Last week I wrote about power. I want to give a sense of what my musings look like in practice.
Let me start with some context. The coaching work I do integrates several modalities: the body/mind/spirit practice of qigong (pron. "chee-gung"; will open in a new tab for you), Qi* Balancing (a form of clinical qigong), and a somatic (body) practice known as Chi* for Two. While I'm on the fence about a name, I am currently calling this amalgam of modalities "Q42." This pays hommage to my love of numbers and acknowledges the influence of Chi for Two. In addition, there's the Q in qi and qigong. (Q is a weird letter. I am weird. I love weird!) On the fence because, while it has a nice ring, the name is no help at all in describing what it is about.
Anywhoo...that's enough intellectualizing (did you know intellectualizing can be a form of dissociation?!). These practices are about getting into our bodies.
Power differential
The GoodTherapy article I linked to last time describes the need for helping professionals to maintain the power differential. Here is an example of why that is important:
I have this ability to cause people who should be in a position of power relative to me (medical practitioners, bosses, etc.) to collapse their boundaries and make us become power equals. I won't go into why this happens, but I do know it feels (technical term coming up here -->) kinda icky. For example, I recently had a doctor ask if I had any photos of my tiny house. This had previously come up in conversation, and at first I thought I was fine with showing her, but during and afterwards it felt like she had crossed a line. Had I checked in with my body before I responded, I might have noticed some discomfort (part of a Chi for Two practice called Knowing No) and could have ended the interaction gracefully by simply saying, "No, I don't have any photos" (incidentally, that's another Chi for Two practice).
Q42 coaching helps us recognize the reactions happening in our bodies and, through movement, process those reactions so they ultimately move through and out.
Holding space
In my previous post I also talked about holding space for clients. This is known in Chi for Two parlance as providing "Circles of Support" (more on that another time). I would venture to say that none of us experienced our trauma in complete isolation. Why, then, should we expect to heal in isolation? The most effective healing is done in relationship with others, which starts with the Q42 coach creating a "safe space" for the client.
In a typical session, the coach will ask the client to check in with their body, identify any feelings (emotions and/or bodily sensations such as tension, itches, urges, etc.), and suggest movements to help the body process whatever has come up. If BIG feelings start to bubble up during a coaching session, the client may feel the need to push them down (go into shut-down) or lash out (go into fight/flight). Either reaction is celebrated; all information is good information, and there is no wrong way to do this work. The coach is there to "catch" whatever the client is experiencing, validate it, and help the client feel held and protected without judgment.
Each session, no matter what the focus, peels back more layers of the trauma onion.
Natural Movement
The really fascinating thing is that all of this work is natural movement that mammalian bodies instinctively do. Chi for Two invites the release of trauma through instinctive movements that were shut down (actively or through neglect) when we were very young. Qigong exercises are a reflection of movements seen in nature. They keep the blood, lymph and qi (energy) flowing to further facilitate the trauma release.
Taking action to take care of ourselves is empowering, and the more we do that, the more we can get into our own power.
What does (or would) being in your own power look like? And what did you experience in your body when reading this post? Let us know in the comments below!
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* Qi and Chi are two spellings for the same thing -- energy. For those who want to geek out: There are two different methods for translating Chinese characters into English phoenetics. Qi is the more-commonly used Pinyin, while Chi (better spelled as Ch'i) uses the Wade-Giles method. Both are pronounced the same way: "chee." Also note that the martial art t'ai chi is better spelled as taiji. The "chi" in tai chi does NOT mean "energy." You can find more about Pinyin vs. Wade-Giles at https://ezrapoundcantos.org/bibliography/wade-giles-pinyin-conversion-table.
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