The Honoring Center Way
The Honoring Center Way is a truly holistic (body, emotions, mind and sprit), collaborative approach for embracing and transforming challenges in the varied relationships of your life. It is a synthesis of modalities such as Internal Family SystemsSM and Hakomi,and many years of my experience.
The Honoring Center Way uses the wisdom of your body as a guide, which adds depth and richness to the results you will notice. In a safe and respectful collaboration, you and I will employ the ARRT (Acknowledge, Relieve, Release, Transform) of the Honoring Center Way to communicate with Parts or aspects of you — for instance, anger, feeling stuck or hyper, anxiety, distraction or discomfort. You will experience your True Self emerging in new, surprising, delightful and meaningful ways. You will feel results in your own life first, then you’ll become aware of the positive impact your transformations have on your relationships and the larger world around you.
The following description is a general overview of a session rather than an agenda. You are in charge of the session so your pace and timing are respected. I manage the session, holding the space, asking gentle questions, watching and listening for what wants to be expressed.
HONORING CENTER WAY
- WELCOME, CONNECTION and SAFETY: I hold the space, implicitly trusting the wisdom of the body and the process. I believe you and your many Parts sense this which starts the connection of safety and trust between us.
- DEEPENING: Moving attention inward to sense what the body is communicating – which Part wants your attention most.
- GENTLE QUESTIONING: Asking the Part what it wants to have understood. Respectfully asking other Parts to wait their turns to be heard.
- LISTENING and ACKNOWLEDGING LEADING TO RELIEF: Deeply hearing the Part’s experiences and concerns without judgment or criticism.
- SENSING: How do the body, mind and emotions respond in present time to the Part’s experiences?
- REVEALING: You truly understand what the Part has been doing, realizing the impact on your life — your body, mind, emotions and spirit — your relationships.
- CONNECTION: With compassion (or other trait of Self: ex. curiosity, caring, acceptance) offer Part what it needed and didn’t get and at the time of its experience.
- RELEASING: The Part is ready and does put down the responsibility of protecting but does not leave itself. Qualities/traits it gave up in order to hold the responsibility are invited back.
- PHYSICAL REAL TIME RELEASING: You notice and release where you have been holding impact of this responsibility in or around your real time body. You feel the results.
- TRANSFORMATION: The relieved Part joins you in real time. The responsibility is now history for the Part, not its present experience.
- TRUST IN SELF: Your True Self is now able to choose action, emotion or thought appropriate to a situation rather than the Part making the choices. The relieved Part can now inform your Self when it’s concerned about a situation but it is no longer responsible to protect — the Self acts as a “conductor” of the Parts to form the symphony of your life.