Manda Scott

We all know how to breathe slowly and deeply, how to soften and widen our gaze, how to ground, and how to do whatever inner work helps us to come back into balance, fully alive and fully aware of what's happening inside and out, in this place and this time.

Further, we know that this is not therapy.

It may be therapy adjacent, but what we're not going to do is delve into the how and the why and the stories of what our fears are about or where they came from.

I really want that to sink in.

There are modalities of therapy where that's important, where you want to look at childhood traumas or perhaps inherited traumas, where you want to have a story and explore it.

And that is not what we're doing here.

This kind of work, the ways of taking down the reflector cups that are bouncing back and forth the light, are purely physical.

They're about our awareness of our own physicality, our awareness of how energy moves within ourselves, our awareness of how we feel.

And in our culture, that can be really hard.

Many, many of us, particularly the older generations, were taught from very young that feeling was a bad thing.

That if somebody asks, how do you feel, you answer it with, I think.

So please, however we're going to do this, let your awareness sink inside and let there be feelings.

And if that in itself is triggering, then just go to the edges of them and step away.

This is an iterative process.

It takes as long as it takes.

So I'm going to explore a really trivial fear that I can generate inside and walk you through the process while doing that.

So let's have a think.

Okay, it's the middle of the afternoon.

I didn't really give the pup a proper walk this morning, and I have a part inside that we did explore in the gathering, and it comes up whenever I get to this.

I want to be the perfect dog trainer, companion, person, connector.