Case study: Lisa

At first, Lisa found a sense of direction through relationships rather than within herself, and her emotions were below her level of consciousness. 

‘I had a high tolerance for not feeling. Having a partner all the time was convenient in giving me direction. I didn't know who to be if there were multiple strong personalities around. I would get really confused. I was always shapeshifting’.

Supporting Lisa to anchor within herself (rather than solely through a relationship with others) was important in building a foundation for Lisa. This meant helping Lisa to really connect with what her experience was in the moment in her body and feelings. This started with identifying sensations through the body (sensation mapping).

Lisa shared about some of her experiences. Lisa brought a genuine willingness to observe herself, but it took time for Lisa to identify sensations through her body without describing thoughts or mental concepts. 

‘Sensation mapping took so long for me to understand. The thing I didn't know was that I was like a floating head.’

As Lisa started to connect with her body and sensations, she started to realise that there was ‘so much tension’ in her body. Feeling the sensations of the body for Lisa felt uncomfortable and so it felt more comfortable to return to her thoughts. We slowly helped Lisa to soothe through gentle movement, breathing and mindfulness to incrementally build her capacity to feel her body. This helped Lisa to realise that she was ‘dysregulated a lot of the time’. Connecting Lisa with her genuine heartfelt intentions for herself were central to helping Lisa to actually want to be in her body, even if there was some discomfort at times. 

‘I really wanted to be present in my life so I wouldn’t make the same mistakes again’. 

Bringing equal attention to the comfortable and positive experiences in her body was also part of reshaping this relationship with her body. ‘I didn't know how lovely it could feel in the body. The body could be a place of home and safety and pleasure.’ 

Building self-awareness around the nature and rhythms of her body helped Lisa to begin to flow with the whole continuum of sensations her body could experience. Alongside connecting with sensations, our work focussed on helping Lisa to identify the feelings that these sensations connected to (rather than the thoughts alone). 

‘As it turns out, I have heaps of feelings. It was such a wild realisation!’

As Lisa’s capacity to feel and sense her genuine experience of the past and present began to grow, we were able to use stronger body techniques to bring some of her unconscious patterns into consciousness. Lisa needed support to feel full of energy and grounded at the same time for her experience to become clear. Consciously, Lisa was aware that she would become different and get confused by her behaviour when she was with different people. As we explored through the body, Lisa realised that beneath this:

‘I didn’t trust what people presented. I was always trying to figure people out instead of responding to what they showed me. I felt like it would help me to strategies how to respond based on what I felt they would expect. I tried to figure them out so I knew how to tailor myself to what they wanted and how to present so they would like me. I felt like I need to be what people wanted. It was so exhausting!'

As part of this process Lisa was able to connect to and feel her genuine grief and remorse through her body about how she had hurt herself and her ex-partners when she lost herself in wanting others to like her. 

Over time Lisa was also able to connect to the juicy but negative pleasure of ‘how I could be seductive and rope people in by giving them what they wanted’. The aliveness in this sense of false power over others kept this behaviour in place, even though the outcomes were so painful for Lisa. 

‘I became aware of how my behaviour was self-betraying. I was rescuing others, being overly available to other people's needs, acting outside of my values, and didn’t have any boundaries with others. It was all for external validation.’
 

Slowly, Lisa became ‘more present to the real me, without all the other stuff’. This growing connection with her real self, made it possible to move more deeply into the root causes of some of Lisa’s painful patterns. 

Part of this was about connecting to the experiences of her past which helped to form these patterns and allowing the impulses and feelings she had locked down in the past to move through her.  Lisa’s body slowly began to feel that the shapeshifting and seduction was an old pattern that worked at some point in her early life. This pattern was important to her being met in some way in her family, even though her true self and her needs were not met.

Lisa was then able to let go of some of her ‘demands and my resentments’ from that were coming out in her present relationship. 

‘I really learned about my needs – some were what I really wanted now as an adult and some were coming from young needs or experiences’.

Instead of being demanding and resentful, Lisa was able to start to communicate what she wanted and needed in her relationships. Lisa was also able to start communicating what was not okay for her in the dynamic of her relationship. 

‘I set lots of boundaries –  both sexual boundaries and personal boundaries. I was finally getting to know me and very excited about it.’

As Lisa could interrupt the cycle of ‘strategising’ or manipulating to avoid the pain of not having her needs met and was able to set clear boundaries with her partner, Lisa began to see that there was a genuine gap ‘between when I wanted and what was on offer’ in her relationship.  This was painful by truthful for Lisa. 

As Lisa became more willing to see what was real and genuine for her in the situation, even when it was painful, she was also able to take responsibility for her part and let go of what was not hers. 

Lisa started to let go of the struggle against her reality. Without her patterns actively trying to take her out of her feelings and experience, Lisa could feel ‘my heart. I felt vulnerable - wild and timid animal within me that needed to be hand reared’. Lisa started to explore this beautiful, natural place within herself. 

‘Now I come into sessions, and I’m not scared to feel myself. I feel more willing to feel those tender places. I feel I really know the level of how sweet and soft I can be in my nature. I feel like I have reclaimed my sensitivity and how that be a beautiful gift and not just something that gets in the way of things. I genuinely feel my clear sense of a moral code within myself’.