Every client I have worked with through my somatic bodywork practice has learned by default about self respect and trust. The process requires that clients learn to trust that change can happen and that the power to change is in their hands. They learn to respect each part of their life, whether it was good or bad as it was a part of who they have become. They also learn to trust me enough to let me put my hands on them, to share their story with me and allow transformation to take place as part of a process of their self development.
In our first meeting he explained to me why he didn’t have any reason to trust anybody in his life – his parents used to punish him for no reason at all and he learned from a very young age that he had to find ways to protect himself. He could easily translate gestures of mine, such as placing my hand on his shoulder, as a situation where he could potentially get hurt.
In our conversation he appeared to be very open and he trusted me enough to share his story with me, about his childhood trauma. He talked about how this was always in his way while trying to achieve his personal development goals. He was 50, worked in a profession he enjoyed and was surrounded by great friends and a loving family. Yet each time somebody raised their voice or showed some dissatisfaction, he would go back into his protective mode, forgetting that the person in front of him was a friend.
He looked at me with big round eyes and told me about his promise to himself as a child to never trust anybody, as it would be only a matter of time until they would turn against him. I could see through his eyes the gentle grown man he was, but also the wounded little boy, who was carrying that emotional trauma all by himself.
He was sitting on a chair next to me when I asked him to let me place my hands on his shoulders. His mouth said yes, but his body automatically moved away from my hands as if danger was approaching. I took my hands away and asked him to do it with me one more time. This time consciously and out of the curiosity to learn. We both knew that this response was from the past, that it began in his childhood, but had no place today in his adult life.
First he noticed how his eyes moved away from me, then how his breathing became shallow and quiet. His body froze, his hips and knee were almost paralyzed. I asked him to describe to me what he felt and he started talking rapidly, like a person that had been waiting for years for somebody to ask him that very question. He responded to me by saying “there is nowhere to go, and my legs are rooted in the ground, I cannot move, I have to stand it, it will soon be over…”.
I instructed him to stay with this feeling but to look at me and the room we were in. “I know that this feeling has nothing to do with here and now, but this was how I felt at home throughout my childhood”.
What would you do if you were free to act?” I asked.
“I would confront them, tell them to stop, show them what they do, not only to me but to our family. I would walk away”.
I asked him to stand and got his permission to touch his knees. The entire area was tense and slowly we succeeded in unfreezing the tension there. I said to him “feel your legs, your feet, your knees, your hips”. I helped him to experience his own body – his bones, muscles and skin and he was able to start moving around the room.
In the next session we had, he told me how liberating that experience had been for him. It stayed with him in the days after we met and on a few occasions he could change a situation by noticing that he could move, act, talk and actively change the outcome. When his daughter wasn’t happy with something, he answered her and was positively surprised how a situation that earlier would have developed into a fight, transformed itself to an interesting discussion about what she wanted.
We repeated that lesson a few times until it became a part of him, but that first encounter – when he could notice that the change was in his own hands – was the meeting he always related to as the time he learned the beauty of healing from trauma while respecting his past and the emotions he felt.
Self respect is an incredible force in our life and if I, as the practitioner, can encourage that in my clients’ perception of themselves, the chances of creating the desired changes in our life grow dramatically.
Teaching people to gain back the respect for their own life is a rewarding act. I think that in order to live a life of purpose we should find a way to respect any part of our life – even the ones we might be ashamed of. Our victories as well as our failings, our happy moments as well as our sad ones, our achievements next to the moments we disappointed ourselves. Each moment of our life brought us to the place we are now – each decision, each encounter and each experience.
