Teacher Feature, Nicole Renee
Nicole recalls being drawn to spirituality and understanding her body from an early age. As a child, she was mesmerized by the rituals of church, and by the feeling of connecting to God sparked within her heart. She felt every experience with innocence and openness.
Every emotion was a different texture inside, and as a child she learned that most of her emotions were too much for people around her. She was continually told to stop dancing or that she was laughing too much. She also had her appropriate feelings of grief and sadness met with consequences, so instead she turned to anger.
“In my family, anger was more welcome than crying and feeling sad. And as a child, I didn’t understand the somatic consequences of suppressing sadness. Today I continue to lean into allowing myself to be sad.” Nicole knew there was more to life as she watched the adults around her struggle to find happiness and physical health. As a child she appealed to God for relief from the stress of being yelled at, and cried alone in her room singing “This Little Light of Mine.”
“I spent a lot of my early childhood confused. People appeared unhappy and would argue without resolution. The women around me all wanted to ‘lose weight’ and would resort to acts of extreme willpower. Looking back, I developed my personality and my work around a deeper longing to understand being human. And alongside that, to express myself and find common ground with those people who could receive me. I realized the frozen grip that my unacknowledged sadness, grief and anger held on my creativity and vitality, and I became obsessed with building the capacity to truly experience the wisdom of those states of being. More than forgiveness, more than feeling my feelings, I have learned how to hold the paradoxes of life while allowing life to live through me.”
There was an arc of time between ages 20 and 35 where Nicole became able to identify her stress response and to stop the cascade of sensations. Nicole celebrated this at first, considering it a yogic practice of detaching from thought and emotion. However, it became clear that stopping those protective emotions caused her to lack the boundaries she needed.
“I did not realize that I was effectively choosing dissociation. And that through dissociation, though I was able to communicate in a more responsive way, I was not feeling the parts of me that were rightly angry. I was not able to consider that the person speaking to me could possibly have a distorted perspective and that I didn’t need to contort around them.”
Nicole learned the difference between merging with someone and meeting someone through shamanic herbalism and Somatic Experiencing. She now works with her clients to identify “what is me, what is not me, and what is the space between.” She holds tender witness to the paradoxes of life in each unique person she works with. And she sees people claim their joy and vitality alongside and during their experience of challenging, often tangled emotions.
Yoga asana offers an awareness of our bodies, minds and emotional range if we choose to engage the practice to that depth. What Somatic Experiencing offers to Yoga is the invitation to slow down, notice with curiosity and allow our bodies to complete movements, expressions and verbal statements that we have yet to claim. The blend of Somatic Experiencing and Yoga gives us the skills to complete and digest lingering responses to trauma, stress and relational disharmony.
“When we continually brace ourselves so we can act in accordance with the expectations of society, family, intimacy and work, we may suppress parts of us that overtime corrode our ability to be ourselves. My work is in restoring trust in natural body responses that have been wrongly labeled “reactivity” or which have been too much for some people in our lives. By honoring the wisdom of our bodies and establishing a firm center of agency, we understand we don’t have to change ourselves to heal. We get to allow ourselves to exist and learn to skillfully direct our attention and energy.”
Nicole realizes that her body felt the presence of a higher power as a child which gave her an insight into both understanding somatic sensations and the power of staying open to grace.
“As a child, we are wide open to reality and can see with curiosity and innocence. Over time, our experiences can drive us into limiting ourselves to fit in and to protect ourselves from very real hurts. I believe in the potential to live with our bright inner child, mature present self and optimum future self, weaving together a life well lived. I believe that anyone who dares to delight in the mundane, achieve healthy relationships and to feel gratified by their day-to-day life can and will.”
Nicole offers somatic coaching and private yoga sessions to those seeking individual care. This is a trauma resolution modality based on studies of animals in the wild who despite life threatening events do not show lingering signs of hyper vigilance, depression or anxiety.
Email info@charym.com to get more information on Nicole’s unique offerings!
