Can you see me?

One of the things that I'm working on in my healing process is tuning into my basic needs, especially my need to be seen and acknowledged. It is a challenge for me to even know that I need that, never mind asking for it because in my early life and through no fault of anyone, there wasn't a lot of seeing and acknowledging going on. 

I think I tried to ask for what I needed but after a while, I gave up and I concluded that my needs don't matter. I decided that If they don’t matter there’s no sense in trying to notice them. It just hurts too much. 

I don't know if you can relate to my experience but I believe that to some extent this is a common struggle for most humans. No matter how great our caretakers were and even with their best intentions, there's a good chance that our needs weren't filled entirely because no caregivers are able to be constantly physically and emotionally available, especially in a society with multiple oppressions. 

It turns out that there's a movement therapy technique that, among many other things addresses this specific issue and it's called Authentic Movement. 

Authentic Movement is a technique I incorporate in my practice with groups and individuals who want to uncover the parts of themselves that are unknown to them and that are buried in their subconscious. In our daily life, we only have access to a very small portion of the self.

Much of our training focuses on developing our mental capabilities but there's so much more to us that we deserve to expose. It’s a matter of tapping into our full potential.

In this practice, we attempt to bypass the intellect and allow the body to express the subconscious feelings, sensations, images, memories, dreams, and desires through movement by asking the body to tell its story. We then harness the mind to the task and engage it by asking it to notice the events as they unfold, as if it was noticing them from the outside, just like in meditation. 

In addition to engaging our own inner witness, there's often an outer witness that holds the space for us as movers with an open, aware, non-judgmental attention. I find that this setup, in and of itself, is so healing and addresses specifically the early hurt around not being seen. 

Or as the presenter in the video below says:

“Authentic Movement is helpful if there’s a history of neglect, where you have the experience that your primary experience goes unnoticed or is unimportant and that may have happened very early in your life with parenting figures who for whatever reasons were not able to respond to the immediacy of your needs, your expressions and to mirror that back and let you know that you exist and that what you’re experiencing is alive and important”.