Empathic Pathways

08/01/2025

The approach to our feelings is one thing; now it is time to implement it. If you resonate with my previous message, please allow me to guide you through this process.

Set the intention to be kind and curious with yourself and your feelings (or sensenetions, reactions). Choose the feeling you want to focus on first—whether it’s fear, anxiety, or something else. You know yourself best, and it’s your choice.

Find a quiet, safe place where you can relax. Take a few deep breaths and turn your attention inward. Notice where the feeling is located in your body. What does it feel like? Is it in one spot or spread throughout your body? Acknowledge it and let it know that you notice it. Just be with it.

Now, ask yourself: How do you feel toward this feeling? What if this feeling is trying to protect you, warn you, or keep you safe? Can you accept it? Can you be curious about it? Can you see that it has a positive intention?

Can you imagine a life without fear or anger? How would you know there was danger, that your needs weren’t being met, or that someone crossed your boundary? Our emotions exist for a reason. We need them to understand what’s happening and to keep ourselves safe.

If you can accept your emotions and appreciate their positive intention—to protect your needs—for a moment, you’re on the right path to healing. Find a way to connect with this feeling, whether by drawing it or keeping an image of it. Connect with the sensation in your body by placing your hand on that spot. Perhaps your feeling has a color, shape, or texture? Maybe you can picture it as a part of you that wants to help and works so hard.

Once you acknowledge your feelings and make a connection, show your caring intention toward them (as you would toward a child or your best friend). The next step is to help your emotions relax or regulate. Let them know you’ve received their message and that you want those needs to be met. In other words, how can you restore your inner safety so that these intense emotions can begin to calm down? From a nervous system perspective, this means finding ways to regulate your emotions, restore calmness, and reconnect with yourself, such as:
• Take a few deep breaths intentionally and focus on the safety of the present moment.
• Bring your awareness to the present by noticing your senses (what you see, smell, hear, touch, etc.).
• Connect with someone you love or trust (eye contact, a gentle tone of voice, touch, etc.).
• Keep your body active—go for a walk, swim, or dance—to release tension, worries, and stress.
• Sing or listen to calming music.
• Connect with the beauty of the nature.

Remember, emotions need your attention and care because they want to help you. Acknowledge the message they’re giving you, and respond with compassion, understanding, and kindness.

Finally, when trauma affects a whole community, healing needs to happen collectively as well. Reach out to others who have gone through the same experience and find healing practices—such as singing, dancing, or sharing—that can help you feel safe, connected, and empowered again.

06/01/2025

I am very sorry for what happened in Vanuatu on December 17th. Events like earthquakes can affect people in many different ways, and because I’m about to leave, I want to offer something that could help those who are going through the trauma of this experience.

Trauma isn’t the event itself, but the impact it has on a person’s life and internal experience. It affects our emotions, thoughts, and actions, leading us to feel things like fear, shock, and helplessness, numbness. It can change our mental, physical, emotional, social, and even spiritual lives.

You might still be having flashbacks to that moment, struggling to sleep, feeling overwhelmed by emotions from that time, or feeling on edge, anxious, and overly alert—even though you’re safe now. These responses are normal when something so intense happens. You may feel like you’re carrying a heavy burden, and you might not even fully understand what’s changed inside you. But please know, these reactions are a normal response to an abnormal situation.

When you experience these symptoms again, it’s important to find ways to restore a sense of safety, both inside and around you. How can you bring your mind and body back to the present moment, instead of staying stuck in the past? It’s not easy, but it’s possible.
Healing is a process, so don’t expect it to happen all at once. Time alone isn’t enough to heal; we also need to actively care for our emotions. You also need to address the protective responses—like fear, panic, grief, anxiety, numbness, and disconnection—that the trauma has triggered in you. These are all different faces of the emotional and mental impact of trauma.

No matter what symptoms you’re dealing with, there are emotions that we don’t want to feel because they are so heavy or unpleasant. Often, we try to disconnect, avoid, or suppress them. But the truth is, the only way to heal is to feel it. Healing is about being with your emotions, understanding them, and not letting them overwhelm you.

Think about a child or your best friend who’s feeling intense fear. Would you help them by rejecting or ignoring their feelings? Of course not. You would offer them understanding, compassion, and kindness. You would listen, see, and validate their experience. You need to do the same for yourself and your feelings during tough times.

08/11/2024

A story-reminder for us to choose who we want to feed in those challenging times of what is going on worldwide

An old Cherokee tells his grandson that there are two wolves fighting inside everyone, one good and one evil. The good wolf is represented by joy, peace, love, hope, humility, kindness, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The evil wolf is represented by anger, envy, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, superiority, and ego. The grandson asks which wolf will win, and the grandfather replies, "The one you feed".

24/10/2024

If you hesitate to join the coming workshop, see a few comments from the participants:
"The workshop is a healing experience! A chance to understand myself better, bringing the unconscious conscious..."
"It was a very interesting workshop... I take away understanding, and materials to read again...This will improve my quality of life as I have now tools to use when I will face challenges..."
"Great tool to know ourselves better and be aware of the capacity to calm down and go back to our safety space..."

Thank you again dear ladies for your participation!

I am grateful for all the feedback, for those which show me how to improve especially :-)

Welcome if you want to try on yourself :-)

13/10/2024

It is such a beautiful way to describe our vulnerability and the deep need for connection. We are wire to connect and everything is waiting for you!

EVERYTHING IS WAITING FOR YOU

Your great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone. As if life
were a progressive and cunning crime
with no witness to the tiny hidden transgressions.
To feel abandoned is to deny
the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,
even you, at times, have felt the grand array;
the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding
out your solo voice. You must note
the way the soap dish enables you,
or the window latch grants you courage.
Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.
The stairs are your mentor of things
to come, the doors have always been there
to frighten you and invite you,
and the tiny speaker in the phone
is your dream-ladder to divinity.

Put down the weight of your aloneness
and ease into the conversation. The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness and
seen the good in you at last. All the birds
and creatures of the world are unutterably
themselves. Everything is waiting for you.

…

Human beings seem to carry a sense of anticipation with them wherever they go, sometimes it is in the form of dread, when we feel we are not equal to what we find, sometimes it is that rare sense of an about-to-happen joyful meeting. In the extended disciplines of silence we start to see that actually, everything is also anticipating us, everything is trying to find us, everything is looking and trying to see our essence. The bringing together of these interior and exterior forms of anticipation creates a radiant identity that lives at a vibrant and conversational edge and that enlivens everything and everyone we touch and see. DW
..

‘Everything is Waiting for You
’from EVERYTHING IS WAITING FOR YOU
Poems by David Whyte
© David Whyte and Many Rivers Press

…

A Sunday Walk
Photo © David Whyte
Cassey Compton, Cotswolds
December 4th 2016

11/10/2024

🌍 World Mental Health Day - October 10th 🌍

Today, we recognize the importance of mental health for all. In Vanuatu, and the Pacific, mental health challenges are rising, but access to support remains limited.

📊 Pacific & Vanuatu Mental Health Facts (source: WHO)

• Mental, neurological and substance use disorders make up 10% of the global burden of disease and 25.1% of non-fatal disease burden (WHO).
• In Vanuatu, stigma around mental health can prevent individuals from seeking help.
• Community-based support and understanding are vital to improving mental well-being.

Let’s break the stigma, promote awareness, and encourage open conversations around mental health. Reach out for help and support when you need it—together, we can make a difference! 💚

20/09/2024

Coming soon
A repetition of the previous workshops for those who missed it.

Two more workshops are planned in October 2024:
1. A recipe for empathic communication
2. Regulation of the nervous system

Let me know if you are interested :-)

16/09/2024

What a day! What a great time with open-minded and open-hearted women :-) Thank you all for your active participation, questions, observations and sharing. There are many ways to find connection and safety, eg. kindness, compassion and intentional breath can take you back, when you find yourself in the "yellow" or the "red" zone ;-)
Love and many thanks 🥰🙏to Tu Yoga and Wellness Centre and you all!

09/09/2024

Coregulation, the key principle of Polyvagal Theory in practice - see the short TEDtalk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRex3RKcQdk&t=505s
Even though it is not mentioned in this talk, it is all about it. Enjoy and let me know if that encourages you to join the workshop about regulation of the nervous system :-)

Ever thought that train rides can be a little weird? That the distance between us is vastly greater than the physical distance between us? What if we liberat...

05/09/2024

I am getting ready🙂🙃🤩🤭💪🫶🙌
Come and join us for a day workshop next Saturday, 14/09👍
Practice, learning, connections and fun included 😊😎😉

02/09/2024

10 more days to sing up for the regulation of the Nervous System workshop!
I am choosing music, making posters and having some fun on planning! Hope to see you there :-)

27/08/2024

If you hesitate about the "Regulation of the nervous system" workshop have a look at the feedback I got from the first workshop about empathic communication 😊

"Thank you for this wonderful workshop :-) I have leant that communication is very important and I need to be more open about my needs. The delivery of this workshop was very clear..."
"The best workshop I ever remember attending not just for the material presented but how it was put together, how engaged we were at every body/mind/feelings level..."
"An informatiove and knowedgabe workshop that gives effective tools toward empathic communication, which is essential to any beautiful and deep connected relationship"
"Loved all the activities, good combination ot the theory and practice..."
"I learnt so much and I can't wait to reflect and strengten my comminucation skills..."
"Well done! It is a interesting workshop and opened up tone thoughts and ideas. It also brought together people of different background..."
"Thank you. I hope I will be successful to applicate your advices. I would love to be more empathic... Thank you. You open my feelings and thoughts"

Next workshop on Saturday, 14th of September. Come and try it out 😊https://www.facebook.com/events/793195566313702/?ref=newsfeed