Alex Greene and Ellen McKenzie are US-based TRE Certification Trainers. We run online and in-person training programs for foundational TRE certification as well as continuing education programs.
I love this conversation! I am a certified TRE provider in Chicago. Thank you so much. I have a strong background in movement and also psychotherapy for my own recovery from trauma. I’m really interested in helping people that are in the recovery community. TRE has been a game changer for my own recovery. I am finding it very challenging to get the word out.
Absolutely the most profound and enlightening discussion I’ve heard on this topic so far! Thank you both so much for this conversation and for illuminating the evolution in our understanding of the world of spontaneous movement and specifically TRE.
Wow. Just wow. I’m half way through but I’m so grateful Richmond has put such emphasis on the crossover of these practices into daily life. That’s one of the things I noticed too. This is not just release of the body. This is creating the conditions of Wei Wu Wei in a really profound way. I find I not only use TRE for release of the chronic tension in the body, which it does an absolutely brilliant job at doing, but also for falling back into. Surrender. Release. Even self inquiry in a very Zen way, letting go of attention, observing the ‘self’ through this means becomes much more profitable. Yeah, I’m just so glad it’s being talked about in the broader spectrum of psycho-spiritual maturity rather than just a release of tension from the past. Just brilliant.
Good interview Thankyou . I have often used the phrase, “Let Go,” often in my life - whilst birthing, tremoring - through kundalini awakening, and relinquishing the hard shell of the ego bound self to the embodied experience of awakened consciousness. Letting go into the wisdom of the body - the SELF that lies within❤️🌳🙏
I'm from a village in India I have always fascinated about feldenkrais method, as I like to observe people of body talk.... I have been trying if any online webinars to attend that can help me to understand it better at my work. Kindly lemme know if any online webinars or any conversations particularly about feldenkrais 🙏
I also found this conversation really interesting and helpful, thank you both. I am curious to hear more about working with clients with very sensitive systems due to lots of trauma. I have some clients who tremor for less than 30 seconds at a time before having tons of flashbacks of trauma. Is there any logic to establishing a basic sense of safety through simple body awareness while pendulating between different autonomic states or pendulating attention between areas of the body that feel safe and areas that don’t? I did this today with a client and didn’t even have her tremor because I feel she needs some kind of baseline recognition of what safety feels like in her body. I used pictures of animals to create a sense of safety in her, inviting her to bring her attention to what her body feels like when she looks at the animals (she is a huge animal lover). I’d love to hear from both or either of you about this kind of client and how to bring them gently into the process and towards results. Thanks so much for sharing your wisdom and experience!
Hi! Thanks for giving it a watch. Yes, agreed, some systems can go into flashbacks with very little tremoring. In this case, I'm in agreement with you that building general safety and self-regulation skills first can be helpful. Sometimes I might go back to using some of the 6 preparatory exercises as a way to connect to body/breath/awareness but with minimal tremoring. Other times I might teach self-regulation awareness and skills with Somatic Experiencing first -- tracking sensation, pendulating awareness, balancing interoception and exteroception, developing a vocabulary for window of tolerance etc. And then moving into tremoring as a later step. In other situations like you've described I might have the person access tremoring sitting or standing against a wall - removing laying on one's back from the setup often reduces the tendency towards trauamatic flashback. Above all, I try to create a lighthearted atmosphere of curious exploration without expectations of anything in particular being "accomplished" that day.
@@AlexGreeneTRE Beautiful, thank you. I will keep in mind the lightheartedness and curiosity. Super important aspects. I think my intuition was good here, based on what you wrote, and definitely agree about the sitting or standing. I learned that from David, and definitely see why it’s important in these cases. Thanks so much for the wonderful conversation and helpful advice.
The first session with her I just got her to talk about her animals. I was desperately trying to find something to create safety in her since she didn’t have any in her body. Interestingly, she now looks at her cat differently than before and can recognize that the feeling she has with her animals is one of safety. Previously she had told me she didn’t know what safety felt like. So I used that to bring her awareness to the fact that she has experienced safety and to what that feels like. Today I told her we would continue pendulating back and forth, but also reminded her of various good relationships she had told me about (including with her animals). I pointed out that the overarching belief is “I never feel safe”, but that in fact there are plenty of counter-examples to this, and that we will try to weave those together into something noticeable. I suggested as homework that bring her attention to all the moments where she feels safe or she feels something pleasant, no matter how short, and to notice what that feels like in her body. This basically is finding counter-examples to dispel that belief, but also brings her more awareness of safety in her body. I have Angelo Dilullo and Hale Dwoskin to thank for this idea, in part.
