Someone asked me recently how I would describe what I do. In one respect, there is no straight forward answer because my work, holistic practice and therapeutic approach is multifaceted. I adapt what I do and my approach to the needs of the women I see. My work is enveloped in numerous fields of inspiration including psychology, contemporary psychotherapy and neuroscience, yoga philosophy, somatic and trauma theory that many of my clients often say it feels like more than physiotherapy when we work together. To me, health is always a mind-body-soul affair. Pelvic health work is more than just the pelvis and there is SO much depth to it. For those who want to explore this, we do.
However how I work describe my work does beg the question - what is the force that lies underneath all that I do? What is my passion and how could I possibly narrow it down to a few words? What is the thread that continually weaves through LeavenWell?
I like to think a lot of my work is Wild Activism. This is at the heart of LeavenWell.
Activism is to give voice to the voiceless. Fight for the oppressed, the weak, the rejected, the vulnerable and marginalized. To stand for those who have some way been distorted or poorly represented. Well, in that way, I am an activist of the inner wild.The wildish nature within. The parts within us that know exactly how to thrive but have in fact been silenced by society. The parts within us that are tamed because their 'Wildness' have become a threat to the system of capitalism and power-over.
To our instinctual parts. Our inner knowing parts. Our creative and playful parts. The essence within us that has the precision of a panther. The ferocity of a lioness. The wisdom of a snake and the humility of a butterfly.
I stand for the deep formidable self trust...and the tedious, long and often lonely journey it takes to carve it out. I remind you of this essential nature of yours, in the hopes that you, one day, start to re-member.
I stand for the beautiful nature within us that has been manipulated in dysfunctional ways of living. To breathe life and belief back into our capacity to move beyond our rigid, linear ways. To regain our soulful flexibility.
And most obviously, I give voice to the BODY. That which is deeply oppressed and misunderstood; particularly women's. My job is to listen deeply to women, but the body has always been my/our greatest teacher.
I sanctify that which has been deemed the opposite; sexuality, pleasure, pelvis, body, somatic expression, vulva, pain, suffering, the symptoms and signals, grief, rage, the voices and opinions of women, autonomy...to name a few. I watch women re-gain a lost part of themselves in doing so.
'But in time, she learned to stand it, learned to stay close to what she once feared - her own wildish nature.' - Clarissa Pinkola Estés.
I breathe on the buried and brittle bones of your inner wild...in the hopes that, some day, they will grow stronger and denser. That one day, the small ember within you will regain it's flame. And the world around you, and within you, will be forever changed when you reconnect to the essential essence of who you are.
Katy xx
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