How can we best navigate the stormy ocean of our lives? Gemma Carroll , Holistic Coach, Counsellor and Teacher explains.

How can we best navigate the stormy ocean of our lives?

When I was 10 years old, my family and I were involved in a near-fatal head-on crash with a truck and trailer unit, bearing a load of timber on the open highway. We were travelling home after a happy spring holiday, in the lakes region of Central Otago, New Zealand. As a little girl I witnessed my family being smashed to pieces and receiving my own serious injuries as well, this was catastrophic and terrifying.

Then followed 6 & ½ years of great sadness for our family as we were separated and residing in different hospitals, intensive care units, spinal units and the homes of family and friends on multiple occasions.  When we were finally reunited in a new home which could accommodate a wheelchair for my now tetraplegic mother, we were all broken and grief-stricken… 5 separate people on their own paths of great sadness, fear, confusion and pain.

Eventually my mother’s life ended in an intensive care unit, attached to life support for the last 6 months of her life, while a medical ethics committee debated whether she be allowed to refuse medical treatment. She eventually was awarded that choice and with some caveats and boundaries, she finally left her broken body and the rest of us to process the great loss, but also the great release.

I was 17 years old when she died and while my friends were all bursting with excitement at leaving high school, going to university and flatting, I was numbing my pain and feeling lost and alone in the world.

I eventually came to therapy in my late 20s when I discovered Yoga and meditation techniques. This was my introduction to start to safely encounter my inner world, with a gentle, quiet gaze, and the safe guidance of a good teacher. I learned to access my inner world through my physical body, in a natural, slow, compassionate way. These practices have been my anchor for 23 years now and will remain with me forever.

Through my adult years I also had the support of a Gestalt psychotherapist for some time and I undertook various trainings to deepen my own healing and to start to help others too. All this whilst raising a family, which can be a healing and learning journey in itself.

Further painful experiences were to come in my life, with the loss of our family farmlet,  when I separated from the love of my life; the death of my children’s father after a prolonged illness; raising 2 teenagers on my own for 6 years; estrangement from some family members and so on. Not extraordinary events, but cumulatively they had a deep impact and created ongoing stress.

Inevitably in life we will experience some kind of suffering. This may be due to one shocking event or multiple, on-going painful, threatening or toxic events or situations. It may make the headlines or it may manifest quietly in relationships with family or primary caregivers. Even as a baby, the developmental imprints can begin with a difficult birth, or being left to cry too long or not being able to breastfeed. It may be that an accident or illness befalls you, but basically no-one gets through life without some challenge, obstacle or difficulty.

I look back now and know the power of Yoga saved my life. I am so grateful to the teachers who appeared in my life and the close Yoga friends I have, who are doing their own inner work and know what this entails and what it delivers. This ancient tradition has influenced many modern, Western, psychotherapeutic methods, including those that I employ in my one-to-one and group work.

Using mindfulness (or focussed attention), gentle breath awareness (or if appropriate simple breathing exercises) and feeling into the senses of the physical body, we can  safely access the subtle layers of thoughts, emotions and memories. Whether it be via Internal Family Systems, Hakomi Psychotherapy, Somatic Experiencing or Embodied Processing… all these therapeutic approaches contain aspects of the ancient wisdom developed 5000 years ago in the Indic culture.

My preference is to utilise the tools I gained through my Embodied Processing trainings and this is always be informed by my decades of Yoga practice and teaching. My yoga asana teacher does nothing more than support me in bringing awareness to my inner world through attention, physical postures and breathing. I do the same as a Yoga teacher and it becomes even more potent when I can work intentionally with a counselling client using focused one-to-one guidance with the Embodied processing techniques, to explore particularly stuck aspects of self.

After finding a much calmer, more curious and compassionate way to experience my own life, I am so grateful to be in service to the wellness and happiness of others. I am living proof that terrible things can happen but it is possible to feel all the feelings and return to a balanced, peaceful mind and body. I’ve made it my mission to help unlock the full potential in life and to enable thriving, in place of surviving.

My compassionate approach focuses on empowering clients to welcome all parts of their inner world and to move forward with hope in their heart.

I know for myself the transformative power of integrated East-West therapies that nurture mind, body, and spirit. I know from my own personal healing journey, that a peaceful, resilient mind and a meaningful, happy life, full of gratitude and awe, is possible. All it requires is curiosity, sincerity, discipline, courage, gentleness and commitment.

If you feel stuck in old trauma loops and have a sense that there must be a way to move through the difficulties, to heal and thrive, but know you need some guidance, then connect with me for coaching or counselling.

Please follow my newly established Instagram profile @themindbodyguru or contact me via my website. You can find a regular monthly blog there too, if you’re interested in learning more about me and the way I work.

FEATURED THERAPIST NOVEMBER 2024