I know, it can be heavy and confusing word for many of us. It’s also a word that is not often used within the context of therapy. So, allow me to clarify what I mean when I say I help people reestablish their innate capacity to feel, embody, and channel Love. I am not necessarily talking about romantic love here, but neither am I excluding it. I have no agenda around teaching you to “love yourself.” If you are having relationship challenges, obviously the topic of love will come up. But that will not be the alchemical juice of our work together. I’m talking about capital “L” Love. The mysterious and divine force that connects all that is, all that has been, and all that will be.
The joke, “I’ve had more therapy than Woody Allen” could apply to me in my therapeutic journey. I started therapy at age 10 when my parents divorced and it wasn’t until I was almost 30 (yup, that pesky Saturn’s Return for all you astrology nerds out there) that I finally met a therapist who really could hold me in the way that I needed to be held. If you live in the Boulder, CO area and especially if you are in the Naropa University world, you likely have either heard of her, been her client, or have loved ones who have been touched by her fantastically intense presence. I heard a rumor once that she had earned the nickname, “The Dragon Lady,” by some snarky Naropa Somatic grad student. In the Somatic Program at Naropa, which is how I met my therapist, I learned the importance of not only being aware of my professional lineage, but even more importantly, I learned how to show up for my life and others’ with an embodied attitude of deep reverence for the wise teachers and innovators who preceded me.
So, all crass jokes included, it is with a huge amount of gratitude and reverence that I bow to my somatic therapist for she did what no conventional therapist was able to do. She initiated me in my own embodied process with Love, by embodying Love herself and relating to me from that embodiment of Love. I remember the session when I finally turned the corner and allowed myself to channel Love in relationship to myself, to my body, toward my own aching heart and my therapist said to me, “Perhaps now you will actually be able to help people.” Even more memorable was the moment when I humbly realized without any hint of puffed up pretense or collapsed self-deprecation, “I know I can.” Because, now, I know what Love feels like in my body.