Be Your True Self: Healing Through Embodiment and Practice
Hello and a warm welcome,
Spring is slowly unfolding here in the Northern Hemisphere. In Oregon, the blossoms are beginning to open, bringing a quiet sense of hope, renewal and possibility. This season invites reflection on what we are ready to nurture and grow, and what we are ready to soften and release.
Healing as a Return, Not a Fix
Healing often begins in this same way. Not as a dramatic transformation, but as a gentle coming back to yourself.
For many people, healing is thought of as something that happens through insight or understanding. And while awareness matters, it is often not enough on its own. We can understand our patterns and still find ourselves repeating them.
This is because lasting change does not happen through awareness alone. It happens through experience and practice.
The Body, Trauma, and the Patterns We Carry
Our experiences are not only held in the mind, but also within the body and nervous system, informing how we feel, respond, and relate to ourselves and the world around us (van der Kolk, 2014). This is especially true for trauma and complex trauma (CPTSD), which can disrupt our sense of safety, self, and relational connection over time (Karatzias et al., 2019). Over time, this can create a sense of disconnection from ourselves.
We may notice patterns of reactivity, shutdown, overwhelm, anxiety, or uncertainty. Not because something is wrong with us, but because the body has learned ways to adapt and protect.
Healing, then, is not just about thinking differently. It is about learning to relate to ourselves in new ways, again and again, until those ways begin to feel natural.
Center, Embody, Elevate
This is the heart of what I call Center, Embody, Elevate.
To center is to come back to yourself. It is the practice of noticing what is happening within you and creating a sense of steadiness, safety, and presence. Mindfulness and grounding practices have been shown to support emotional regulation and present-moment awareness, both essential for trauma healing (Goldberg et al., 2022).
To embody is to deepen into that awareness and begin to live it. This is where insight becomes lived experience. Through repeated practice, we begin to integrate new patterns, strengthening our capacity to respond with greater agency and choice. We start to listen to the body’s signals, honor our needs, and respond in ways that are aligned rather than habitual or reactive.
To elevate is what naturally follows, although it’s not linear. As we become more centered and embodied through practice, we begin to experience greater clarity, creativity, and connection. Change begins to feel less forced and more integrated, with a felt sense of greater ease and connection to your inner wisdom, creativity, and true nature.
Practice, Rewiring, and Lasting Change
Change is not a single moment. It is a process of repetition.
Emerging research in neuroplasticity shows that the brain continuously changes and reorganizes through repeated, intentional experience, reinforcing and reshaping new neural pathways over time and making lasting change in thoughts, feelings, and behaviors possible (Mateos-Aparicio & Rodríguez-Moreno, 2019).
In other words, healing requires consistent practice.
It is the small moments of choosing to pause instead of react habitually.
The moments of listening to your body instead of overriding it.
The moments of responding in alignment with your truth, even when it feels unfamiliar or if someone else doesn’t like it.
Over time, these moments build on each other and create a ripple effect. As new neural networks are formed and strengthened through repetition, what once felt effortful begins to feel natural. What once felt out of reach becomes available.
This is how we rewire.
Reconnecting with the Self
At its core, this process is about reconnecting with the self that already exists beneath layers of protection and conditioning. In Internal Family Systems, this is understood as the Self, a grounded and compassionate presence within us that can lead with clarity and compassion (Schwartz, 2021).
When we are disconnected from this inner center, different parts of us may take over in an attempt to protect us. These patterns once served a purpose, but over time they can create tension, stress, anxiety, and/or inner and conflict.
Healing is not about getting rid of these parts. It is about creating enough safety within ourselves to listen, understand, and integrate them.
Support Along the Way
This is the foundation of the work I offer.
Through counseling, we create a safe, ongoing therapeutic space where past experiences and trauma can be processed and integrated, and new ways of relating to yourself and embodying your truth can emerge.
Through hypnotherapy, we work more directly with the subconscious and superconscious levels of awareness, often within 4-6 sessions, uncovering core subconscious beliefs and root causes, supporting shifts in patterns by leveraging neuroplasticity through direct experience, while strengthening connection to your inner wisdom and guidance.
Through human design, we explore your unique blueprint, helping you understand how you are naturally wired so you can move through life with greater ease, self-trust, and connection to your body’s wisdom and natural way of being.
While each of these approaches is different, they all return to the same place.
A deeper connection with your true self.
Allowing What Wants to Grow
From that place, change begins to happen in a way that feels more natural and sustainable. You are not becoming someone new. You are remembering who you are and learning to live it.
And just like spring, this process has its own rhythm and does not need to be rushed.
It unfolds in its own timing, with patience, care, and attention.
What you practice and nurture within yourself will, in time, begin to bloom.
From my heart to yours,
Lisa
References
Goldberg, S. B., Riordan, K. M., Sun, S., & Davidson, R. J. (2022). The empirical status of mindfulness-based interventions: A systematic review of 44 meta-analyses. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 17(1), 108–130. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691620968771
Karatzias, T., Hyland, P., Bradley, A., Cloitre, M., Roberts, N. P., Bisson, J. I., & Shevlin, M. (2019). Risk factors and comorbidity of ICD-11 PTSD and complex PTSD: Findings from a trauma-exposed population based sample of adults in the United Kingdom. Depression and Anxiety, 36(9), 887–894. https://doi.org/10.1002/da.22934
Mateos-Aparicio, P., & Rodríguez-Moreno, A. (2019). The impact of studying brain plasticity. Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience, 13, 66. https://doi.org/10.3389/fncel.2019.00066
Schwartz, R. C. (2021). No bad parts: Healing trauma and restoring wholeness with the Internal Family Systems model. Sounds True.
van der Kolk, B. A. (2014). The body keeps the score: Brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma. Penguin Books.