Therapy Transition Quotes

“Between each meeting, I usually feel drawn to do a brief practice to let go of what was experienced and settle into the felt sense of opening into receptivity.

It begins with rooting my feet into the stability of the earth;

then listening to the sensations of my muscles, belly and heart with no intent to change anything;

glancing upwards at the spaciousness of the sky as the complement to the solidity beneath my feet;

following the flow of my in-breath and out-breath a couple of times, again with no intention to shift anything but just listen and experience;

and opening into a bowl of receptivity, which may feel like an expansion and quieting of my heart.

The experience is different every time. Sometimes there is pervasive distraction, sometimes a wish to change the tension in my muscles or the depth of my breath, sometimes judgement about how I'm doing this practice, and sometimes it flows like a sweet river.

Most important is being present to what is with as little judgement as possible, even when this means being present to judgement itself.

That level of acceptance, much more than the quality of the practice itself, is what can prepare us to receive our person with the same quality of attending.”
― Bonnie Badenoch, The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships