When disaster strikes - Body-Coaching can offer relief

Floods in Australia or here in Belgium. Wherever disaster strikes, people are involved stress responses are triggered, survival is at stake. When the water is gone the stress response must normalize but will it? 

Thousands of people will remain traumatized (with stress responses that are in hyperactivity) by the experience. Traumatized while needing to build up their life again. Needing 100% focus, clarity and sound body and mind. When trauma hits we are focused, hyper alert, only, problems start for many people a few months later (when reserves are depleted), the time of rebuilding. In my practice I notice that many people have a serious break-down or burn-out 3 months after severe stress or trauma has occurred.  However I also see that a few session of body-coaching helps them to pick up a normal life again. I have no statistics of this and I have no scientific data to support my case only stories of people that have been helped. Self-inquiry and research have lead to my understanding why it works and this info plus the practical application are now available to you in form of a 2 day workshop.

But my heart goes out to the people that are suffering. If I had the financial support I would leave for disaster areas like Australia and set up camp. Offering body-coaching as a community service and teaching it to whoever wants to learn so that people can help themselves and offer help amongst each other. Body-Coaching alone might for some not be enough it is after all not a replacement of professional medical care, but it is a good start. It's a first aid tool for the bodymind. And like a plaster it is sometimes all it needs to get well or to facilitate healing.

One day I hope to be part of a team of experts that go into areas where disaster has struck. Like the B-fast team . It would be a long-time dream come true.

Mens sana in corpore sano

In order to move mountains health is essential. That being the case, fulfilling our minds dream we need a body that is up to the job, resilient to the challenges and the heightened demands we put on it.

Mens sana in corpore sano

As an osteopath I’ve come to realize how important body-work is to stay focused, attentive, switched on and mindful. Yes, the mind can influence the body, but the body is also influencing the mind and far more than you think. Depression, burn-out, moodiness, mindlessness, social withdrawal, procrastination,... can all be linked to the failing of the organism, the body to respond appropriately to emotional or physical threats, whether actual or imagined. Stress refers to the failing of the physiological stress response that makes you mindless and primitive and that among other things can cause muscle stiffness, headaches and influence digestion.  

Stress can make you so mindless that you don’t even realize it. However, others do and if you work in a team this can reverberate and quickly cast all in its shadow. 

On the 12 - 13 February I organize a workshop with a new Body-Mind therapy that I developed from my work as an osteopath. This development was instigated by my patients remarkable improvement of cognitive and emotional wellbeing above the physical. It’s been a wonderful journey that I’m ready to share with you. 

The BioMotions Body-Coaching approach is a self-help tool as much as it is a tool to help others. It can be used as a stand alone approach or implemented in an existing practice like coaching, psychotherapy, massage,...

For more information go to https://sites.google.com/site/biomotionsbodycoaching/

Tom

BioMotions^® Body-Coaching

First aid for stress and trauma

Help oneself and help others to cope better 

so we can all achieve our dreams. 

First Aid in times of stress and trauma

A plaster on a wound is first aid for injury. What first aid tool do you use in times of stress and trauma? I've asked around and not many people were able to give me an answer. Maybe no-one thought about putting it in the first aid box or first aid training. Maybe until now there weren't many tools that could be used for this purpose.

With more and more people suffering from the effects of stress and trauma isn't it time that we start to look into this?

I came to ask the question while doing my research on the BioMotions Body-Coaching approach that I've developed and teach. One day it dawned on me what I was teaching was just that. I was teaching people to become stress and trauma 'first aiders'. Since I've been looking at the BioMotions Body-Coaching method and viewing it in this light.

What does it mean First aid? In Wikipedia I found

First aid is the provision of initial care for an illness or injury. It is usually performed by a non-expert person to a sick or injured person until definitive medical treatment can be accessed. Certain self-limiting illnesses or minor injuries may not require further medical care past the first aid intervention. It generally consists of a series of simple and in some cases, potentially life-saving techniques that an individual can be trained to perform with minimal equipment.

When I look then at Body-Coaching, it:

• Facilitates Self healing mechanism ≃Provides care
• Can be learned by everyone also children ≃ no need to be an expert
• Is a series of facilitating micro-movements based on a single principle ≃ simple
• Is a tool that can provide help but when the condition is serious further professional help is required ≃ idem for first aid
• Works without external tools only your hands and attention are needed ≃ minimal equipment

I can only observe but let me know what you think?

Wouldn't you be interested to learn something that helps you but also others?

Times are changing and everything is speeding up. Stress is the result of our resources to be overstretched. We're not coping so well anymore but what if there is a solution? What if you could learn an easy to learn tool to help you your family, friends or that can be used in a professional environment.

Writing this I'm confronted with the idea can we all do it by ourselves? NO! Partly yes but don't we live in a society? Is our body not made of trillions of cells working as ONE. I think this is a key insight. We are one and we need to start helping others as we do ourselves only then shall we be able to evolve and thus cope better. But first we have to learn new tools...

Body-Coaching is one such tool. It helps us but also it brings us all together. It's an approach that will help us all be better in what we do as we will be empowered to thrive in the ever changing ever increasing moment.

More information on https://sites.google.com/site/biomotionsbodycoaching/

Next Workshops:

12 and 13 February (English) Brussels

5 and 6 March (French) Brussels

9 and 10 April (German) Vienna with a presentation on Friday the 8th

Insights into Burnout

Two observations I like to share and address to you in two questions. Do you know people that are subjected to burnout? Did you know anyone with burnout 5 years ago - Are there more now?

I think most people, like myself will answer on the 1^st question: Yes and to the 2^nd question no or yes but more now. A trend or is it really in the uprise? If in the uprise why? Why are so many people suffering from it? What has changed in our lives that we are not coping.

Another observation along these lines that I like to share with you is that it strikes not only the vulnerable but also people whom I thought that of all people they wouldn’t be susceptible to mental-energy exhaustion.

Burnout is according to the ICD-10 (International Statistical Classification of Diseases) a state of vital exhaustion (z73). On dictionary.com I found the definition: fatigue, frustration, or apathy resulting from prolonged stress, overwork, or intense activity.

I also amongst others found an article published by Wilmar Schaufeli in De Psycholoog (2007) which states the following:

On theoretical grounds it can be said that burnout is a combination of exhaustion and mental detachment. In essence someone in burnout has a shortfall in operation capacity plus a lack of operation willingness. One talks about burnout when there is an exhaustion of energy reserves and psychological withdrawal which take form in insubordination at work, lack of interest, less engaging, cynicism and mental distance...

www.fss.uu.nl/sop/Schaufeli/274.pdf

I think I don’t need to go on, you know what I mean.

Although it has been a while since I wrote a newsletter I did write some blogs which I hope you have been following here if not I would like to encourage you to read “Life Change Units” posted on 27 June 2010 and “Does Your Body need Coaching” published on 8 February 2009. Both articles give insight into this phenomenon and are written from my experience as an Osteopath and Body-Coach.

In short, change and our ability to cope with change is one of the major contributors for our primitive = automatic system taking over the mind. This system doesn’t think, it shuts your mind down which results in dis-connection and if not resolved turns into burnout. We’re living in times where we have no time to integrate the many changes, take time-out consciously. We’re pushed beyond our limits and become literally trapped. Trapped by our physiology, neurological and hormonal system. Talk-therapy will not turn these systems around no matter how much ‘heart’ you put into it. Rest will help but is a slow process. Body-coaching / work has catalytic properties, it facilitates, speeds up homeostasis, a return to normal. When body has released the mind again then healing can start. Psychological help or coaching may still be needed but with renewed access to the mind the integration of the results of this work will be speedier and more beneficial.

The psychological science community is waking up to the idea of the influence of the body on the mind through research in neuroscience but is still far off from integrating it into therapy.

If you like to know more about Body-Coaching please visit my website www.biomotions.com

I’ve also started a training program in Body-Coaching for psychologist, coaches and wellbeing therapists.

Agenda:

25 Sept van 9h - 17:30h - Nederlands

26 Sept from 9h - 17:30h - English

23 Oct de 9h - 17:30h - Français

For more information and other upcoming training days please visit: www.biomotions.com/biomotions/bodycoaching_2.html

Tom

The BioMotions® Body Coaching Workshops

Body-Coaching is a form of Body-Psychotherapy that has proven its benefits in various well-being domains. Doctors, Psychologists, Coaches, Massage Therapists and alike who have implemented it are convinced of its importance within their practice.

The significance lies in its simplicity and at the same time its profound effect on psychological functioning. After a body-coaching session patients have reported an immediate feeling of deep relaxation, clarity of mind, return of focus and better grounding. Others reported to be able to think clearer, integrate information better, started seeing the picture better and more after just 5 to 10 minutes of receiving Body-Coaching.

Body-Coaching can be exercised as a stand alone approach but is designed so that you can implement it in your already existing practice. Body-Coaching goes out from the idea that you are already practicing some type of therapy and that you would like to take it to the next level to accommodate a new kind of demand that is requested by the problems of our society. Maybe you have noticed it too, the world is changing, we’re facing new challenges, we have to adapt ourself incessantly... but how is our body coping with this perpetual need for adjustment? How many people do you know that suffer from burn-out? Did you know as many people suffering from it a year ago?

Body-coaching offers you an easy to learn, and easy to implement approach so you are ready to help those who’s coping mechanism is challenged.

There are 2 levels of Body-Coaching and are given in 2 half-day (4hours) or in a 1 day (7 hours not including breaks) workshops.

Cost is 150€ (VAT incl.) for the two levels together.

Workshops are organized on a regular basis for more information please fill in the form which you can fin via this link: https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dE5ycndYX21paXlYMmc0TlYwWEVDdEE6MQ

If you are a therapist and you would like to organize a workshop in your area please do not hesitate to write this as a comment on the form. I’m more then happy to help you to set it up.

The Facilitator

As a facilitator of the healing process where does the participation start? At the moment the person who’ healing system is impeded walks in or already before when that person has made the phone call? I’m not surprised anymore when people say that whatever they had is already much better, or not so intense anymore. So was there already an interaction? Or did this have nothing to do with the facilitator and was it just the psychophysiology of the person at work - knowing that help is on the way - letting go and acceptance of fate instigating relaxation.

Maybe the healing process started when the facilitator decided to be just that. Whenever it started it is an interesting exercise to just stop and think what am I doing. Who am I in this process? What is my role? What is my goal? It is so easy to fall into the trap: Look what I did...

At the end all I do is make an action or process easier, I facilitated a role they call in chemistry a catalyst, no more no less. In each person health is present. Like a puzzle all the pieces are there, the puzzle is whole but is it whole as the picture on the box? How many pieces are out of place? With the latter you have to deal with while constructing the puzzle to its full potential, reflecting the picture on the box. But ones there do you ask yourself questions about how you got there. When you feel healthy do you ask yourself why you are healthy?

My aim is to facilitate a process towards the whole picture, to the person’s full potential. Imagine a moment where you felt whole. “Hold that moment.” What defines that moment? What feelings and thoughts are associated with that moment? Would you say that whatever it is that you are feeling now and the thoughts associated are strongly correlated with the word “free”: Free in mind, free in body, free in spirit, being on top of the world, unlimited, no strings...

Isn’t it then that this “Free” is the ultimate platform for healing? I believe it is. I also believe this is for which we are the facilitators: We go in, we let the matrix unfold, be free again and come out. We facilitate healing, the person becoming whole again. Only then can the curative healing start to take place: This can be in the instant itself or slowly unfold itself over the next days.

Just like breathing, for breathing in you need the facilitation of muscles, then you have a dynamic still point, a moment between the in and out breath to be followed automatically as a result of the facilitated breathing in the breathing out occurs. No facilitation by muscles is needed. Try it: breath in hold and what comes automatically when you let go... How does it feel letting go...

How The Reconenction Changed my work

In my personal story with the Reconnection I describe how I got interested in this work. But what kind of impact has it had so far on my work as an osteopathic Body Coach. Well it is as Eric Pearl describes it is like having an upgrade done in your software. The upgrade has more capacity, is faster and you can do more with it at the same time. This new frequency does just that.

My - feeling, interacting, facilitating - hands now receive far more sensations then ever before. These sensations are also far intenser. When I worked on or above the body I always had the feeling my hands were resting on a cloud or on the surface of water. I sensed a tension field and interacted with that. This tension fields are still there but I feel them as coming through much stronger and the are heavier, weightier.

But not only I am feeling this, all my patients in the last weeks have commented on feeling more interactions within them and also reported light and an uncontrollable desire to smile. These reactions are felt a soon as I interact with the frequency. One even reported two clicks in his head like heavy switches that were pushed on.

These feelings and patient feedbacks started as soon as I had my personal reconnection done. However then I wasn’t aware of the exact use of the frequency. Now that I followed the course and that I’m applying the more specific approach I can feel that I stepped up another level.

I can’t explain why this is. I only know that it is real: I can feel it, patients are reporting new sensations and feelings of wellbeing that they hadn’t felt before.

I’m not trying to convince you but can only recommend that you try it. Start of with on or two Reconnective Healing sessions and feel and see for yourself and then you can decide if you want to upgrade to your next level of evolution. I know for sure one thing I don’t want to go back. Just like when I got my computer software upgraded to Snow Leopard (Mac) I’ve never looked back.