding of the flexibility of the imagination

• Explore different pathways for systematically clearing the bodys contractions

• Understand 5 dynamic relational styles that can evolve in working deeply with a person

• Know how to speak with parts of the psyche in a healing and collaborative manner

• Be equipped to handle altered states, trauma, and deep philosophical contractions being contacted and releasing

• Create safety and grounding to hold the sessions and setting up a dynamic space for the interaction

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Schedule 

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Session 1:  Intuitive massage and the body systems 

Session 2: The creative flexibility and reality of the imagination

Session 3: Care and safety in sessions

Session 4: Relational dynamism: 5 styles 

Session 5: Working with sound

Session 6: Working with energy 

Session 7: Formats - Earth Contact and deep surrender

Session 8: Formats - Hanna Somatics and full embodiment 

Session 9: Formats - Pre and Peri natal movement and abdomen work

Session 10:  Formats - Energetic embodiment, micro cosmic orbit and chakra

                                      massage

Session 11: Formats - Archetypal yoga flows 

Session 12: Freeflow practice and creative research on dreaming soma

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Format

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Dreaming Soma sessions can occur as one off intensives and weekly sessions. The format for the session remains similar. There is a grounding and sharing session at the beginning and an understanding of each others boundaries and bodies limits and preferences. Theory is then taught followed by held experiential sessions in partners, with each partner given the opportunity to give and receive the practice. Sessions end with grounding, sharing and feedback. 

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Resources 

Dreaming Soma, and introduction​