Working with individuals working through their trauma enables me to contribute to my community and context in a nuanced, humanistic and playful way. My commitment towards this profession is often reinforced in relation to the personal, lived experience of working through my own severe symptoms of Complex Trauma.

So many things! A few are mentioned here:

* being able to co-create a safe/brave enough space for my clients, so as to facilitate reaching parts of them that often have never been touched, felt, or seen
* to facilitate their ability to live with a sense of lightness even as there is heaviness in the body/in life
* to help them create the intentional practice of approaching these parts with gentle curiosity
* to collaboratively notice the tiny shifts in their emotional/regulatory capacity that make for long-term changes over time (to the extent of resolving chronic health concerns such as those related to loneliness, felt pain, and specific physical health-related diagnoses like PCOD, hypertension, diabetes, etc.)
* being able to work towards empowering their Body and their sense of Self so they are able to find and stay with the Joy, Play, Humor and Rest that life can offer (but more often than not, has been hard to access for the Individual, regardless of their efforts)

An initial, brief glance at how a therapeutic space with me could help with their specific concerns (if they are known), or the start of a discussion that makes room for overall goals for therapy considering my integrative approach. An understanding of the boundaries of my practice will also likely be deepened in first session, so as to help design the individual’s expectations of the therapeutic space.

• If you’re feeling nervous, uncertain or overwhelmed: these are fairly normal responses to starting Therapy! Your Therapist is well-aware of this possibility and is trained to help you settle or work through these emotions starting from the first session itself
  * Please take your time to experience the a ‘good-enough’ fit with your Therapist. Finding this fit is an essential part of the process, and can have a significant impact on your health outcomes (i.e., your goals in Therapy)!
  * My practice isn’t about ‘fixing’ you or your symptoms; I find that a more humanistic (and many times more efficient!) way is to elicit your Self’s naturalistic capacity for recovery. This process is steeped in the belief that regardless of your past experiences, or the ‘brokenness’ you may feel within, it is ALWAYS possible to slowly come back to an empowered, capable and authentic sense of who you are (and not just who you need to be). This is especially true with the support of an empathetic presence.

A safe/brave-enough therapeutic space co-created with an empathetic, capable and human presence.

That all human beings are capable of not just healing, but also of growing into their most aspirational and awesome potentials.

• 🌿attunement to the client’s needs in the present moment
  * 🌿the skill of gently helping usher in more of humour, play, and humanness to ‘heavier’ discussions
  * 🌿the ability to listen to the client (or their body) when they are communicating what they’re feeling towards specific strategies being used in a given session, and then to pivot as needed - especially when they’re saying ’no’ to something
  * 🌿my own capacity to self-regulate, be present, and continue being curious about ‘what’s coming up?’ - this often translates to a sense of co-regulation with each individual client (thus expressing my own willingness to witness them as they are, and a proficiency in my ability to practically do so)
  * my commitment to sustain my learning within this field in order to maintain best possible professional practices within my work

I like to take my time to read, be more intentional in my personal practices like my riyaaz and my naps, research different possibilities for travel, play with watercolours or charcoal (depending on my mood!), spend good quality time with my Nature beings (animals and humans alike)

• I employ Body-based, Integrative Psychotherapies in my practice. Since the most immediate context of the mind is the Body, I can help work with a person’s thoughts, emotions, behaviours AND sensations (which is the language of the body).
  * Such a therapeutic process often create multiple access points for mental health recovery - that is, you can choose, in a given moment, the pathway through which they would prefer to work with themselves, in a given session. This could help add a sense of ease and agency to your therapeutic experience
  * One important exception to this above statement within my trauma-informed practice is this - I may request you to pause every now and then to notice (with intentionality) how your body’s sensations are responding the content of our discussion. This practice essentially helps us stay present session, in place of moving towards more of overwhelm, dissociation and general disconnect
  * As a result, my approach does not rely purely on what you express by way of words, but what your body as a whole is communicating (especially with respect to its felt sense of safety/unsafety)
  * 🌿I may also employ Nature-based practices in session, especially if you relate to nature as a possible resource in a safe-enough way.

It is my sincere endeavour to co-create safer spaces for ALL bodies and their corresponding expressions. Within the context of Nature-based work specifically, Nature may act as a Co-Therapist by lending its enormous capacity to augment resilience + acceptance + authenticity for all living beings regardless of what they may look, feel or think like. For my Self, it often lend a sense of accountability and reflection based on what can be considered ’naturalistic’ in general and what can help expand this sense based on the client’s needs and desires.

I strive to inculcate various values related to intersectionality and embodied social justice within my professional and personal practices. These often lead to the expression of a professional Self that is consciously intuitive, that can help a person slowly but surely come back into a sense of belonging within their body.