Essence Lab
CENTER FOR EMBODIED RELATIONSHIP
Essence Lab Foundations
What informs our work and how we live
We teach a Present Centered Practice that uses your life and relationships to connect more deeply with yourself and others.
. You heal your present relationships to heal your past.
We are shadow positive. What the world calls shadow is simply what is not yet known to you, It holds your mystery, gifts and deepest vulnerability.
In every moment you are in relationship to yourself, other and life. In this space you learn to embody who you really are.
Relationship always reveals where you’ve healed and where your work lies.
Relationship, the 'third space' exists between each sentient being. This space has the greatest potential for change and must be cultivated by becoming intimately aware of the emotional and relational field you create in every moment.
A 'conscious relational field' naturally creates a healing potential that begins to transform your wounding.
Being witnessed compassionately, understood within your narrative and empathized in your wounding or trauma~ while remaining in a connected relational space~ allows the trauma or wounded parts to have a reparative experince.
The "third space" invites the margainalized and fragmented parts of you to belong not only to yourself, but to the whole.
Presence is the embodied experience of being in the moment with access to your essential self and all of your emotions. It is a quality of awareness where you are at choice in how to respond to the moment.
Inquiry is a process of radical curiosity in identifying behaviors, narratives and thought patterns that show up in your life and following them to their emotional root.
You are already whole and have everything you need within you to heal, evolve, and become who you are meant to be. What blocks access to your wholeness are the undigested experiences from your past that get illuminated in relationship.
Undigested experiences accumulate in an internal system of protective and wounded parts. And while we often judge or resist them, they are the allies and vulnerabilities that need your compassion and presence to let go of their defended roles. All defenses are based in love. Their origin was to protect you when you were alone with the pain you were experiencing. Every trigger, obstacle, shadow, projection and stuck place in your life is an opportunity to heal.
Emotions live deep within us and carry the impressionistic story of our life’s journey. When accessed in the present moment, they give us a direct way to connect with our essence. When we avoid what we feel, we lose connection and move further from ourselves and others.
We turn toward what's uncomfortable by choice, trusting that it is an opening to more connection.
Projections ilumiate where we are not present in relationship. To the extent we are in a projection, we are blended with a part of us that is living in a past context.
The movement from ‘Knowing Yourself to Being Yourself’ is a practice we call embodiment. It is when we move from simply being aware of our obstacles to experiencing and working them as a path to real-time change.
Change requires our willingness to bear the tension between who we are and who we want to be. Since we have been conditioned to avoid this tension, we begin to believe (consciously and unconsciously) that change is out of reach and begin trying to bypass the discomfort or force a behavioral change. This never works for long. It’s only when we slow down, accept the discomfort and commit to the journey that the healing has a space it needs to work.
How you are in relationship to one thing, is how you are in relationship to all things.