Self-awareness and self-compassion are the touchstones of this fascinating episode.
Silvia Stenitzer is a licensed psychotherapist in Santa Fe, NM. She's gathered an eclectic array of well-researched techniques she uses to help her clients, and to train the trainers.
Silvia "trusts the deep wisdom of the body, our innate self-healing abilities, and the magic of interpersonal connection. Movement, action, psychodrama, improvisation, art expression, dreams, play, meditation are our allies on the journey to Self."
Melanie and Silvia share thoughts and experiences of the importance of the mind-body connection, and the deep wisdom that we have available to us all the time when we know how to hear it.
Self-awareness is an interesting phenomenon. You'd think we'd all know how we're feeling, and why -- what triggered us -- to feel what we're feeling.
But most of us don't. At all. We're such a "neck-up" culture, meaning that we believe that our brain lives in our heads, with our bodies and energetic hearts somehow just along for the ride.
Being self-awareness means that you know who you are in this moment. You're not afraid of your emotions. You can feel them and name.
You understand that how you're feeling isn't necessarily something to act on, or react to.
You recogize your thoughts and beliefs, and accept that your thoughts are just thoughts, and your beliefs aren't necessarily objective Truth with a capital T.
From this place of self-awareness, you're then able to think more clearly, feel more deeply, and make much better decisions and choices for you and your loved ones.
Another powerful practice to cultive is self-compassion. The truth is that, once you begin developing self-awareness, you'll be seeing and feeling some things about yourself that aren't always pretty or pleasant.
That's OK. You're human. When you can feel compassion -- kindness, gentleness, and tenderness -- toward yourself, you'll begin experiencing such delicious and healing things as inner balance and inner harmony.
If you're feeling out of balance, anxious, sad and lonely, or confused about self-awareness and self-compassion can help you, please reach out to the Santa Fe Therapist for a free 15-minute phone consult. Send an email to melanie@melanieharth.com and schedule a session, won't you?