The Balanced Body Co

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The Balanced Body Co

Somatic Trauma Therapist, Bowen Therapist and Reiki Practitioner based in Kerikeri, New Zealand

08/08/2024

John Bowlby, hailed as one of the pioneers of attachment theory, said "young children, who for whatever reason are deprived of the continuous care and attention of a mother or a substitute-mother, are not only temporarily disturbed by such deprivation, but may in some cases suffer long-term effects which persist".

Attachment in our early years is just as imperative to us as having clothing, food and shelter is.

06/08/2024

Meditation might not be the best way for trauma survivors to heal, but there are other ways. With therapies like Somatic Trauma Therapy and EMDR we're able to pace the work, moving only at the pace that your system can manage.

We use different techniques in session to remain inside your window of tolerance, such as:

💛"Resourcing" - Utilising an imagined place or person to create a sense of safety in the body before we begin.

💛"Pendulation" - Moving back and forth between sensations of discomfort and safety.

💛"Titration" - Working with small amounts of physical and emotional discomfort at a time to not overwhelm the system.

💛"Discharge" - Discharging physical tension with the use of movement.

💛"Grounding" - Bringing you back to the present 'here and now' moment.

💛"Orienting" - Using the neurotransmitters in the brain to signal safety by orienting to the room using your occipital and neck muscles.

💛"Containment" - Fostering a feeling of being safe and held.

💛"Co-regulation" - Providing a calm, regulated presence and environment for your nervous system to attune ro.

06/08/2024

Stress and anxiety are a sympathetic (fight or flight) response of the nervous system.

This is a MOBILISED state, your body is preparing to fight or run.

Observe and feel your anxiety while doing something mobilised like dancing, jumping, shaking, walking etc. This allows the mobilisation to naturally complete, rather than trying to calm the stress or anxiety response with deep breaths, which is effectively just suppressing the response.

What are your best tips for moving through stress or anxiety?

04/08/2024

Our memory is made up of different systems in different parts of the brain.:

🧠 The explicit memory system is kind of like our "library", it's the area for storing facts, life stories, language, context, logic and reason.

🧠 The implicit memory system is more like a "scrapbook", it stores images, sensations, and emotions (like fear and our triggers).

When we recall a memory our brain taps into both systems. It grabs the emotions from your implicit memory and the details from your explicit memory.

But here’s the twist! When we go through trauma, our brain’s response can scramble things a bit. The part of the brain that handles fear, can hijack your thinking processes.

This means the details of that event might only be stored as emotional memories, losing the explicit facts in the process. So you might remember how scared you felt but not all the details of what actually happened.

This is why talk therapy that only focuses on our explicit memory system, story, facts, thinking, logic... doesn't always work for processing trauma. We need to forget the logic and story and get into the implicit memory system where the event is stored to process emotion and sensation.

04/08/2024

We hold an unconscious belief that we can berate and shame ourselves into transformation. That dissatisfaction with drive us to change. But it doesn't work to create lasting change - our inner child doesn’t respond well to dictatorship!

Once we accept the self, then we are able to create lasting change from a place of love, acceptance, desire and encouragement, rather than dissatisfaction shame.

01/08/2024

The art of letting go...

31/07/2024

Emotions are the body's way of communicating things that require attention. If we tune into the emotion and feel the sensations in the body, we're able to hear the message and take action.

31/07/2024

When you're trying to think positive all the time and just move on and get over it, you're essentially just suppressing issues rather than addressing them. When we suppress our trauma it always bleeds out into life in other ways.

If you've tried talk therapy and cbt for trauma and found nothing has changed, I highly recommend Somatic Therapy, Somatic Experiencing or EMDR.

23/07/2024

A big part of healing is getting to know, accept and befriend the parts of ourselves we've rejected, hidden, hated or deemed unloveable.

16/07/2024

Are you living in functional freeze? Did any of that spund familiar to you? How do you experience functional freeze? Comment below.

15/07/2024

"Time heals all wounds" or so they say! This messaging isn't exactly correct though... If we avoid wounds it doesn't mean they suddenly cease to exist. It means we're bypassing them and they're going to come back for healing later, potentially in other forms like physical issues.

🚫 You cant avoid your way there.

🚫 But you also can't rush it either.

By going into healing work with an attitude of "I just want to hurry up and fix myself so I can move on", is going to actually create more contraction in your nervous system as you try to force something that needs to occur at its own safe pace. You can only heal as quickly as the nervous system allows.

11/07/2024

The polyvagal theory, created by Dr Stephen Porges and simplified by Deb Dana is the science of safety and trauma pertaining to the autonomic nervous system and it's adaptive responses.

The Polyvagal Theory helps to explain why the body is of primary importance in healing trauma and it is the basis for most somatic trauma work 💚

Where do you sit on the polyvagal ladder today? 🪜

Address

505A Puketotara Road

0295

Opening Hours

Monday	09:00 - 14:00
Tuesday	09:00 - 17:00
Wednesday	09:00 - 17:00
Thursday	09:00 - 20:00
Friday	09:00 - 17:00
Saturday	09:00 - 12:00

Website

http://www.thebalancedbodyco.com/

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