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To Face The Work: the experiences of people with a visible facial difference...
Price€15.00

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We each come with unique histories, life experiences and stories.
Our body holds these stories inside.

The stories, experiences and histories we have not yet fully integrated, or the ones we do not yet want to face, are held within the body.
These held stories in the body express in body language, in a tight belly, a stiff fist, in contraction in certain situations. Your felt sensations tell the stories of what is held and experienced inside.

It takes a readiness and willingness for us to start to feel the depth of what is stored in our bodies.

It takes a readiness to feel, deeply.

When we begin to feel, sensation come to us in a myriad of ways.
With intensity, in hot and cold flashes, in all kinds of little tingles, pangs, or flows of little electrical pulses of sensations. Which can bring discomfort, pain, confusion and fear.

To feel often is uncomfortable, tender and deeply vulnerably–

Deep feeling is about integrating what is held within, to face the stories that are discomfortable, painful and tender at heart.

The beauty is that within your bones, you hold centuries of knowing too.
Your ability to feel your sensations and your sensual aliveness is as natural to you as your breath is. Coming home to your body through felt sensation, through feeling and integrating brings gold and riches that no worldly thing can buy – it is worth the depth of your experience of life.

Feeling is interconnected with touch and to be touched by life, means you have to feel.

🌹 | www.tessaschiethart.com
#somatictherapy #embodiment

We each come with unique histories, life experiences and stories.
Our body holds these stories inside.

The stories, experiences and histories we have not yet fully integrated, or the ones we do not yet want to face, are held within the body.
These held stories in the body express in body language, in a tight belly, a stiff fist, in contraction in certain situations. Your felt sensations tell the stories of what is held and experienced inside.

It takes a readiness and willingness for us to start to feel the depth of what is stored in our bodies.

It takes a readiness to feel, deeply.

When we begin to feel, sensation come to us in a myriad of ways.
With intensity, in hot and cold flashes, in all kinds of little tingles, pangs, or flows of little electrical pulses of sensations. Which can bring discomfort, pain, confusion and fear.

To feel often is uncomfortable, tender and deeply vulnerably–

Deep feeling is about integrating what is held within, to face the stories that are discomfortable, painful and tender at heart.

The beauty is that within your bones, you hold centuries of knowing too.
Your ability to feel your sensations and your sensual aliveness is as natural to you as your breath is. Coming home to your body through felt sensation, through feeling and integrating brings gold and riches that no worldly thing can buy – it is worth the depth of your experience of life.

Feeling is interconnected with touch and to be touched by life, means you have to feel.

🌹 | www.tessaschiethart.com
#somatictherapy #embodiment

I was given the path of Ayurveda at age 17 on the fortnight of a defining medical moment. My dad gave me a book of wisdom that I read in 2 days which I attempted to apply before a treatment of sorts.

I dare say Ayurveda has saved my life in myriad ways.
I trained as an Ayurvedic nutritionist because of it shortly after that treatment and the path gifted me a relationship to health & dis-ease that influences and inspires me every single day.

It mostly taught me that

health is not the mere absence of dis-ease.

When we approach health beyond the absence of dis-ease, it means so much more. In Ayurveda, there are more stages to dis-ease development prior to a symptom.

Health, too, is about the presence of harmony in mind, body and spirit, includes the vibrancy you live with.

Health is so much more than merely physical, food choices or exercise.

Aside from the balance within the physical body that creates health, there is the mind, the senses and the soul that thrive within a state of balance, contentment, peace and clarity.

Health is thriving beyond surviving.
It is the ability to remain in balance amidst life challenges. It is remaining ‘swastha’ - anchored in your seat (or sitting on your life’s throne :))

Health is a dynamic equilibrium, a constant fluctuation, a balancing.
With the acknowledgement that health may be individual, that what is healthy differs from person to person when it comes to certain choices, that there are differences to experiencing joy, peace and vitality as well as digestion, rhythms and energies based on individual indicators.

+ do not mistake me; I LOVE western medicine. It is very much a part of my individual indicator for balance, I thank my life to it, AND I thank my life to the Ayurvedic path as well.

Balance is the key.
Perhaps to everything.

& to me, Ayurveda is a path of balance, which I always incorporate in somatic therapy with clients.

Because our sense of health affects our relationship to self, to others, to the world around us and to how we relate to our beautiful vessel through which we experience the world, our very unique bodies.

🌹
#ayurveda #health ##wellbeing #bali

I was given the path of Ayurveda at age 17 on the fortnight of a defining medical moment. My dad gave me a book of wisdom that I read in 2 days which I attempted to apply before a treatment of sorts.

I dare say Ayurveda has saved my life in myriad ways.
I trained as an Ayurvedic nutritionist because of it shortly after that treatment and the path gifted me a relationship to health & dis-ease that influences and inspires me every single day.

It mostly taught me that

health is not the mere absence of dis-ease.

When we approach health beyond the absence of dis-ease, it means so much more. In Ayurveda, there are more stages to dis-ease development prior to a symptom.

Health, too, is about the presence of harmony in mind, body and spirit, includes the vibrancy you live with.

Health is so much more than merely physical, food choices or exercise.

Aside from the balance within the physical body that creates health, there is the mind, the senses and the soul that thrive within a state of balance, contentment, peace and clarity.

Health is thriving beyond surviving.
It is the ability to remain in balance amidst life challenges. It is remaining ‘swastha’ - anchored in your seat (or sitting on your life’s throne :))

Health is a dynamic equilibrium, a constant fluctuation, a balancing.
With the acknowledgement that health may be individual, that what is healthy differs from person to person when it comes to certain choices, that there are differences to experiencing joy, peace and vitality as well as digestion, rhythms and energies based on individual indicators.

+ do not mistake me; I LOVE western medicine. It is very much a part of my individual indicator for balance, I thank my life to it, AND I thank my life to the Ayurvedic path as well.

Balance is the key.
Perhaps to everything.

& to me, Ayurveda is a path of balance, which I always incorporate in somatic therapy with clients.

Because our sense of health affects our relationship to self, to others, to the world around us and to how we relate to our beautiful vessel through which we experience the world, our very unique bodies.

🌹
#ayurveda #health ##wellbeing #bali

Ceremony and ritual have been a part of people’s lives since the very beginning. Ritual and ceremony hold some potent powers.

Ritual is based in natural cycles. The celebration of the changes of seasons, the day of your birth, the season to cleanse, the season to bloom, the season to hibernate. With lights, gifts, scents, symbol and song, and the messages of hope in the dark, blooming in the light. The seasons of life.
Ritual symbolizes a beginning and an ending. It symbolizes cycles, rhythms and somatically affects our bodies. Our bodies have known ritual for 1000s of years. Ritual connects us to our bodies as our nervous system thrives on cycles and rhythms.

Life is uncertain, life is unknown.
Ritual helps us walk more sure-footed in this creat mysterious journey.
Ritual is not necessarily religious.
Ritual is as humanly necessary as can be.

As humans, we need beginnings and we need ends to anchor our nervous systems in time and space. Just as much as we need to complete a cycle of stress, we need the completion of a year, a season, or a time in our lives.

Something in all of us ignites when we live with rituals.
Love and attention flow to that which we focus on. Our experience changes entirely based on what we zoom into.
So, make it sacred.

To make sacred, to me, means to hold life as an exquisite masterpiece.
Each moment blessed with the capability to bring the daily doing into the space and place of ritual, by the use of attention, small prayer, ceremony.

Spend time in ritual.
Light a candle.
Sit in the warmth of water.
Plant a seed.
Sip your tea.
Rub your feet.
Be still.
Make your home filled with symbols that are meaningful to you.
Listen to the seasons, live by her rhythms..

Your personal rituals anchor your life, your body and your sense of hope, belonging and the nature of the seasons internally within you and externally around you, and in the cycles of life your find yourself in.

A world devoid of ritual is a world out of sync with its natural cycles, seasons and rhythms.
Tend to your cycle. Tend to your rhythms.

—
📸 during our Reconnect to Her retreat last september :: join us in May ‘25 again! • link in bio / dm me

Ceremony and ritual have been a part of people’s lives since the very beginning. Ritual and ceremony hold some potent powers.

Ritual is based in natural cycles. The celebration of the changes of seasons, the day of your birth, the season to cleanse, the season to bloom, the season to hibernate. With lights, gifts, scents, symbol and song, and the messages of hope in the dark, blooming in the light. The seasons of life.
Ritual symbolizes a beginning and an ending. It symbolizes cycles, rhythms and somatically affects our bodies. Our bodies have known ritual for 1000s of years. Ritual connects us to our bodies as our nervous system thrives on cycles and rhythms.

Life is uncertain, life is unknown.
Ritual helps us walk more sure-footed in this creat mysterious journey.
Ritual is not necessarily religious.
Ritual is as humanly necessary as can be.

As humans, we need beginnings and we need ends to anchor our nervous systems in time and space. Just as much as we need to complete a cycle of stress, we need the completion of a year, a season, or a time in our lives.

Something in all of us ignites when we live with rituals.
Love and attention flow to that which we focus on. Our experience changes entirely based on what we zoom into.
So, make it sacred.

To make sacred, to me, means to hold life as an exquisite masterpiece.
Each moment blessed with the capability to bring the daily doing into the space and place of ritual, by the use of attention, small prayer, ceremony.

Spend time in ritual.
Light a candle.
Sit in the warmth of water.
Plant a seed.
Sip your tea.
Rub your feet.
Be still.
Make your home filled with symbols that are meaningful to you.
Listen to the seasons, live by her rhythms..

Your personal rituals anchor your life, your body and your sense of hope, belonging and the nature of the seasons internally within you and externally around you, and in the cycles of life your find yourself in.

A world devoid of ritual is a world out of sync with its natural cycles, seasons and rhythms.
Tend to your cycle. Tend to your rhythms.

—
📸 during our Reconnect to Her retreat last september :: join us in May ‘25 again! • link in bio / dm me

Especially as women we have a deep longing to be seen. Sure, for the surface-level parts of our appearances.
But, at the depths, more so for our deep inner heart, our energy, our emotion, our capacity to feel, to love, and experience this world fully…
to be recognized, to be acknowledged, to be seen for our deepest parts, the parts that connect to our radiance, our true spark, our inner light.

There is a shadow to our longing to be seen too.
When it becomes “I need to be seen… in order to be whole, in order to be loved, in order to thrive” aka “I need you to witness my emotion, my perspective, my expression, my looks, my body…” – then this beautiful deep longing to be seen becomes wrapped in neediness.

Our deep longing is beautiful and pure.
Outside of the realms of actual needs, our neediness is a pattern, coming from conditioning,
And we are all human to have these patterns.

When we relate to our longing to be seen from a place of neediness, it can show as an identification with our thoughts, our emotions, and the identification with our more surface level expression and energy.

Our neediness can prevent us from actually being deeply embodied and skillful in how we bring our body & energy (emotion, thought, expression…) to the world, to our loved ones, and ourselves.

Our longing to be seen ibeautiful, pure, natural, deep.
It is there asking you to bring your fullness and expression.

— It is an ongoing practice: to anchor yourself in the deeper longing as there will continously be moments you find yourself in a pattern— but then to release identifications and return to a deeper place within you.

And when you practice releasing the need to be seen for something or someone, you may find more often than you may think, that you will be seen for so much depth when you lose the grip of the surface level needs.

@tessa.schiethart

🌹
#longing #femininearts #embodiment #feminineenergy #deconditioning #womensempowerment

Especially as women we have a deep longing to be seen. Sure, for the surface-level parts of our appearances.
But, at the depths, more so for our deep inner heart, our energy, our emotion, our capacity to feel, to love, and experience this world fully…
to be recognized, to be acknowledged, to be seen for our deepest parts, the parts that connect to our radiance, our true spark, our inner light.

There is a shadow to our longing to be seen too.
When it becomes “I need to be seen… in order to be whole, in order to be loved, in order to thrive” aka “I need you to witness my emotion, my perspective, my expression, my looks, my body…” – then this beautiful deep longing to be seen becomes wrapped in neediness.

Our deep longing is beautiful and pure.
Outside of the realms of actual needs, our neediness is a pattern, coming from conditioning,
And we are all human to have these patterns.

When we relate to our longing to be seen from a place of neediness, it can show as an identification with our thoughts, our emotions, and the identification with our more surface level expression and energy.

Our neediness can prevent us from actually being deeply embodied and skillful in how we bring our body & energy (emotion, thought, expression…) to the world, to our loved ones, and ourselves.

Our longing to be seen ibeautiful, pure, natural, deep.
It is there asking you to bring your fullness and expression.

— It is an ongoing practice: to anchor yourself in the deeper longing as there will continously be moments you find yourself in a pattern— but then to release identifications and return to a deeper place within you.

And when you practice releasing the need to be seen for something or someone, you may find more often than you may think, that you will be seen for so much depth when you lose the grip of the surface level needs.

@tessa.schiethart

🌹
#longing #femininearts #embodiment #feminineenergy #deconditioning #womensempowerment

cultivating sensual aliveness by tuning into your internal, subjective experience—your felt sense within the body, is partly about connecting deeply with your bodily sensations: the tingling in your belly, the tightness in your throat, the heaviness in your chest. The somatic awareness through being sensually alive invites you to listen to the body’s language—a language spoken through sensations.

sensation is not emotion.
* Sensation is: “heavy heart,” “tight throat,” “tingle in the belly.”
* Emotion is: fear, joy, sorrow.

While sensation and emotion are distinct, they are also interconnected. Sensations can give rise to emotions, and emotions can spark sensations.

In a world that often teaches us to numb and suppress, learning to feel safe to feel our sensations in our own body is a powerful act of reclamation.

Many of us avoid discomfort, in any kind of way, because, honestly, it’s hard to feel.
But avoiding our feelings and sensations comes at a cost: pent-up sensations and emotions when uncheck, released or given their rightful place and space in our human life, can manifest as all sorts of dis-ease and dis-connect.
 Ssuppressing our humanness in favor of following rules and ticking boxes, is what we all learned at some point.

Learning to feel safe to feel where it once felt unsafe is one of the most beautiful gifts you can give yourself. Because it gives so much beauty back: the savoring of deep taste, nourishing touch, beauty to see also become much more alive in you as you enliven your sensual awareness

The gateway is safety, and, relaxation. Relaxation of the body gives an openness, which allows you to become more receptive to the subtle messages of your body.

The safety and relaxation and the sensually aliveness bring a beautiful return to wholeness from within your very own body.

🌹www.tessaschiethart.com/support

#somatictherapy #embodiment #sensuality #sensualawareness

cultivating sensual aliveness by tuning into your internal, subjective experience—your felt sense within the body, is partly about connecting deeply with your bodily sensations: the tingling in your belly, the tightness in your throat, the heaviness in your chest. The somatic awareness through being sensually alive invites you to listen to the body’s language—a language spoken through sensations.

sensation is not emotion.
* Sensation is: “heavy heart,” “tight throat,” “tingle in the belly.”
* Emotion is: fear, joy, sorrow.

While sensation and emotion are distinct, they are also interconnected. Sensations can give rise to emotions, and emotions can spark sensations.

In a world that often teaches us to numb and suppress, learning to feel safe to feel our sensations in our own body is a powerful act of reclamation.

Many of us avoid discomfort, in any kind of way, because, honestly, it’s hard to feel.
But avoiding our feelings and sensations comes at a cost: pent-up sensations and emotions when uncheck, released or given their rightful place and space in our human life, can manifest as all sorts of dis-ease and dis-connect.
 Ssuppressing our humanness in favor of following rules and ticking boxes, is what we all learned at some point.

Learning to feel safe to feel where it once felt unsafe is one of the most beautiful gifts you can give yourself. Because it gives so much beauty back: the savoring of deep taste, nourishing touch, beauty to see also become much more alive in you as you enliven your sensual awareness

The gateway is safety, and, relaxation. Relaxation of the body gives an openness, which allows you to become more receptive to the subtle messages of your body.

The safety and relaxation and the sensually aliveness bring a beautiful return to wholeness from within your very own body.

🌹www.tessaschiethart.com/support

#somatictherapy #embodiment #sensuality #sensualawareness

A little reflection on Beauty as of late.

There is always a possibility to see beauty.

Beauty, for me, has been a potent gateway to reimagine my relationship to my body and the earth itself, to slow down, look at the overextension and come closer to wholesomeness, natural cycles, and the present moment awareness of what it actually means to flourish as a human, as a species, and as a planet.

The way you see yourself, and the way you treat your body is so much bigger than you, not as a way to pressure you even more, but with such a reference to you, your beauty and your body, and as a delicate way of realizing the interwovenness of who we are as humans, that we are part of a living system, that we have cycles, and seasons, and also, that often, personal dis-ease goes hand in hand with environmental decay,

that we are not individual failures when we feel disconnected from our bodies and our beauty,

That anything like stress, depletion and burn-out of the body (yours or the earth’s) has an interwoven effect, on both, that it is systemic, and that in all of it, we are not separate or alone when we feel a disconnect from our beauty, or dislike, mistrust, or have shame around our bodies, but instead are reminded to come home to our bodies, and see the beauty of our own soil and earth.

🌹
#beauty #visionovervisibility #ecopsychology

A little reflection on Beauty as of late.

There is always a possibility to see beauty.

Beauty, for me, has been a potent gateway to reimagine my relationship to my body and the earth itself, to slow down, look at the overextension and come closer to wholesomeness, natural cycles, and the present moment awareness of what it actually means to flourish as a human, as a species, and as a planet.

The way you see yourself, and the way you treat your body is so much bigger than you, not as a way to pressure you even more, but with such a reference to you, your beauty and your body, and as a delicate way of realizing the interwovenness of who we are as humans, that we are part of a living system, that we have cycles, and seasons, and also, that often, personal dis-ease goes hand in hand with environmental decay,

that we are not individual failures when we feel disconnected from our bodies and our beauty,

That anything like stress, depletion and burn-out of the body (yours or the earth’s) has an interwoven effect, on both, that it is systemic, and that in all of it, we are not separate or alone when we feel a disconnect from our beauty, or dislike, mistrust, or have shame around our bodies, but instead are reminded to come home to our bodies, and see the beauty of our own soil and earth.

🌹
#beauty #visionovervisibility #ecopsychology

little thai tales of loving it here & now

taken to these grounds where I feel home, loved and opened, always, but especially this month.

being here, now, I am grateful for the wild turns and twists of this year
• of the loss and the grief that filled the first months of ‘24.
• of the opening, the meeting and the grounding that brought the next few.
• then the packing, departing and coming home elsewhere.
• the adventure, the love and the mystery I close the last months of this year with.

Like for so many of us, a year of shedding and letting go
A year that quite literally stripped me bare from anything that wasn’t mine to keep
— I feel full while ‘shedded’ to my core at the same time, fresh, new, grown. grateful for continuing the steps, one at a time.

& grateful for some doubting of the continuation of my presence here earlier this year, of my service, vision, mission. And then to completely changing my whole business, from name to offer— refreshing, maybe that was what this year was?

Then, to be able to see the fruits of the moves & changes— in my own life and within a flourishing of this beautiful full therapy practice, a dream, deepening empowerment, embodiment and intimacy, love lives, and the relationship to self, other, body, beauty, life…

• the gift of serving my work from wherever my body finds herself, whichever place in the world, whichever state of my ability with a body that keeps having her own ways at times, with days where its more uncertain, challenging, with pain with pleasure, with rest, with trust, and, with love.

grateful for the wild dreams, the claimed desires, the beautiful longings, this year especially,

on knees, humble bows, the Asian jungles opening up a mystery of unfolding for the next months to come

closing chapters, always opening new ones.

#2024 #ka

little thai tales of loving it here & now

taken to these grounds where I feel home, loved and opened, always, but especially this month.

being here, now, I am grateful for the wild turns and twists of this year
• of the loss and the grief that filled the first months of ‘24.
• of the opening, the meeting and the grounding that brought the next few.
• then the packing, departing and coming home elsewhere.
• the adventure, the love and the mystery I close the last months of this year with.

Like for so many of us, a year of shedding and letting go
A year that quite literally stripped me bare from anything that wasn’t mine to keep
— I feel full while ‘shedded’ to my core at the same time, fresh, new, grown. grateful for continuing the steps, one at a time.

& grateful for some doubting of the continuation of my presence here earlier this year, of my service, vision, mission. And then to completely changing my whole business, from name to offer— refreshing, maybe that was what this year was?

Then, to be able to see the fruits of the moves & changes— in my own life and within a flourishing of this beautiful full therapy practice, a dream, deepening empowerment, embodiment and intimacy, love lives, and the relationship to self, other, body, beauty, life…

• the gift of serving my work from wherever my body finds herself, whichever place in the world, whichever state of my ability with a body that keeps having her own ways at times, with days where its more uncertain, challenging, with pain with pleasure, with rest, with trust, and, with love.

grateful for the wild dreams, the claimed desires, the beautiful longings, this year especially,

on knees, humble bows, the Asian jungles opening up a mystery of unfolding for the next months to come

closing chapters, always opening new ones.

#2024 #ka

For women, the body can be kind of a battlefield– societally, and culturally, our looks, hormones, the pressures of what to do with our bodies, to conceive & birth… it all can lend itself to see the body as an enemy, based on how we relate to our body,

We have been heavily conditioned in how we relate to the body.

There are many complexities synthesized in our body, from which we create behavioural patterns in response to our bodies.

There are the traumas of our grandmothers and mothers of whom many grew up in times of conflict which has an imprint on the ancestral lines we belong to and that continue to live on in our bodies (epigenetics, generational traumas).

Having maladaptive (eating) patterns, ways of relating & dealing with the way we look, the way we dress, and have learned to (dis)connect to our sensuality & sec.suality are all influenced by conditioning as women, societal messaging about our bodies and the overculture that wants us to be, look and behave certain ways.

It is important to acknowledge & destigmatize that the shame, mistrust and rejection of our body is something we all carry as women, to varying degrees, to be able to come home to our bodies, to be truly in relationship to our bodies.

The journey towards our empowerment and towards our embodiment is about uncovering how we are affected by external forces, to see how we are coping and responding to external forces in ways that do not necessarily benefit the relationship to our body, and to learn to take personal responsibility for some of the societal imprinting we were not necessarily solely responsible for receiving.

Undoing shame, stigma and mistrust gives an opportunity to come home to our body, heal, and integrate and relate to our body as our most beautiful vehicle— because she is; a portal of your wisdom, haven for truth, an agent for insight and a unique expression of being + so much more, which I hope and wish you see and feel.

✨

—
#womanhood #healing #empowerment #embodiment

For women, the body can be kind of a battlefield– societally, and culturally, our looks, hormones, the pressures of what to do with our bodies, to conceive & birth… it all can lend itself to see the body as an enemy, based on how we relate to our body,

We have been heavily conditioned in how we relate to the body.

There are many complexities synthesized in our body, from which we create behavioural patterns in response to our bodies.

There are the traumas of our grandmothers and mothers of whom many grew up in times of conflict which has an imprint on the ancestral lines we belong to and that continue to live on in our bodies (epigenetics, generational traumas).

Having maladaptive (eating) patterns, ways of relating & dealing with the way we look, the way we dress, and have learned to (dis)connect to our sensuality & sec.suality are all influenced by conditioning as women, societal messaging about our bodies and the overculture that wants us to be, look and behave certain ways.

It is important to acknowledge & destigmatize that the shame, mistrust and rejection of our body is something we all carry as women, to varying degrees, to be able to come home to our bodies, to be truly in relationship to our bodies.

The journey towards our empowerment and towards our embodiment is about uncovering how we are affected by external forces, to see how we are coping and responding to external forces in ways that do not necessarily benefit the relationship to our body, and to learn to take personal responsibility for some of the societal imprinting we were not necessarily solely responsible for receiving.

Undoing shame, stigma and mistrust gives an opportunity to come home to our body, heal, and integrate and relate to our body as our most beautiful vehicle— because she is; a portal of your wisdom, haven for truth, an agent for insight and a unique expression of being + so much more, which I hope and wish you see and feel.

✨

—
#womanhood #healing #empowerment #embodiment

it may be quite the buzzword, embodiment —

for the beautiful reasons that embodiment and embodied practice is a true process of a home-coming to the body.

We are never not in our bodies, yet it does not mean we are in feeling connection to our bodies. Our psyches also can move away from connection to our body due to life experiences, traumas and disconnection through lifestyle choices. Embodiment is then the process of reconnection & becoming aware of the signals of the body, and learning to cognitively interpret these messages — a unique language to learn about ourselves.

The process of embodiment is taking the body as a gateway of wisdom to know ourselves deeper in all arrays of who we are.

somatic therapies and embodied practice can bring immense awareness to how emotional and mental events affect the body and how the body stores the stories of our experiences, and how our psyches move away from the body until the stored material is examined, released and integrated.

embodiment practice, in the forms of unstructured movement, artful therapies, and many body-based modalities and practices help move the psyche back towards the body, towards feeling, sensations, sensory awareness, to wholesome being and towards our ability to engage in life, socially, relationally, towards trusting ourselves, towards balanced self-management and experiences of pleasure of all sorts in life.

such a beautiful process of healing, practice and therapeutics to engage our selves deeply in

🌹www.tessaschiethart.com/support
#embodiment #somatictherapy #healing #wholesomely

it may be quite the buzzword, embodiment —

for the beautiful reasons that embodiment and embodied practice is a true process of a home-coming to the body.

We are never not in our bodies, yet it does not mean we are in feeling connection to our bodies. Our psyches also can move away from connection to our body due to life experiences, traumas and disconnection through lifestyle choices. Embodiment is then the process of reconnection & becoming aware of the signals of the body, and learning to cognitively interpret these messages — a unique language to learn about ourselves.

The process of embodiment is taking the body as a gateway of wisdom to know ourselves deeper in all arrays of who we are.

somatic therapies and embodied practice can bring immense awareness to how emotional and mental events affect the body and how the body stores the stories of our experiences, and how our psyches move away from the body until the stored material is examined, released and integrated.

embodiment practice, in the forms of unstructured movement, artful therapies, and many body-based modalities and practices help move the psyche back towards the body, towards feeling, sensations, sensory awareness, to wholesome being and towards our ability to engage in life, socially, relationally, towards trusting ourselves, towards balanced self-management and experiences of pleasure of all sorts in life.

such a beautiful process of healing, practice and therapeutics to engage our selves deeply in

🌹www.tessaschiethart.com/support
#embodiment #somatictherapy #healing #wholesomely

| my hope is that life teaches you to see the beauty in resilience. In my own journey and within the journeys of my clients, I see over and over that truth lies within sitting with the pain, to honor the beauty in the struggle, to see how adversity can become art — if we want to, choose to, let it, when we dare to say ‘yes’ to all that life brings, with the willingness to weave all of it into the story of our lives. Not necessarily knowing how to— yet opening to finding out. Resilience to me is not just survival—it is transformation. It is beauty born from breaking, hope rising from hardship, and it holds the quiet poetry of a human life.

✨
#resilience #empowerment #embodiment #healing #somatics

| my hope is that life teaches you to see the beauty in resilience. In my own journey and within the journeys of my clients, I see over and over that truth lies within sitting with the pain, to honor the beauty in the struggle, to see how adversity can become art — if we want to, choose to, let it, when we dare to say ‘yes’ to all that life brings, with the willingness to weave all of it into the story of our lives. Not necessarily knowing how to— yet opening to finding out. Resilience to me is not just survival—it is transformation. It is beauty born from breaking, hope rising from hardship, and it holds the quiet poetry of a human life.

✨
#resilience #empowerment #embodiment #healing #somatics

| being born with a heart-shaped birthmark taught me a few things about the nature of Beauty.

As an anthropologist, I was schooled and interested in the cultural meaning of beauty. I have found beauty to be an aspect of every culture, exhibited in ceremony, ritual and traditions, through dress, religion, rites, ritual, through application of products to bodies, through a wide range of meaning-making practices. I graduated on women’s bodily veiling practices and the deeper notion of beauty within it.

Beauty has been an important path in so many ways for me — academically, surely personally.

And I learned that there is a fundamental misunderstanding of the deeper nature of Beauty.

Why? Beauty can be seen as perceived from the inside out, where it can be mistaken for glamour, which is perceived from the outside in.

Glamour relies on external adornments, artifice, and fleeting qualities like fashion, fame, or glittering allure. It invites fantasy, drawing attention to an idealized or unattainable image, often shaped by societal or cultural constructs. And it’s ephemeral: glamour fades with time, context, or proximity, often leaving little lasting impression.

Beauty arises from authenticity, harmony, and resonance, often reflecting something deeper, like truth, vitality, or connection. Beauty is deeply relational – It’s not just seen but felt—it invites a sense of presence and appreciation rather than projection, it is timeless, is rooted in essence rather than trends or enhancement.

Beauty, I feel, is a way of experiencing life, it is a felt experience, it is lived, it is an inherent pulse that lives within your body. It is light that radiates through your eyes, your unclenched, open body.

Nothing wrong with glamour — yet I feel, the subconscious question is not whether you fit the standards, it is whether you are able to see the deeper nature of Beauty too.

Being intimate with Beauty is a matter of seeing – to see through the collective interpretations in our mind’s eye (and the actual mirror too!) by taking an honest deep look at ourselves and others.

The practice of discerning beauty from glamour is an ever-deepening practice in this world..

🌹

| being born with a heart-shaped birthmark taught me a few things about the nature of Beauty.

As an anthropologist, I was schooled and interested in the cultural meaning of beauty. I have found beauty to be an aspect of every culture, exhibited in ceremony, ritual and traditions, through dress, religion, rites, ritual, through application of products to bodies, through a wide range of meaning-making practices. I graduated on women’s bodily veiling practices and the deeper notion of beauty within it.

Beauty has been an important path in so many ways for me — academically, surely personally.

And I learned that there is a fundamental misunderstanding of the deeper nature of Beauty.

Why? Beauty can be seen as perceived from the inside out, where it can be mistaken for glamour, which is perceived from the outside in.

Glamour relies on external adornments, artifice, and fleeting qualities like fashion, fame, or glittering allure. It invites fantasy, drawing attention to an idealized or unattainable image, often shaped by societal or cultural constructs. And it’s ephemeral: glamour fades with time, context, or proximity, often leaving little lasting impression.

Beauty arises from authenticity, harmony, and resonance, often reflecting something deeper, like truth, vitality, or connection. Beauty is deeply relational – It’s not just seen but felt—it invites a sense of presence and appreciation rather than projection, it is timeless, is rooted in essence rather than trends or enhancement.

Beauty, I feel, is a way of experiencing life, it is a felt experience, it is lived, it is an inherent pulse that lives within your body. It is light that radiates through your eyes, your unclenched, open body.

Nothing wrong with glamour — yet I feel, the subconscious question is not whether you fit the standards, it is whether you are able to see the deeper nature of Beauty too.

Being intimate with Beauty is a matter of seeing – to see through the collective interpretations in our mind’s eye (and the actual mirror too!) by taking an honest deep look at ourselves and others.

The practice of discerning beauty from glamour is an ever-deepening practice in this world..

🌹

i often get the question what exactly somatic therapy entails — how it differs from more traditional talk therapy and what the specific benefits are

Somatic therapy is sensation-based therapeutic paradigm of relating and awareness, aiming to learning the language of the body, a language that comes through sensations, revealed through breath, sound, movement and felt sensations.

Sensation is ‘heavy heart’, ‘tingle in belly’, ‘tight throat’ etc. Often these sensations tell us another part of the stories we have uncovered in talk therapy. Our bodies hold stories our midns are sometimes not even aware of anymore. And so our bodies hold the wisdom of many aspects of our lives.

Walking a medical path myself since I was very young, has gave me all the reverance to the body’s wisdom, and showed me very young I wanted to live life in support of the body.

Somatic therapy holds the potential for us to discover much beauty and wisdom within us, as we connect to sensation, our senses, it holds the potential for a changed embodiment, released tension, emotion, and relaxation, to free up more expression and more intimacy with our senses as we can feel, see, hear, taste and touch more of Life through a relaxed, open, receptive, attuned and feeling body.

It is what this world needs I believe 🌹

#somatictherapy #embodiment #sensation #beauty #wisdom #relaxation

i often get the question what exactly somatic therapy entails — how it differs from more traditional talk therapy and what the specific benefits are

Somatic therapy is sensation-based therapeutic paradigm of relating and awareness, aiming to learning the language of the body, a language that comes through sensations, revealed through breath, sound, movement and felt sensations.

Sensation is ‘heavy heart’, ‘tingle in belly’, ‘tight throat’ etc. Often these sensations tell us another part of the stories we have uncovered in talk therapy. Our bodies hold stories our midns are sometimes not even aware of anymore. And so our bodies hold the wisdom of many aspects of our lives.

Walking a medical path myself since I was very young, has gave me all the reverance to the body’s wisdom, and showed me very young I wanted to live life in support of the body.

Somatic therapy holds the potential for us to discover much beauty and wisdom within us, as we connect to sensation, our senses, it holds the potential for a changed embodiment, released tension, emotion, and relaxation, to free up more expression and more intimacy with our senses as we can feel, see, hear, taste and touch more of Life through a relaxed, open, receptive, attuned and feeling body.

It is what this world needs I believe 🌹

#somatictherapy #embodiment #sensation #beauty #wisdom #relaxation

I love the wisdom that lies in our living, feeling body and the insight into ourselves that comes with undoing numbness in our body..

As (western) women, we’ve never had more choice, opportunity, and more freedom. There is of course still a long way to go, but compared to other times in history, we have tremendous options to choose our own lives and paths. New challenges arise with this. The demands of life have created increased levels of stress, pressure, discomfort, dis-ease and disconnect from our bodies. As women, we are able to have the careers we want, but what is the cost when it comes to our living, feeling body?

The beauty in having choice is choosing what resonates with us, the shadow is that having all the options can be confusing.

We often find ourselves stressed, overwhelmed, de-sensitized, and unsure of what to do, how to be, and what to choose in our lives amidst the pressures of society and the fast pace of modern life.

Beyond appearance or looks, our body can guide our decisions in our lives, can reveal our longings and holds a well of healing.

There are plenty of beautiful, and quite simple ways to reconnect and rewild ourselves to the wisdom of our body — accessible no matter your daily schedules. Reconnection to bodily wisdom is actually simple because it is very natural for a woman to be connected to her innate bodily wisdom. It takes practice; discipline and devotion. And the orientation of the practice lies in remembering that our body is not a vehicle to be maintained, controlled, pushed or extracted from— our body is our source of power, feeling, intuition, and pleasure. Feeling is our birthright as my teachers have taught me. We can rewild ourselves back to our feeling capacity before it was layered with doing, pushing, and socialization.

🌸 somatic therapy and relational mentoring — www.tessaschiethart.com/support

#embodiment #feeling #sensitization #somatictherapy #fwnininepractice #somatics #womensempowerment

I love the wisdom that lies in our living, feeling body and the insight into ourselves that comes with undoing numbness in our body..

As (western) women, we’ve never had more choice, opportunity, and more freedom. There is of course still a long way to go, but compared to other times in history, we have tremendous options to choose our own lives and paths. New challenges arise with this. The demands of life have created increased levels of stress, pressure, discomfort, dis-ease and disconnect from our bodies. As women, we are able to have the careers we want, but what is the cost when it comes to our living, feeling body?

The beauty in having choice is choosing what resonates with us, the shadow is that having all the options can be confusing.

We often find ourselves stressed, overwhelmed, de-sensitized, and unsure of what to do, how to be, and what to choose in our lives amidst the pressures of society and the fast pace of modern life.

Beyond appearance or looks, our body can guide our decisions in our lives, can reveal our longings and holds a well of healing.

There are plenty of beautiful, and quite simple ways to reconnect and rewild ourselves to the wisdom of our body — accessible no matter your daily schedules. Reconnection to bodily wisdom is actually simple because it is very natural for a woman to be connected to her innate bodily wisdom. It takes practice; discipline and devotion. And the orientation of the practice lies in remembering that our body is not a vehicle to be maintained, controlled, pushed or extracted from— our body is our source of power, feeling, intuition, and pleasure. Feeling is our birthright as my teachers have taught me. We can rewild ourselves back to our feeling capacity before it was layered with doing, pushing, and socialization.

🌸 somatic therapy and relational mentoring — www.tessaschiethart.com/support

#embodiment #feeling #sensitization #somatictherapy #fwnininepractice #somatics #womensempowerment

Intimate relationship — is the place I feel the deepest parts of us surface, as well as hold the potential for those parts to transmute, transform and heal.

I’ve come to find that relating (& the practice of becoming Love itself) as the truest revelatory path of uncovering who we are at our depths.

To be with a partner is a very deep human desire.

I know I am not the only one that by times feels challenged in togetherness, and at times more at ease and peace in my own individuality, no matter how much I love being in intimate relationship.

Although easily being able to spend weeks mostly by myself, my deeper desire and the place I love to be in, lies in togetherness, in union, in uncovering who I am in relation to another.

Relating has as much to do with attachment as it has with individuation — with a balance between togetherness vs. individuality.

Intimate relating requires skill — a skill in cultivating this balance, a skill we have not been taught necessarily.

As one of my Ayurvedic teachers always said ‘the school of life is relationship’.
— its an art of intimately relating.

& so it is healing to do the work around where we feel unease, discomfort and challenged in relating, finding balance between attachment and individuation, to learn to practice love through intimately relating —

The work I serve, with women and men and couples too now, around love & relationship, around unease, discomfort and challenges in relating, the deepest of feelings that surface, pieces of attachment and individuation & the embodiment and empowerment within relating is incredibly beautiful and revelatory ✨

Its a gift to witness intimate love flourish, with more skill, ease and balance — both in my own life, and in the lives of the beautiful people I support.

🌹 www.tessaschiethart.com/support — intakes for 2025 opening!

#yogicintimacy #relationship #embodiment #theartofrelating #safety #love

Intimate relationship — is the place I feel the deepest parts of us surface, as well as hold the potential for those parts to transmute, transform and heal.

I’ve come to find that relating (& the practice of becoming Love itself) as the truest revelatory path of uncovering who we are at our depths.

To be with a partner is a very deep human desire.

I know I am not the only one that by times feels challenged in togetherness, and at times more at ease and peace in my own individuality, no matter how much I love being in intimate relationship.

Although easily being able to spend weeks mostly by myself, my deeper desire and the place I love to be in, lies in togetherness, in union, in uncovering who I am in relation to another.

Relating has as much to do with attachment as it has with individuation — with a balance between togetherness vs. individuality.

Intimate relating requires skill — a skill in cultivating this balance, a skill we have not been taught necessarily.

As one of my Ayurvedic teachers always said ‘the school of life is relationship’.
— its an art of intimately relating.

& so it is healing to do the work around where we feel unease, discomfort and challenged in relating, finding balance between attachment and individuation, to learn to practice love through intimately relating —

The work I serve, with women and men and couples too now, around love & relationship, around unease, discomfort and challenges in relating, the deepest of feelings that surface, pieces of attachment and individuation & the embodiment and empowerment within relating is incredibly beautiful and revelatory ✨

Its a gift to witness intimate love flourish, with more skill, ease and balance — both in my own life, and in the lives of the beautiful people I support.

🌹 www.tessaschiethart.com/support — intakes for 2025 opening!

#yogicintimacy #relationship #embodiment #theartofrelating #safety #love

they say “this is the path” — life can have us believe we need to live a certain way, be certain things at certain ages, or achieve or succeed in a particular way or form.

time here the last 2 months has reminded me of the unique paths we each walk, the experiences, encounters, trials, triumphs and the people that are there along the way.

That “the path” is unique for us, both to choose as well as to surrender to. equally balanced, with presence and with attention, in beauty and embodiment. and that mostly, it is more cyclical than lineair.

With a heart that is full in numerous ways, I leave this beloved little piece (peace) of earth. words fall short to describe this time here. but it mostly lies in knowing beauty and joy lies in choosing our paths, and the healing that lies in the ways in which we can find reflection, insight and a sinking deeper into the fabric of who we are, uniquely so, when there is a willingness to face it all.

I feel carried by it all, here, now, once again, another cycle.
the ocean, sun, stars and moon, the rocks, the birds, bees — the beauty.

with mostly the special ones that traverse on the path with us. those that cross, carry along, traverse and travel with us.

time to go more east. time for a tropical adventure. time to travel with another special one.

🌸
#ericeira #portugal #home #thepath #cyclicalliving #thebeautyway #embodiment

they say “this is the path” — life can have us believe we need to live a certain way, be certain things at certain ages, or achieve or succeed in a particular way or form.

time here the last 2 months has reminded me of the unique paths we each walk, the experiences, encounters, trials, triumphs and the people that are there along the way.

That “the path” is unique for us, both to choose as well as to surrender to. equally balanced, with presence and with attention, in beauty and embodiment. and that mostly, it is more cyclical than lineair.

With a heart that is full in numerous ways, I leave this beloved little piece (peace) of earth. words fall short to describe this time here. but it mostly lies in knowing beauty and joy lies in choosing our paths, and the healing that lies in the ways in which we can find reflection, insight and a sinking deeper into the fabric of who we are, uniquely so, when there is a willingness to face it all.

I feel carried by it all, here, now, once again, another cycle.
the ocean, sun, stars and moon, the rocks, the birds, bees — the beauty.

with mostly the special ones that traverse on the path with us. those that cross, carry along, traverse and travel with us.

time to go more east. time for a tropical adventure. time to travel with another special one.

🌸
#ericeira #portugal #home #thepath #cyclicalliving #thebeautyway #embodiment

| feeling discomfort around being in joy & peace

Something I’ve been unravelling within in the past weeks is the joy, grace, beauty and peace I feel within life..

ánd – how foreign this can feel.

when your bodily system grew up in chaos, unsafety and/or pain, it can partly leave you with the imprint that that is what safety or comfort is, and so peace, calm and joy feel foreign.

being in joy, and in health, in the flow with many aspects of life can trigger a disbelief, perhaps with shame or guilt – can this joy and peace be real?

This is one scenario of what it can feel like when discomfort feels safer than comfort in a body –

I know for many it takes practice to sit in comfort as much as sitting in discomfort is
– I know it did and still does for me at times.

Recognizing these kinds of patterns of comfort and discomfort within you is immensely valuable – and confronting nonetheless.

It takes repatterning + reconditioning to feel more safe in actual safety, in joy, in grace, in beauty, in love and peace

To perhaps release a layer of shame & guilt around the joy and peace when you finally do feel at home within the very feeling of comfort that once felt so foreign – especially in a world that seems to be on fire & not in joy or peace.

These last weeks, my practice has been to abide in joy.

How can we savour the beauty that is there despite it all?

welcoming the goodness in life, with humility, to feel the worth, peace & deserving in life, in relationship, within every experience, or just within the sheer joy for no reason but just being.

—
knowing that life changes continuously – that no one feeling ever lasts,

but that the good, the soothing, the joy gets to be felt deeply too when it’s there.

To honor the true beauty within our ability to move fluidly across the spectrum between comfort and discomfort.

That that spectrum is an intricate dance;
— teaching infinite life lessons.

& that utlimately, nothing is for certain, but it feels right to live by our hearts’ ability to feel it all

🍇
#reflections #abidingjoy

| feeling discomfort around being in joy & peace

Something I’ve been unravelling within in the past weeks is the joy, grace, beauty and peace I feel within life..

ánd – how foreign this can feel.

when your bodily system grew up in chaos, unsafety and/or pain, it can partly leave you with the imprint that that is what safety or comfort is, and so peace, calm and joy feel foreign.

being in joy, and in health, in the flow with many aspects of life can trigger a disbelief, perhaps with shame or guilt – can this joy and peace be real?

This is one scenario of what it can feel like when discomfort feels safer than comfort in a body –

I know for many it takes practice to sit in comfort as much as sitting in discomfort is
– I know it did and still does for me at times.

Recognizing these kinds of patterns of comfort and discomfort within you is immensely valuable – and confronting nonetheless.

It takes repatterning + reconditioning to feel more safe in actual safety, in joy, in grace, in beauty, in love and peace

To perhaps release a layer of shame & guilt around the joy and peace when you finally do feel at home within the very feeling of comfort that once felt so foreign – especially in a world that seems to be on fire & not in joy or peace.

These last weeks, my practice has been to abide in joy.

How can we savour the beauty that is there despite it all?

welcoming the goodness in life, with humility, to feel the worth, peace & deserving in life, in relationship, within every experience, or just within the sheer joy for no reason but just being.

—
knowing that life changes continuously – that no one feeling ever lasts,

but that the good, the soothing, the joy gets to be felt deeply too when it’s there.

To honor the true beauty within our ability to move fluidly across the spectrum between comfort and discomfort.

That that spectrum is an intricate dance;
— teaching infinite life lessons.

& that utlimately, nothing is for certain, but it feels right to live by our hearts’ ability to feel it all

🍇
#reflections #abidingjoy

Years ago, during my degree in cultural anthropology, intersectionality, and bodyism, I was deeply touched learning that our race, gender, ethnicity, our visible differences, and our se-gsuality can fuel such inhibition from our bodies.

If your body has been marginalized in any sort of way (which many bodies have!), then safety and a sense of belonging in your own body is often lost.

Because it is safer to leave the body when our bodies are continually subjected to systems of oppression that dehumanize our very being, when our bodies are violated by touch (medically, seg-sually, otherwise), when our bodies get commented on.
It is actually resilient and safer to leave the body.

Though at some point we need to return to our bodies for wholesome living.

How do we stay in the body amidst unsafety in the outside cultural systems when no one has taught us tools to do so?

Embodiment is not some sort of oversimplified wellness practice.

Embodiment is a field of study that intersects with our cultural conditioning, sociology, emotions, trauma and historie.

— embodiment is incredibly potent for who we are, for our identities, for our gender, race, ethnic and visibly different parts of who we are. It teaches us to understand our whole story, the stories kept in our body, not just our mind.

Embodiment can bring us tools to safely stay in the body amidst moments of challenge due to outside conditional cultural forces. Our bodies are wise, living, relational systems after all.

Embodiment practice can truly reshape our inner landscape and bring us back to our own beings more than we ever thought possible from the minds we fled to in moments of unsafety.

Embodiment is about reclamation, resilience and empowerment as to how you face the outer environment from within your own being.

With all those I work with, embodiment is foundational.
All of us have left our bodies at some point.

Your body can become a place like home again. A place of fully living from.

🌹
——
#embodiment #empowerment #conditioning #anthropology #culture #resilience #healing #somatics #bodyism

Years ago, during my degree in cultural anthropology, intersectionality, and bodyism, I was deeply touched learning that our race, gender, ethnicity, our visible differences, and our se-gsuality can fuel such inhibition from our bodies.

If your body has been marginalized in any sort of way (which many bodies have!), then safety and a sense of belonging in your own body is often lost.

Because it is safer to leave the body when our bodies are continually subjected to systems of oppression that dehumanize our very being, when our bodies are violated by touch (medically, seg-sually, otherwise), when our bodies get commented on.
It is actually resilient and safer to leave the body.

Though at some point we need to return to our bodies for wholesome living.

How do we stay in the body amidst unsafety in the outside cultural systems when no one has taught us tools to do so?

Embodiment is not some sort of oversimplified wellness practice.

Embodiment is a field of study that intersects with our cultural conditioning, sociology, emotions, trauma and historie.

— embodiment is incredibly potent for who we are, for our identities, for our gender, race, ethnic and visibly different parts of who we are. It teaches us to understand our whole story, the stories kept in our body, not just our mind.

Embodiment can bring us tools to safely stay in the body amidst moments of challenge due to outside conditional cultural forces. Our bodies are wise, living, relational systems after all.

Embodiment practice can truly reshape our inner landscape and bring us back to our own beings more than we ever thought possible from the minds we fled to in moments of unsafety.

Embodiment is about reclamation, resilience and empowerment as to how you face the outer environment from within your own being.

With all those I work with, embodiment is foundational.
All of us have left our bodies at some point.

Your body can become a place like home again. A place of fully living from.

🌹
——
#embodiment #empowerment #conditioning #anthropology #culture #resilience #healing #somatics #bodyism

Pain has taught me everything about where we’re meant to find the strength to hold what life brings us.

I’ve seen that sooner or later we are all asked to face and transmute pains & challenges, each in our own unique way.

Personally, pain has taught me everything about despair, utter hopelessness, yet also about true Beauty and resilience.

It has taught me to live lightly, not so as to avoid the dark, but more so because of knowing the dark intimately.

If you are at the end of yourself, which I have felt multiple times throughout my life,
I’ve learnt that eventually what is asked is to open to the pain.

No matter where life stiffles us and urges us to look deeper, and find the smallest hint of Beauty there.

Your relational challenges, bodily limitations, (mental) health, your energy, emotions, sensitivity, purpose or sense of belonging…

– that when we face challenges and pains, it tends to point us to the strengths of holding what life asks of us, the beauty and the gift in our pain.

Moving with and through pain taught me that facing our life challenges & pains brings a reverence for life, to find beauty and pleasure in the mundane, in the ordinary life you get to live.

I’ve seen the ones who have faced a tremendous amount of pain, heartbreak, trepidation, trauma or setbacks, and see them thrive despite it (or because of it). I’ve seen myself thrive because of it.

I believe pain and challenge teaches to be sensitive to others, to hold others tenderly, to listen, and it invites compassion, full hearted openness, love.

& it teaches not to take life too seriously, to giggle from time to time (or often?!) at the funky moments life brings us,

to intimately know what the dark is like and to feel the light because of it.

I truly believe that our biggest pain can be a catalyst to our thriving, our joy, our growth.

& to live with the beauty and resilience because of it all

#fullmoonmusings #transmutation #beauty #resilience #empowerment #gifts #musings #lifeteachings

Pain has taught me everything about where we’re meant to find the strength to hold what life brings us.

I’ve seen that sooner or later we are all asked to face and transmute pains & challenges, each in our own unique way.

Personally, pain has taught me everything about despair, utter hopelessness, yet also about true Beauty and resilience.

It has taught me to live lightly, not so as to avoid the dark, but more so because of knowing the dark intimately.

If you are at the end of yourself, which I have felt multiple times throughout my life,
I’ve learnt that eventually what is asked is to open to the pain.

No matter where life stiffles us and urges us to look deeper, and find the smallest hint of Beauty there.

Your relational challenges, bodily limitations, (mental) health, your energy, emotions, sensitivity, purpose or sense of belonging…

– that when we face challenges and pains, it tends to point us to the strengths of holding what life asks of us, the beauty and the gift in our pain.

Moving with and through pain taught me that facing our life challenges & pains brings a reverence for life, to find beauty and pleasure in the mundane, in the ordinary life you get to live.

I’ve seen the ones who have faced a tremendous amount of pain, heartbreak, trepidation, trauma or setbacks, and see them thrive despite it (or because of it). I’ve seen myself thrive because of it.

I believe pain and challenge teaches to be sensitive to others, to hold others tenderly, to listen, and it invites compassion, full hearted openness, love.

& it teaches not to take life too seriously, to giggle from time to time (or often?!) at the funky moments life brings us,

to intimately know what the dark is like and to feel the light because of it.

I truly believe that our biggest pain can be a catalyst to our thriving, our joy, our growth.

& to live with the beauty and resilience because of it all

#fullmoonmusings #transmutation #beauty #resilience #empowerment #gifts #musings #lifeteachings

| being seen; one of the most intimate longing we all have is to be seen 🌹

to be witnessed, acknowledged and seen for who we are at our depths

especially as women we hold a lot of energy, and with energy I mean our emotions, thoughts and expressions in this world - they all hold energy.

— our longing to be seen can come with a shadow when we have a neeeed to be seen.

when we need to be acknowledge for our perspective,
when we need him to witness our emotions,
when we need to be seen in our success

a need to be seen comes from a pattern,
a longing to be seen comes from your energetic depths.

Our neediness in being seen is usually a shell around our deep longing.

When we identify with our emotion, though or expression in the world (our appearance, look, shininess), the more we have the need to be acknowledged for and witnessed in it.

The more we relax open, release our needs and the patterns that feed those needs, the more we can anchor in the depths and purity of our longing to be seen.

It takes practice to release the need and to arrive at a deeper layer where your trus longing resides. But when you do, you’ll find your deeper radiance and light there.

I’ve learned this in my own relationship to my identification with my looks, or ability to emote, and to cultivate precision, agility and discernment around being seen and my energetics.

Working with the theme of being seen is intimate work of deconditioning. It is tender, vulnerable but very opening, freeing and radiating.

🌹
#embodiment #empowerment #beingseen #energetics #agility #beauty #longing #radiance

| being seen; one of the most intimate longing we all have is to be seen 🌹

to be witnessed, acknowledged and seen for who we are at our depths

especially as women we hold a lot of energy, and with energy I mean our emotions, thoughts and expressions in this world - they all hold energy.

— our longing to be seen can come with a shadow when we have a neeeed to be seen.

when we need to be acknowledge for our perspective,
when we need him to witness our emotions,
when we need to be seen in our success

a need to be seen comes from a pattern,
a longing to be seen comes from your energetic depths.

Our neediness in being seen is usually a shell around our deep longing.

When we identify with our emotion, though or expression in the world (our appearance, look, shininess), the more we have the need to be acknowledged for and witnessed in it.

The more we relax open, release our needs and the patterns that feed those needs, the more we can anchor in the depths and purity of our longing to be seen.

It takes practice to release the need and to arrive at a deeper layer where your trus longing resides. But when you do, you’ll find your deeper radiance and light there.

I’ve learned this in my own relationship to my identification with my looks, or ability to emote, and to cultivate precision, agility and discernment around being seen and my energetics.

Working with the theme of being seen is intimate work of deconditioning. It is tender, vulnerable but very opening, freeing and radiating.

🌹
#embodiment #empowerment #beingseen #energetics #agility #beauty #longing #radiance

| “Befriending limitations heals. It ultimately brungs so much more fullness of the experience of life in a unique way.

Befriending can become the seeking of compassion for unique ways of being, embodying and belonging within the limitation and can become a way to experience deeper in life.

Curiosity for the limitation helps. Curiosity creates a wholeness, a welcoming of the limitation.
Beyond labelling, beyond wrong or right, so we can meet the limitation as is. Whether that be a bodily limitation, or a mental, or psycho-emotional threshold we meet within ourselves.

Once met, the limitation dissolves and integrates and morphs into your own way of being, embodying and living in this world. Your limitation becomes an intimate experience you have with Life – an experience of Life only you know, because you have met the depths your limitation has brought you.

And remember, dear one, your limits bring you to a rare beauty of wisdom and expression — a way of being that is touched by grace and beauty in its unique way. “

🌹 www.tessaschiethart.com/support

#embodiment #befriending #belonging #beauty #uniqueness #relating #artofrelating #beholding #enpowerment #resilience #intimacy #somatics

| “Befriending limitations heals. It ultimately brungs so much more fullness of the experience of life in a unique way.

Befriending can become the seeking of compassion for unique ways of being, embodying and belonging within the limitation and can become a way to experience deeper in life.

Curiosity for the limitation helps. Curiosity creates a wholeness, a welcoming of the limitation.
Beyond labelling, beyond wrong or right, so we can meet the limitation as is. Whether that be a bodily limitation, or a mental, or psycho-emotional threshold we meet within ourselves.

Once met, the limitation dissolves and integrates and morphs into your own way of being, embodying and living in this world. Your limitation becomes an intimate experience you have with Life – an experience of Life only you know, because you have met the depths your limitation has brought you.

And remember, dear one, your limits bring you to a rare beauty of wisdom and expression — a way of being that is touched by grace and beauty in its unique way. “

🌹 www.tessaschiethart.com/support

#embodiment #befriending #belonging #beauty #uniqueness #relating #artofrelating #beholding #enpowerment #resilience #intimacy #somatics

in beauty and in awe, coming home to nature’s law

earthing, arriving, unfurling,
tending like always to sweet landing.

living darkly, richly,
deeply in being,
reflections, releases,
and ever new ways of seeing

a time on this ground,
drawing previous life’s circle round,

sense, sentiment and subtlety,
deepening the layers of inner She

full contentment, messy hair,
feet bare,

breezy breaths, salty skin,
and all the beauty that lives within

rituals, morning glory and tea,
unlocking hidden creativity

ocean dips, dance,
deep rest and art,
each moment welcomed with heart

making love to life as that inspires,
feeling into deeper desires

next to you, next to me,
opening to little life poetry.

— a little impression of the atmosphere, here 🌸

#portugal #ericeira #livingbeauty

in beauty and in awe, coming home to nature’s law

earthing, arriving, unfurling,
tending like always to sweet landing.

living darkly, richly,
deeply in being,
reflections, releases,
and ever new ways of seeing

a time on this ground,
drawing previous life’s circle round,

sense, sentiment and subtlety,
deepening the layers of inner She

full contentment, messy hair,
feet bare,

breezy breaths, salty skin,
and all the beauty that lives within

rituals, morning glory and tea,
unlocking hidden creativity

ocean dips, dance,
deep rest and art,
each moment welcomed with heart

making love to life as that inspires,
feeling into deeper desires

next to you, next to me,
opening to little life poetry.

— a little impression of the atmosphere, here 🌸

#portugal #ericeira #livingbeauty

on welcoming our sensitivity, bodily sensations, releasing the shame around feeling deeply, and celebrating our innate capacity to feel, emote and sense deeply

in a culture that teaches us to move away from feeling there is just such beauty to treasure in our capacity to feel.

Anything we judge, cannot shift.

And so when we judge our sensitivity, our bodily sensations and shame ourselves, we cannot actually release, and so the feeling remain.

The more we move into celebrating and welcoming our capacity to feel, the sooner these feelings move through us.

Changing our perspective and awareness around our sensitivity helps to bring more alchemy to our feeling capacity.

🌹
#sensitivity #sensations #embodiment #somatictherapy #resilience #shame #beauty

on welcoming our sensitivity, bodily sensations, releasing the shame around feeling deeply, and celebrating our innate capacity to feel, emote and sense deeply

in a culture that teaches us to move away from feeling there is just such beauty to treasure in our capacity to feel.

Anything we judge, cannot shift.

And so when we judge our sensitivity, our bodily sensations and shame ourselves, we cannot actually release, and so the feeling remain.

The more we move into celebrating and welcoming our capacity to feel, the sooner these feelings move through us.

Changing our perspective and awareness around our sensitivity helps to bring more alchemy to our feeling capacity.

🌹
#sensitivity #sensations #embodiment #somatictherapy #resilience #shame #beauty

“What makes a life authentically aligned from the inside out?”, I pondered some months ago while I was amidst choices of leading, loving and living my own life.

Authenticity has been a concept thrown around, perhaps having somewhat lost its depth of meaning.

I have loved the concept of Wu Wei, which is at the centre of Taoist philosophy, and is about effortlessly aligning your life in doing and acting, without forcing or rushing against the natural order of things.

Wu Wei relates to a principle in the psyche to act in harmony and in wholeness with our authentic nature, or soul/Self.

Aligning our inner lives to the natural order of the outer things, comes with synchronicity, so Jung wrote: – where meaningful coincidences happen when you are in alignment with your inner world & the natural order of things in the outer world.

Acting with Wu Wei is like moving with the flow of a river, responding to events consciously, skillfully and intuitively within the natural rhythms around you.

It involves accepting things as they are – like reallyyy accepting (not micromanaging).

Accepting aspects of ourselves, our psyches, and our lives that are difficult to acknowledge.

Acceptance to come to authentic alignment can be compared to integrating ‘the shadow’, like Jung described; bringing awareness to the unnatural, repressed parts of ourselves of our personality we might try to reject and that create misalignment in the way we lead, love and live our lives..

Over time practicing the concept of Wu Wei has the potency to reduce inner and outer conflict and allows us to act with effortless responsiveness and spontaneity.

Like any practice, aligning with the natural flow of things, accepting & embracing the difficult parts and finding synchronicity in life is a lifelong quest of learning to listen and surrender our deepest wisdom to come to that place of alignment and authentic wholeness in the psyche.

📸 on the ericeira cliffs

#depthpsychology #wuwei #taoism #somatictherapy #embodiment #alignment #naturalrhythm #psychosomatics #empowerment #intuitiveliving

“What makes a life authentically aligned from the inside out?”, I pondered some months ago while I was amidst choices of leading, loving and living my own life.

Authenticity has been a concept thrown around, perhaps having somewhat lost its depth of meaning.

I have loved the concept of Wu Wei, which is at the centre of Taoist philosophy, and is about effortlessly aligning your life in doing and acting, without forcing or rushing against the natural order of things.

Wu Wei relates to a principle in the psyche to act in harmony and in wholeness with our authentic nature, or soul/Self.

Aligning our inner lives to the natural order of the outer things, comes with synchronicity, so Jung wrote: – where meaningful coincidences happen when you are in alignment with your inner world & the natural order of things in the outer world.

Acting with Wu Wei is like moving with the flow of a river, responding to events consciously, skillfully and intuitively within the natural rhythms around you.

It involves accepting things as they are – like reallyyy accepting (not micromanaging).

Accepting aspects of ourselves, our psyches, and our lives that are difficult to acknowledge.

Acceptance to come to authentic alignment can be compared to integrating ‘the shadow’, like Jung described; bringing awareness to the unnatural, repressed parts of ourselves of our personality we might try to reject and that create misalignment in the way we lead, love and live our lives..

Over time practicing the concept of Wu Wei has the potency to reduce inner and outer conflict and allows us to act with effortless responsiveness and spontaneity.

Like any practice, aligning with the natural flow of things, accepting & embracing the difficult parts and finding synchronicity in life is a lifelong quest of learning to listen and surrender our deepest wisdom to come to that place of alignment and authentic wholeness in the psyche.

📸 on the ericeira cliffs

#depthpsychology #wuwei #taoism #somatictherapy #embodiment #alignment #naturalrhythm #psychosomatics #empowerment #intuitiveliving

“I am willing to give up a lot to stay home and write. I am willing to give up everything for this, because this is my source of Light”, Liz Gilbert says. I resonate deeply with that.

I started writing when I was 12. I literally have not stopped since.
Every single day I write.

I have come to see writing as my meditation. My prayer, my contemplation.

Everything all the scriptures and holy teachings promise me through meditation, I get through writing.

I got that from an early age. And the main thing is the silencing of the mind.

There is a state the mystics talk about called Wordless Oneness, where your mind and its chatter silences. And you feel yourself to be quiet oneness with everything around you. It is also called the zone, samadhi, serenity, but I like wordless oneness.

One of the ways to come to wordless oneness, studied by neurologists too, is writing.

Using words for wordlessness.
It’s ironic.
I like those kinds of funky paradoxes.

I was an anxious kid, living through trials, triumphs & traumas.
When I would sit down as a kid and write, time would stop, 2 hours could easily go by. I could enter a world beyond the inexplicability I often found myself in.
The anxiety lifted. Writing is still my wordless oneness.

I never decided to be a writer. I just never stopped doing the creative pursuit we naturally gravitate towards as kids. Those pursuits that make us feel calm and have us make sense of the world.

I never truly came to see much in the other faster things out there for adolescents that make you feel good (men, martinis, meth, mastercards, or muffins usually - the 5 horsemen of seduction away from feeling as a human being).

My life has been filled with some bad sense too, sure, but I never lost the good sense to write and fuel my creativity and quietude. In a way writing is the beginning of my spiritual practice.

I sit here, in the place where I wrote my first real book 3 years ago. I sit here, innocently and diligently working on my second (& third!) book, still that girl losing herself in hours of wordless oneness.

#writing #wordlessoneness #creativity

“I am willing to give up a lot to stay home and write. I am willing to give up everything for this, because this is my source of Light”, Liz Gilbert says. I resonate deeply with that.

I started writing when I was 12. I literally have not stopped since.
Every single day I write.

I have come to see writing as my meditation. My prayer, my contemplation.

Everything all the scriptures and holy teachings promise me through meditation, I get through writing.

I got that from an early age. And the main thing is the silencing of the mind.

There is a state the mystics talk about called Wordless Oneness, where your mind and its chatter silences. And you feel yourself to be quiet oneness with everything around you. It is also called the zone, samadhi, serenity, but I like wordless oneness.

One of the ways to come to wordless oneness, studied by neurologists too, is writing.

Using words for wordlessness.
It’s ironic.
I like those kinds of funky paradoxes.

I was an anxious kid, living through trials, triumphs & traumas.
When I would sit down as a kid and write, time would stop, 2 hours could easily go by. I could enter a world beyond the inexplicability I often found myself in.
The anxiety lifted. Writing is still my wordless oneness.

I never decided to be a writer. I just never stopped doing the creative pursuit we naturally gravitate towards as kids. Those pursuits that make us feel calm and have us make sense of the world.

I never truly came to see much in the other faster things out there for adolescents that make you feel good (men, martinis, meth, mastercards, or muffins usually - the 5 horsemen of seduction away from feeling as a human being).

My life has been filled with some bad sense too, sure, but I never lost the good sense to write and fuel my creativity and quietude. In a way writing is the beginning of my spiritual practice.

I sit here, in the place where I wrote my first real book 3 years ago. I sit here, innocently and diligently working on my second (& third!) book, still that girl losing herself in hours of wordless oneness.

#writing #wordlessoneness #creativity

| there is such tenderness in not knowing how, yet.

I sit in the in-between spaces with clients daily — the space where they have outgrown parts of themselves that no longer serve, and not yet feel in the space where they’ve embodied their heart’s deepest longings.

It is tender.

I love the word tender.

Because it feels both soft and strong.

The pieces I work with I see as not for the faint of heart.
Mostly because the pieces my clients go through are deeply human, yet uniquely tender.

I love the next level expansions in living, loving and leading that comes through our humanness, our spirituality, se,k.suality and relating deeply to Life.

What is deep and divine about the process I intimately sit in with someone, is the willingness of these beautiful beings to face their pieces, heart on.

To not look away. To deepen yourself, so as to grow wider and more expansive and expressive in this life — and to sit in the expansion of the unfurling of feeling how..

All of us will face challenges in Life, no matter the nature of that challenge.
Some of us earlier in life then others.

I know from my own journey there is Beauty in being faced with the challenges in life early on, because it invites you to truly be honest about how you long to lead, love, and live.

It has you not look away from the pain, but feel, despite the tenderness in that.

To embark on a deeper journey so as to grow taller, wider, more of yourself, so you can show up more fully for you, your beloved & the world at large.

It’s wild and beautiful to see when one arrives in an embodied heart space.

A light comes out, a radiance, that comes from that softness and strength of the process of tenderly becoming.

A state of felt knowing.

As well as to see the humility that, as humans, we all have the same emotions, we all feel deeply if we allow ourselves to.

The circumstances and challenges may differ, but we are all tender human beings with a heart that yearns.

🌹— reflections on tenderly being in awe

| www.tessaschiethart.com/support

#thebeautyway #tenderness #becoming #unfurling #uniqueness #depth #embodiment #empowerment #resilience

| there is such tenderness in not knowing how, yet.

I sit in the in-between spaces with clients daily — the space where they have outgrown parts of themselves that no longer serve, and not yet feel in the space where they’ve embodied their heart’s deepest longings.

It is tender.

I love the word tender.

Because it feels both soft and strong.

The pieces I work with I see as not for the faint of heart.
Mostly because the pieces my clients go through are deeply human, yet uniquely tender.

I love the next level expansions in living, loving and leading that comes through our humanness, our spirituality, se,k.suality and relating deeply to Life.

What is deep and divine about the process I intimately sit in with someone, is the willingness of these beautiful beings to face their pieces, heart on.

To not look away. To deepen yourself, so as to grow wider and more expansive and expressive in this life — and to sit in the expansion of the unfurling of feeling how..

All of us will face challenges in Life, no matter the nature of that challenge.
Some of us earlier in life then others.

I know from my own journey there is Beauty in being faced with the challenges in life early on, because it invites you to truly be honest about how you long to lead, love, and live.

It has you not look away from the pain, but feel, despite the tenderness in that.

To embark on a deeper journey so as to grow taller, wider, more of yourself, so you can show up more fully for you, your beloved & the world at large.

It’s wild and beautiful to see when one arrives in an embodied heart space.

A light comes out, a radiance, that comes from that softness and strength of the process of tenderly becoming.

A state of felt knowing.

As well as to see the humility that, as humans, we all have the same emotions, we all feel deeply if we allow ourselves to.

The circumstances and challenges may differ, but we are all tender human beings with a heart that yearns.

🌹— reflections on tenderly being in awe

| www.tessaschiethart.com/support

#thebeautyway #tenderness #becoming #unfurling #uniqueness #depth #embodiment #empowerment #resilience

| redefining Beauty - in every way I can. that’s what I love. that’s what is needed. that’s a service. that’s a permission slip. that’s an invitation.

i hope.

as of late, I am reminded again and again how beauty is really the foundation of propels me to teach. the deeper layers, the reminders of beauty beyond surface shine. so say the healers, readers and wisdom keepers.

the Navajo talk about The Beauty Way — a traditional prayer to walk in Beauty. To invite living in an environment of Beauty, balance, & wellbeing, from the inside out. it inspires.

——————
#thebeautyway #love #service #invitation #deeperlayers #reminders #insight #intimacy #perceptions #empowerment #femininecurrent #embodiment #beauty

| redefining Beauty - in every way I can. that’s what I love. that’s what is needed. that’s a service. that’s a permission slip. that’s an invitation.

i hope.

as of late, I am reminded again and again how beauty is really the foundation of propels me to teach. the deeper layers, the reminders of beauty beyond surface shine. so say the healers, readers and wisdom keepers.

the Navajo talk about The Beauty Way — a traditional prayer to walk in Beauty. To invite living in an environment of Beauty, balance, & wellbeing, from the inside out. it inspires.

——————
#thebeautyway #love #service #invitation #deeperlayers #reminders #insight #intimacy #perceptions #empowerment #femininecurrent #embodiment #beauty

| It is a breath away to become more intimate with the moment, a loved one, or the environment surrounding you.

It requires you to soften and to relax your body.

We all have conditioning, we all have learned to contract in the face of challenging moments – which tightens us, clenches our jaws, belly and throat. Clenches our body into proactive mechanisms.

soften your being, your heart, your throat, your belly, the muscles around your eyes — soften and relax your whole inner channel.

🌹 when you’re listening to someone and all of a sudden you soften your ears, your throat, belly, heart… then your receptivity increases for you to hear them. You are drinking them in more deeply.

🌹 when you are going for a walk and you see a beautiful rose, it touches you more deeply as you soften you eyes, smell it fully, inhale it deeply.

The more you soften from the inside out and relax into the moment, the more you experience in the moment.

As you soften, any experience in life can permeate you more deeply.

Your environment touches you more deeply as you soften,
the people in your life touch you more deeply.

Your partner touches you more deeply (whether it is his touch on your skin that you feel more as you relax your being, whether it is the insides of your womb as you undo the clench there, whether it is your soft heart by letting his words in more, or his gaze with his presence as you relax your eyes to see him),

Learning how to soften beyond our patterns, habits and little triggers brings not only healing to your being, unravels patterns and insight into self, but your experiences of life also become fuller, and you are felt more by others, because softness creates an openness and relaxation is felt by others.

We could meet ourselves and another with our deepest hearts today, having softened enough of ourselves to let the moment in. Whatever moment it is, it will bring you deeper into relationship to life, your self and another.

– a practice for responding to the moment in life, any moment in life, that is close to heart and a practice explored with all my clients🌹

#softening #relaxation #empowerment #resilience #healing #deconditioning #somatics

| It is a breath away to become more intimate with the moment, a loved one, or the environment surrounding you.

It requires you to soften and to relax your body.

We all have conditioning, we all have learned to contract in the face of challenging moments – which tightens us, clenches our jaws, belly and throat. Clenches our body into proactive mechanisms.

soften your being, your heart, your throat, your belly, the muscles around your eyes — soften and relax your whole inner channel.

🌹 when you’re listening to someone and all of a sudden you soften your ears, your throat, belly, heart… then your receptivity increases for you to hear them. You are drinking them in more deeply.

🌹 when you are going for a walk and you see a beautiful rose, it touches you more deeply as you soften you eyes, smell it fully, inhale it deeply.

The more you soften from the inside out and relax into the moment, the more you experience in the moment.

As you soften, any experience in life can permeate you more deeply.

Your environment touches you more deeply as you soften,
the people in your life touch you more deeply.

Your partner touches you more deeply (whether it is his touch on your skin that you feel more as you relax your being, whether it is the insides of your womb as you undo the clench there, whether it is your soft heart by letting his words in more, or his gaze with his presence as you relax your eyes to see him),

Learning how to soften beyond our patterns, habits and little triggers brings not only healing to your being, unravels patterns and insight into self, but your experiences of life also become fuller, and you are felt more by others, because softness creates an openness and relaxation is felt by others.

We could meet ourselves and another with our deepest hearts today, having softened enough of ourselves to let the moment in. Whatever moment it is, it will bring you deeper into relationship to life, your self and another.

– a practice for responding to the moment in life, any moment in life, that is close to heart and a practice explored with all my clients🌹

#softening #relaxation #empowerment #resilience #healing #deconditioning #somatics

A necessary distinction I make with every single client I work with is the difference between therapeutics versus practice.

As someone who deeply believes in in the healing that lies in therapy as well as the empowerment within daily devotional practices, one doesn’t go without the other in my private practice too. Yet it’s so important to be able to distinguish the two and when to hone in on one vs. the other.

I learned to explain this distinction through some of my dearest teachers in some beautiful analogies, of which the dancer inspires most.

— a dancer has a daily committed practice. She dances and dances. The purpose of her dance can be creative output, physical endurance, emotional intimacy with self, mental emptying or likely all of them. It is about acquiring skill.

Then, inevitably, one day, she falls and sprains her ankle. There is a wound to be tended to.

For a time, she is required to tend to the wound, by the use of physical therapy, resting, inquiring into her skill and what made the sprain of her ankle happen as well as look into how the remainder of the scar will now impact her dancing practice.

Now, see — the dancing is your life.

the sprained ankle can be any wound: a childhood trauma, insecurities, selfworth issues, pain, suffering, burn-out, relational inquiries, life challenges.

We all face wounds in the dance of our lives.

And so.

daily devotional practice helps to live more mindfully, in tune with yourself and the ongoing dance of your life.

Therapeutics will be needed from time to time when there is a need for tending to a wound, whether that is mentally, emotionally, physicallt, spiritually.

Being able to discern between when to apply practice, and when to apply therapeutics and tending to something is incredibly helpful.

— the wounds may heal. Perhaps entirely. Or they leave their traces in the forms of scars. Mental, emotional, physical scars.

And we dance wíth the scars. We learn to adjust our practice to the scars. We include the scars into our dance of life.

Life is the dance. Keep practicing. There is no perfect dancing, you may fall — tend lovingly to the wound when you do.

——-
🌺

A necessary distinction I make with every single client I work with is the difference between therapeutics versus practice.

As someone who deeply believes in in the healing that lies in therapy as well as the empowerment within daily devotional practices, one doesn’t go without the other in my private practice too. Yet it’s so important to be able to distinguish the two and when to hone in on one vs. the other.

I learned to explain this distinction through some of my dearest teachers in some beautiful analogies, of which the dancer inspires most.

— a dancer has a daily committed practice. She dances and dances. The purpose of her dance can be creative output, physical endurance, emotional intimacy with self, mental emptying or likely all of them. It is about acquiring skill.

Then, inevitably, one day, she falls and sprains her ankle. There is a wound to be tended to.

For a time, she is required to tend to the wound, by the use of physical therapy, resting, inquiring into her skill and what made the sprain of her ankle happen as well as look into how the remainder of the scar will now impact her dancing practice.

Now, see — the dancing is your life.

the sprained ankle can be any wound: a childhood trauma, insecurities, selfworth issues, pain, suffering, burn-out, relational inquiries, life challenges.

We all face wounds in the dance of our lives.

And so.

daily devotional practice helps to live more mindfully, in tune with yourself and the ongoing dance of your life.

Therapeutics will be needed from time to time when there is a need for tending to a wound, whether that is mentally, emotionally, physicallt, spiritually.

Being able to discern between when to apply practice, and when to apply therapeutics and tending to something is incredibly helpful.

— the wounds may heal. Perhaps entirely. Or they leave their traces in the forms of scars. Mental, emotional, physical scars.

And we dance wíth the scars. We learn to adjust our practice to the scars. We include the scars into our dance of life.

Life is the dance. Keep practicing. There is no perfect dancing, you may fall — tend lovingly to the wound when you do.

——-
🌺

“We grieve dearly”, a friend said to me a few months ago, as he and I sat along the side of the waters.

Earlier this year, I explored the question of what grief means in life, in my life.

In meeting grief, I felt that

Grief is beauty.

It is feeling the beauty of a person, a part of our body, of who we are and what we do & that we let go of while we hold it so very dearly.

Grief, I have come to see, may be a direct encounter with the sacred.

Our culture teaches us to go away from the hard feelings.
The minute we do show up for the deep feeling, any feeling, it doesn’t take long to notice the fragrance of the holy that is in the depth of that feeling.

Grief is seeing how very wildly, unencumbered you loved.
Unencumbered, one of my favorite words.

Grief is missing with mercy.
It is gracious feeling.
It is bowing head to sky, tears on cheeks, smiling widely, despite not knowing how to live without.
It is honoring all that was and represented in your life.

Grief is knowing that nothing changes to the situation except for the acknowledgment of deep fervent love for this being, body and life, becoming anew through it all.

Turn towards. Lean into the flame – shattering loss catapults you into the holy mystery, and it is actually there that you find love.
Such Love. It is not a reward, it is the natural way towards it.

There is an invitation in profound grief that our hearts have been waiting for.

“I see some who have very little loss. And I bless them for I had many.” - that sentence, it resonates.

The broken open heart that comes from turning towards feeling is boundless. It can hold seemingly contradictory realities; “its too much and I can meet it.”

Within the transformational power of great grief, we are stripped of our ideas.
And it lets you realize that you know very little – it humbles.

Rilke said so beautifully “no feeling is final”.

And grief comes and goes and will come again over something that alters our lives profoundly. It comes to you, it comes to me, I promise. Life decides when, don’t you think?

— little reflections

#writing #griefisbeauty #reflections #lifeponderings

“We grieve dearly”, a friend said to me a few months ago, as he and I sat along the side of the waters.

Earlier this year, I explored the question of what grief means in life, in my life.

In meeting grief, I felt that

Grief is beauty.

It is feeling the beauty of a person, a part of our body, of who we are and what we do & that we let go of while we hold it so very dearly.

Grief, I have come to see, may be a direct encounter with the sacred.

Our culture teaches us to go away from the hard feelings.
The minute we do show up for the deep feeling, any feeling, it doesn’t take long to notice the fragrance of the holy that is in the depth of that feeling.

Grief is seeing how very wildly, unencumbered you loved.
Unencumbered, one of my favorite words.

Grief is missing with mercy.
It is gracious feeling.
It is bowing head to sky, tears on cheeks, smiling widely, despite not knowing how to live without.
It is honoring all that was and represented in your life.

Grief is knowing that nothing changes to the situation except for the acknowledgment of deep fervent love for this being, body and life, becoming anew through it all.

Turn towards. Lean into the flame – shattering loss catapults you into the holy mystery, and it is actually there that you find love.
Such Love. It is not a reward, it is the natural way towards it.

There is an invitation in profound grief that our hearts have been waiting for.

“I see some who have very little loss. And I bless them for I had many.” - that sentence, it resonates.

The broken open heart that comes from turning towards feeling is boundless. It can hold seemingly contradictory realities; “its too much and I can meet it.”

Within the transformational power of great grief, we are stripped of our ideas.
And it lets you realize that you know very little – it humbles.

Rilke said so beautifully “no feeling is final”.

And grief comes and goes and will come again over something that alters our lives profoundly. It comes to you, it comes to me, I promise. Life decides when, don’t you think?

— little reflections

#writing #griefisbeauty #reflections #lifeponderings

everything in life is relational

from the ways in which you relate to yourself, to the way you intimately relate to a partner

The art of relating is about conscious cultivation of the connection you desire in life.

whether it is your relationship to thought, emotion, doing, being, care for yourself, your body, psyche, spirit,

to the man in your life, friendships, parental bonding, social encounter, the stranger on the street

to how you relate to the desires you have, how worthy you feel of your desires, to how you face life’s challenges

— relational, relationships.

— the most nourishing relationships in your life may be cultivated by the way you show up within yourself + the relationships you may desire right now, be it romantically, friendly or professionally, are cultivated by the ways in which you relate to different parts of who you are — spending time alone is a grand choice for deeper connection in my experience! — curating wholesome balance between individuation and attachment.

the personal inquiry being about artfully exploring how to move from pattern to empowerment, from reaction to response, from habitual repetition to mindful choice, thought to feeling, relating deeply to all aspects of life

In private practice, the clients I work with are essentially facing a challenge in their life,
bodily, emotionally, relationally, within personal inquiry of how to relate

through practice, care and therapeutics to support your life, to come to a more embodied experience of life, to relate more deeply to yourself, your body, emotions, an intimate partner, the ones you love, and the cycles, phases and rhythms of your life.

| www.tessaschiethart.com/support | 🌸

everything in life is relational

from the ways in which you relate to yourself, to the way you intimately relate to a partner

The art of relating is about conscious cultivation of the connection you desire in life.

whether it is your relationship to thought, emotion, doing, being, care for yourself, your body, psyche, spirit,

to the man in your life, friendships, parental bonding, social encounter, the stranger on the street

to how you relate to the desires you have, how worthy you feel of your desires, to how you face life’s challenges

— relational, relationships.

— the most nourishing relationships in your life may be cultivated by the way you show up within yourself + the relationships you may desire right now, be it romantically, friendly or professionally, are cultivated by the ways in which you relate to different parts of who you are — spending time alone is a grand choice for deeper connection in my experience! — curating wholesome balance between individuation and attachment.

the personal inquiry being about artfully exploring how to move from pattern to empowerment, from reaction to response, from habitual repetition to mindful choice, thought to feeling, relating deeply to all aspects of life

In private practice, the clients I work with are essentially facing a challenge in their life,
bodily, emotionally, relationally, within personal inquiry of how to relate

through practice, care and therapeutics to support your life, to come to a more embodied experience of life, to relate more deeply to yourself, your body, emotions, an intimate partner, the ones you love, and the cycles, phases and rhythms of your life.

| www.tessaschiethart.com/support | 🌸

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