Coming home to ourselves means coming home to the only home we will ever know, our body.

One of the biggest challenges we may face in contacting our shadow and other parts is how the nervous system has organized around these parts to regulate and keep ourselves safe. It makes sense that to gain access to our parts, we must first have permission from the body.

I have trained in the Hakomi method, body-centered psychotherapy of assisted self-study. Hakomi creates an entrance to the shadow elements of ourselves, our many parts, stuck emotions, and past wounding through the body instead of the intellect. Hakomi differs from traditional cognitive therapy by taking a mindfulness-based approach: In Hakomi, nearly the entire therapy process takes place in mindfulness.

The founder of Hakomi, Ron Kurtz, and the founder of Internalized Family Systems (IFS), Dr. Richard Schwartz, were good friends and colleagues who created their therapies in unison, often taking notes from the other and citing each other’s work in their many books. IFS and Hakomi are very similar modalities. However, the main difference between IFS and Hakomi is how we enter into a relationship with our parts, IFS is through the intellect first, and Hakomi is through the body first. To best serve everyone’s unique experience of parts work, I blend the two modalities to gently help you access and integrate the parts of yourself arising in therapy.

By asking the body’s permission before entering into parts of work, we are respecting how we have defended ourselves against injuries to the mind-body by not creating another betrayal. Hakomi is a consent-based body-centered psychotherapy, meaning contact with these parts is always optional, and respecting the body’s pace can be just as healing as the work itself.