Emotions are key to healing. But most of us aren’t taught that emotions other than happy, nice, people-pleasing, with a little bit of ruthless ambition, are acceptable.
As a result, most people have lost touch with their feelings, and the very important messages that your feelings are trying to tell you.
Sometimes the only way you can hear your spirit, your soul, your energetic heart calling to you is through your emotions.
But because so many of your feelings have been shamed, invalidated, dismissed, and even used against you, it becomes hard to hear or trust your intuition, your inner wisdom.
Adding to the problems of not knowing how you’re feeling, not being comfortable feeling your feels, and not knowing how to communicate in healthy ways, there’s also the systemic, institutionalized misogyny (hatred of women) and Othering of anyone who’s been marginalized.
That destructive combination makes for a toxic brew that can leave you scrambling to know who you are, or want and who you want.
Mind / Body / Spirit
Our big brains can cause us a lot of trouble. Negative self-talk, ruminating, over-thinking, our mindset (how our minds interpret the world), our schemas (the little boxes where the brain/mind keeps everything organized) — all of these can keep you stuck in an endless downward spiral of never being good enough.
What we forget, all the time, is that human beings aren’t just neck-up heads that drag a body and soul and energetic heart along with our big brains.
What we are is complete and whole, encompassing our brain/mind, physical body, and spirit. And guess what? We don’t end at our skin; our subtle energy extends about an arm’s length out in front and all around us.
The Japanese language has a word that translates into English as body/mind/spirit/soul. The word is kokoro. It’s not an easy direct translation, but one way to think about it is that it refers to “the heart of things.”
- What’s at the heart of things in your life?
- What’s underneath the anxiety, sadness, overwhelm, and stress?
- And what is your energetic heart trying to tell you?
The Heart of Things
A longish but cool explanation of kokoro is:
Kokoro is a Japanese word that is often translated as “heart” or “spirit.” However, the concept of kokoro encompasses what a person thinks, feels, and would like to express. It is made of a person’s thoughts and will that drive them forward, the knowledge and experience they have acquired through time, and all their feelings.
And yet kokoro is more than the sum of all these elements: it is all these elements at the same time. Each person’s features give their kokoro its own “color” and “shape,” making every human a distinct individual with a unique inner richness.
A person’s kokoro cannot be seen or touched: it resides in the area of the heart. Hidden in this invisible kokoro, lies a complex patchwork of ideas, concepts, and feelings that cannot be fully accessed from the outside.
One’s kokoro lives in everything he or she creates. The creation can be material or conceptual. (https://kokoro-jp.com/what-is-kokoro/)
How Spiritual Counseling Can Help You
Peace is something that’s usually missing when people reach out to a therapist or counselor. And since peace is an inside job, connecting with the part of yourself that understands peace can be deeply healing.
The truth is that you have a place inside your energetic heart and psyche that knows peace. And when you learn how to connect with your inner wisdom, called Wise Mind in DBT, you’ll be much closer to achieving your goals.
Once you learn how to trust yourself, you’ll also be able to start trusting others. And trust, of course, is the foundation for any healthy relationship, including the one you have with yourself.
Another way that spiritual therapy can help heal your suffering is in gentle explorations of parts of your life and your experiences that may have felt too scary to look at before. If you think you’ve been emotionally, physically, or sexually abused, part of your spirit may still be hurting and need attention and care. Emotional and spiritual healing with an experienced, highly trained professional can help you.
Next, spiritual counseling can help you feel emotionally safe, which allows you to begin trusting yourself and other people. And trust is the foundation for healthy connections with others. Friends, lovers, partners, work colleagues, family relationships can become dramatically better when you know you to trust yourself and take care of yourself.
Finally, the thing about doing any work with a psychotherapist or counselor is that it is sacred work, whether or not it’s named as such.
Something in you feels broken. And it’s in the healing that the work becomes sacred.
What Does Spiritual Therapy Have to do With Religion?
Basically, nothing.
Spiritual therapy is not connected with religion. In fact, dogmatic or fundamentalist beliefs block you from your spirituality.
Do I Have to be “Spiritual” to Work With the Santa Fe Therapist?
Absolutely not! A lot of people don’t spend much time thinking about their spiritual selves, and that’s totally OK.
In fact, many of my clients work with me because I use a lot of CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy), DBT (dialectical behavior therapy), ACT (acceptance and commitment therapy), and MBSR (mindfulness based stress reduction), along with a few other creative modalities.
What I do with every beloved client is work with them to heal dysfunctional patterns from the past that are making it too hard to be at peace with the present or build their future.
We’ll work together on whatever’s making you uncomfortable, and you’ll learn the techniques and coping skills that work best for you.
If you have a spiritual practice that’s important to you, that’s great. If you’re curious about spirituality and want to explore that, also great. And if you no interest in or desire to ever talk about it, that’s totally cool.
My goals for you are that you feel emotionally safe while working in counseling to help process and heal, and that you succeed with the goals you bring to therapy.
The Santa Fe Therapist Approach to Emotional & Spiritual Therapy in Santa Fe, NM
I’m Melanie, the Santa Fe Therapist. I think of emotional and spiritual therapy as learning how to love yourself into wholeness.
In my experience, learning how to love yourself can be a lifelong journey. Emotional and spiritual healing and wellbeing happen when you deepen into your true self, uncovering, processing, and releasing layer after layer of learned self-doubt, even self-hatred.
Then, you can begin replacing those unhealthy layers with what’s good and true and authentic for you.
It’s really about understanding how to feel emotionally safe in a dangerous world. You’ll experience freedom when you know how to recognize being connected with something grander (and more important) than your tiny, ego-based monkey-mind thinking. That connection can be as simple and beautiful as loving and caring for your doggo.
The Santa Fe Therapist Offers Online Counseling in Santa Fe, NM
Online therapy helps overwhelmed women find the time away from day-to-day pressures to calm their nervous systems. It also makes it easy and convenient to process emotions and learn new neuroscience techniques cope with challenges, heal the past, and begin building your future.
I strongly believe in the power of online counseling. Along with the research that proves its effectiveness, I see the positive benefits for my clients every week. If you’ve got questions about online therapy, please click here.
Online counseling from anywhere in New Mexico, including Santa Fe, Albuquerque, Taos, Los Alamos, Pecos, Las Vegas, Tesuque and El Dorado.
What to do Now to Begin Emotional & Spiritual Therapy in Santa Fe, NM
You don’t have to suffer alone anymore. Please, send me an email, and let’s schedule a free, 15-minute phone consultation: melanie@melanieharth.com.
Other Services From The Santa Fe Therapist
The Santa Fe Therapist specializes in several areas of health, wellbeing, healing and recovery. I know that one size never fits all. OurMy services are individualized to each client, and are based on your values, your needs and desires, and your goals.
I offer individual adult counseling and guidance in Santa Fe, NM for:
- dealing with overwhelming angst and despair
- anxiety help
- depression help
- emotional and spiritual healing
- processing grief
- overcoming low self-esteem
- learning how to make peace with the present
- PTSD and CPTSD/trauma
- helping you manage stress
- online therapy