About Joy Walker.
To say I understand Somatic Personal Resonance from the inside out is an understatement; I’ve been a SPRe client myself for more than twenty years! It has given me a life I never imagined I’d have.
I’ve shared my body with Rheumatoid Arthritis, an autoimmune condition, for over half my life.
After years of indifferent success with Western medicine and medication, and suffering from chronic pain, tension, joint dysfunction, terrible fatigue, and flare ups, I was still managing to live my life, but it wasn’t easy, and I wanted more.
In my 30’s, I entered into a somatic therapeutic process with the Founder of SPRe Bodywork, Jill Ableson.
“Our complaints, symptoms, and problems can function as signposts, pointing us in the direction of something thats still unresolved. They can help us bring something to light that we cannot see...””
I just wanted to move forward more comfortably.
Together, Jill and I determined that the RA, although a real disease, was also a descriptor of aspects of my home of origin, manifested through my body. The spark that truly ignited it was years of the unrelentingly stressful, isolation, neglect, fear, confusion, and rage endemic to my family of origin.
At twenty-one, my body finally said a big, fat NO, and the rage-induced inflammation began, affecting muscles, joints, bones and every other tissue in my body.
My medical condition may be a stress-related disease caused by unbearable and long-term strain on my nervous system.
http://www.joywalker-spre.com/body-language/roots-of-my-bodys-truth
The little I know of my family’s generational history tells me I may also have a fair amount of familial trauma that may have affected what and how my genes function.
Approaching the RA as a real disease, but also finding the true connection between it and what happened to me, was empowering, and allowed me to gain more of myself as well as a greater ease in my body and out in the world.
I truly believe that the attunement between myself and my Practitioner was the key to my success. My childhood was an isolated one, with inconsistent attention and caregiving. Cutting edge neurobiological science tells us that reduced or no attachment and stress in the parenting environment during infancy leads to a range of emotional and physical issues, such as ADHD, anxiety, and addiction. In a sense, the attunement of SPRe - what Carl Rogers called ‘unconditional positive regard’ - allowed me to be re-parented, and reconnect many of the severed neurological and emotional connections I would have formed in childhood.
Being able to attune with my clients and see similar helpful effects is truly the best part of my job!
“When a person is encouraged to get in touch with and express his deepest feelings, in the secure knowledge that he will not be rejected, criticized, nor expected to be different, some kind of rearrangement or sorting-out process often occurs within the mind which brings with it a sense of peace...”
People often ask me why they should engage in this process, or if having therapy is really worth the time and money. I tell them that engaging in my own SPRe process was rewarding for a multitude of reasons! After years of SPRe, I’ve been able to develop the ability to emotionally and mentally distance myself from the difficult thing, person, or situation in front of me for just long enough that I can really feel what is happening internally and decide how I want to respond. I didn’t realize, until I listened to a clip of a talk by Harriet Lerner, one of my favorite therapists and authors, that I was, in essence, working with my own Fight/Flight/Freeze/Fawn response!
I believe so strongly in the benefits of SPRe, that I became a Practitioner myself, and I now work with clients who suffer from their own stress-related diseases and who struggle to connect their bodies with their minds – cognition with sensation.
I understand intimately what it’s like to have your body do something you don’t understand, to have your life put on hold again and again because of challenging symptoms, to feel daily fatigue, and to be angry and despairing at the pain and discomfort.
“It helps me practice understanding my chronic pain, and engaging with it; instead of being angry with it, just trying to understand what its trying to say.”
“As a SPRe Practitioner, I get to use all of the aspects of my Self and experience - even the difficult, painful, or awkward - to help my clients make connections in their bodies and their lives. I love my job! ”
I enjoy working with anyone who wants to explore the purpose of their body’s tension, especially those who are navigating challenging life experiences, injuries, or pain.
Writing allows me to process the events and experiences in my life (many of which have been difficult and/or traumatic.) It also allows me to describe my chronic illness and how SPRe has changed and opened up my body and my life.
I encourage you to check out my blog, Body Language!