BodySoul Work

03/23/2026

A new book by Professor Helen Payne about using Authentic Movement (AM) in various forms and contexts, spanning over three decades of Dr. Payne's practice and featuring a collection of her major works. She is well-known in England teaching at the University of Hertfordshire. She writes about the ground form, group formats, AM and clinical supervision, the Discipline of AM, body as container and expresser, bodies becoming conscious, the psycho-neurology of embodiment, AM and nature connectedness, relational psychotherapy and AM, and interoception, anxiety, and training in AM.

Routledge, 2026.

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03/08/2026

I'm proud to be a part of this stream of dance/movement therapy, a profession that was started by women and continues to be peopled mostly by women.

We were 50 years ahead of the somatic revolution in mental health treatment...ahead of the body bros who act like they invented the idea of bringing the body into psychotherapy (you know who they are).

For women healers, creators, inventors, and especially women who dance to heal themselves and the world: we see you! 

02/01/2026

For psychotherapists in the Seattle area: I am offering an in-person monthly series of 5 gatherings to learn about and experience Authentic Movement through a Jungian lens. The series will begin mid-February, meeting on Sundays and continuing through June. Our first gathering is February 15. Interview is required if you haven't experienced Authentic Movement with me. Space is limited. Please DM me for further details.

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01/11/2026

YOU are invited to an in-person frame drum workshop for beginners in the Layne Redmond style of women's sacred frame drumming. Drums provided for the first 10 people to sign up.

We'll learn about the sacred history of women's frame drumming, learn the basic strokes, learn how to find rhythm in our bodies, learn to hold the drum, play the basic strokes connected with the elements, sing, learn some rhythms to play at home, and join together in a group with chant and song with the drum...and more!

Visit www.framedrumsisters.com for more info and to sign up.

We meet on 1-4 PM Saturday, JANUARY 25, 2026.

01/03/2026

Embodied women's frame drumming in the Layne Redmond style on Whidbey Island. Link to more info in the comments. This is a beginners class for women. Join us! Drums for the workshop will be available to the first 10 people who sign up. Don't wait! 

11/12/2025

When the drummers were women… Invocation Women's Frame Drum Collective leads a frame drum procession to honor the elements of earth, water, fire, and air in a local Festival.

09/30/2025

Simply lovely…what it's like to be a moving human across the lifespan as one of Pina Bausch's dancers. 

Dancing through time - Sadler's Wells Digital Stage

09/29/2025

Dance/movement therapy gets a mention in this National Geographic article on dance being more effective than antidepressants for depression.

Research shows that moving to music with others reduces symptoms of depression more than walking, yoga, or even standard treatments.

06/29/2025

"Life on the screen facilitates withdrawal, or denial defenses..."

We need frustration, we need experiences of difficulty in the body, in the mind, in the emotions in order to reach psychological and developmental milestones and maturity.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DFde1GAiyod/?igsh=MTF2ZXZiODNlbmJnOA==

06/07/2025

"The addiction to innocence, to not knowing life's darkness--and not wanting to know either--constitutes America's endemic national disease." --James Hillman

Hosted by depth counselor, writer and cultural activist Brian James: http://brianjames.caCheck out my new book Traumadelic: Re-Visioning Psychedelic Therapy ...

05/29/2025

Global water dances are happening now. Let the beauty you love be what you do.

05/25/2025

This is the non-pathologizing approach that I hold toward myself and others when I work with people in therapy. Thank you Sharon Salzberg. 

Some say that if only we had a positive attitude, if only we approached our circumstances in an upbeat way, we would feel no emotional pain.

I challenge this. It’s inevitable that by simply living a life, being a human being, we will encounter times of adversity. It’s not because of our attitude that a pandemic or 9/11 or a financial crisis or a marriage or a long friendship ending are oppressive or heartbreaking. Some things just hurt. I have found this basic truth liberating.

In the teachings and practices I studied, there was no attempt to belittle my pain or rationalize it, and no one was reassuring me that things would surely get better soon or reminding me to only look at the bright side—all things we are conditioned to say and believe in the face of suffering. For the first time, I felt permission and freedom to feel whatever I was going to feel. I wasn’t doing it wrong, and neither are you.

Of course, we don’t want to let our suffering, and the suffering intrinsic to being a human being, define and overtake us either. Therein lies our work. So how do we do it?

For a start, it helps to recognize that for many of us, a dominant cultural attitude toward pain is that it’s something to be avoided, denied, “treated.” As a result, it can be particularly tough for people—including me—to acknowledge painful emotions. Simply recognizing and accepting suffering is a huge first step.

Second, remember that this truth, that some things just hurt, is universal. That means that no matter what, we are not alone.

When I’m in some kind of pain, I’ve found that one of the worst components of what I experience is feeling that I’m all alone with my pain, my nose pressed up against the window, looking into the space where everyone else has gathered, to enjoy themselves together or comfort one another. It’s the worst and most habitual “add-on” to suffering that I experience.

But it is not actually true that we’re excluded, uniquely cast out because of the pain. Everyone hurts at times. Try reaching out to someone, or allowing someone to reach out to you. Take one small step to allow whatever helping hands are coming toward you to find you.