Before we begin, I want to acknowledge that we’ve all done it, are doing it, and will do it in the future – faking regulation (sometimes on purpose and very often without realizing it). So, this is not a judgment letter. What is the opposite of judgment? This is a recognition and permission letter. As you read further, might you want to listen to any wave of recognition? Any wave of experience? Maybe for a new depth of awareness around what does it feel like to be you and have a Body?

This is a story of a Body.

A Body vast as the Sky.

A Body wise as the Earth.

And a Body that at times can be confusing as f*ck….

Especially being a sensitive and intuitive practitioner like YOU are…

What is my Optimal?

What is my Resonance?

Where does the Self end and the Other begin?

When is the wave of experience I feel mine, and when not?

What happens to the experience of my Self when there is a flood of emergency energy in the relational field?

And what the heck do I do with all of it?

If you come from a more traditional and old-school background, you might have adopted a somatic way of being “as a practitioner, I don’t exist”. “As a practitioner, I override my experience in service to the client’s experience.” “As a practitioner, I fake regulation sometimes (knowingly and unknowingly) so that my client can have the experience they paid for.”

Sounds familiar?

Especially when the stuff your clients bring rubs against your unmet needs and threat responses. When the freeze imprint in me recognizes the exact freeze imprint in you… When the panic attack imprint in them touches on the exact imprint in you…

What do you do as a practitioner, as a space holder, as you hold yourself in a particular way to meet a perceived expectation of what it means to be a safe practitioner to another at the expense of yourself?

Maybe read this sentence again? And a couple of more times… It is complex. It is subtle. Let it sink in. Let it circulate through your system. What is there to notice, to feel, to sense?

So let me ask you again: What is your perceived expectation of what it means to be a safe practitioner to another? And what parts of you must become frozen to ensure it happens? How many times there was a wave of activation in a session, and inside, you felt like there was an earthquake (maybe even panic in “what do I do now??”), but on the outside, you faked regulation because your client is paying you for being a professional, safe, and stable practitioner?

I know this, and I recognize this because I have been there myself many times.

Overriding your experience in client sessions (and life) can be depleting and challenging. This is where building your somatic capacity over time comes in. Building capacity to have choice, the capacity to pause and digest a wave of experience as it comes without freezing, overriding, over-holding, or burning out.

Having embodied choice as a practitioner is a big one on this journey.

Have you ever practiced embodied choice on purpose as a practitioner in a client session? And if you haven’t and having a choice as a practitioner sounds completely foreign to you, you are not alone. Unfortunately, this is not usually taught to coaches, healers, teachers, and practitioners. (It is most definitely included in my Bodyverse School of Somatic Wizardry tho 😉)

Here are some good questions for you to ponder on:

• When may your experience be included in a client session?
• When do you get to have (embodied) choice?
• How does embodied choice feel like in your system?
• How would you begin to exercise your choice?
• When do you have choice as a practitioner?
• And when you make yourself choose yes or no, is it really a choice?  

When we fake regulation long enough, it becomes something that is called a “faux window of tolerance”. In the next Love Letter I will tell you a story how living in a faux window of tolerance played out for me. Stay tuned.

If you want to share (aka include another human into these dynamics), I am here for it.

I am also here as a layer of support as you potentially begin to learn some new things about yourself.