I came to work with Allison on my meandering journey to heal and build my system back up from a state of total burnout. In many ways my life has always tended to head towards burnout, but with two young children when the pandemic hit my ways of coping with stress were either unavailable or no longer enough. The cracks already present in my system were blown wide open…I was exhausted and completely disconnected from my ability to regulate in what felt like endless moments of overwhelm. For myself and my family it became increasingly clear I needed help finding my way back and I have spent the better part of the last two years trying to build myself back up.
I began my journey with traditional talk therapy which helped my mind, but didn’t get deep into my body. I then journeyed down the path of learning about the nervous system and how to more appropriately nourish myself through how I ate, moved, and structured my life. All these things helped, but it wasn’t until I began the Somatic Experiencing work with Allison that all the pieces really started to come together. It has been through my sessions with Allison that I have been able to radically change how I experience moments in my life, especially the moments that are full of overwhelm and intense emotions. She has helped me begin to repair my traumas, from the separation my daughter and I experienced after her birth, to my own attachment wounds that are being exposed as I parent my own children. In our time together, I have softened with myself and begun to learn how to differentiate whether I am embodying an experience of the present moment or an experience from my past.
In our sessions we don’t go searching for things to “fix.” What needs to heal or repair has its own way of coming to the surface when ready. It’s been striking to me how much the work we do in each session weaves into my life. Experiences (including total shit-show breakdowns with my 5 year old, surprising relevant yoga classes, and eerily on-point podcasts and writings) keep showing up taking me deeper into it all.
In one of our early sessions, I shared with Allison that I had gone up in my closet and kicked a plastic box to smithereens after experiencing a really difficult interaction. I was worried it was wrong to have this kind of anger in me. Allison asked me, “What if kicking that box until you were done, breaking it into pieces, was nothing more than just that? Your body was following an urge until it was complete. What if it says nothing about you? Nothing is wrong with you; you are a woman who had an urge and you followed it. That is it.” This blew my mind. For days since the incident of destroying the box I had done nothing but wonder aloud and in my head, “What is wrong with me? Why can’t I keep it together?” For the first time that narrative shifted and now said, “There is absolutely nothing wrong with me. I experienced a really challenging moment and had a lot of energy built up in my body. I let it out and it’s done. No one was hurt. I felt better. I got what I needed in that moment. We can move on.” And what I believe to be the most powerful part: every thread of my being believes this new narrative; my body believes this message from my brain and is settled by it. My body was not settled by the narrative my mind was previously playing on a loop about that moment. I have realized your mind can tell you stories but it’s your body that allows you to gauge if the story is true and informs you of your needs, past and present. This is what Allison has helped, and continues to help, me find. I will forever be grateful for our work together.