Sometimes something magical happens when I travel: my neurons take me on an adventurous and exhilarating ride, and my fluid self follows.
There is a vibrancy, an alertness in my curiosity, my excitement: my diaphragm opens wide, there is a gentle ease in my observing eyes, everything and anything becomes fodder for my imagination.
I become a witness in my own field of play and creativity. I take a backseat and just contemplate while listening to my riveting inner narrative.
The space-time continuum expands just like in a biodynamic craniosacral session, holding the field for a beautiful concomitance of clear thought processes and uplifting emotional containment; effortlessly whipping bliss.
And it shows.
The faces I meet bear spontaneous smiley hellos as if I were surrounded by a friendly halo and maybe I am.
It’s also easier to meet any situation lightly because I do not engage in it, I am not attached to any outcome.
I’m convinced our ‘biosphere’, this electromagnetic field that emanates from us and planet Earth is imbued with a mix of our felt sense, as an alive person, and just like any other living creature, we carry an emotional signature with us.
You may already be familiar with this. Whenever we walk out into this world, this emotional imprint is ‘read’ and sensed differently depending on our own cultural and emotional baggage at the time.
I find it quite fascinating.
We unconsciously or consciously read one another and project our own emotional mix too.
This will in turn decide whether we wish to socially engage with this person.
I know from past experience in the retail sector that there were days when selling my designs was quite effortless simply because I was not particularly attached to the outcome and felt present and content. Of course the more I sold and the more these feelings, these emotions would prevail.
On the other hand, if I felt even slightly ‘off’ and wore my worried, preoccupied, somewhat absent personae then I would prevent any sale from happening as customers would not come near me.
I saw a poster advertisement recently for a jewellery brand which encapsulated well what I’m trying to say, it read: “You had me at hello”
The quality of our embodied presence and the way we greet and listen engage us with life on very different levels.
In the therapeutic room, this first connection between client and practitioner is called establishing a relational field, in other words it is making contact, socially engaging with our client so that she/he feels safe enough to lie down on a plinth and trust a process they may hardly know anything about.
It is rather extraordinary come to think of it.
Well, quite often the ‘’yes I feel safe enough to come to see you with my stories” is there at “hello” or maybe even slightly before, at the first eye contact, the hand shake, the meeting stage, or even at the tone of our voice on the phone or in the way we reply to an email.
Of course these first impressions need to be confirmed and reinforced through the welcoming qualities of the space in which we receive, through our listening presence, and compassionate responses.
Finally this essential sense of safety needs to be rubber stamped through the quality of our holding.
This is not strictly true mind you, I remember a client earlier in my career that told me after a few sessions that she almost left the room right after lying on the plinth the first time she came to see me even though she felt safe talking to me beforehand.
Something happened that changed her mind and she decided to stay instead of running away: she followed my invitation to drop within and let her awareness wander to let me know what she noticed was happening.
I remember how wonderful it was to hear her relate what she felt as it unfolded while I also listened and held.
She became a regular client.
This sense of safety, our window of tolerance determines how we meet life.
Life mirrors back our qualities of intent and the safer we feel at revealing who we are, the more contentedly alive we become, building resilience as we go; more able to weather life's storms.
