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- The Psychology of Spiritual Empowerment
- By: VANESSA BUSHELL
Vanessa Bushell is a psychologist who has practiced over the last ten years from a range of different approaches and styles including narrative therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, systems therapy and mindfulness based approaches. In this practice she brings together these styles, with her wisdom from life experience and compassion to create a service for anyone seeking to empower themselves from internal suffering and external painful situations. Other important influences on her approach in how she guides people to their awakening include kinesiology and varied spiritual or “energy” practices and theory.The style of therapy used in this practice encourages conscious awareness of the self and conditioned or learnt thought/emotional patterns that keep us in a state of suffering. We all collect these patterns throughout our lives in order to belong to groups of people such as our families. The need to belong often outweighs or need to love and accept ourselves as we are so we become like a sculpture carved from stone. Our minds take form which underlie our perceptions of ourselves and the world and colour our experiences.
These “sculptures” are the patterns we perceive the world through and which are often helpful for us to adjust to the culture of families and other important groups which we belong. However as grow up these patterns can become more of a hindrance than a friend. They can underlie a great deal of our suffering and keep us from empowering ourselves and sharing ourselves in healthy and mutually respectful and loving relationships with others.
Conscious awareness of these patterns and the roles they play in our lives sets us free from suffering often experienced as depression and anxiety. Seeing and feeling the patterns clearly release us from the power they have over us. Beyond these patterns is state of grace, freedom and love which we often only glimpse in practices like meditation or those rare opportunities where we are struck by awe of the beauty of a sun set or the innocence and joy of a young child.
The guidance offered at Conscious Solutions facilitates more than just a “head understanding”. It is a process of the mind and the body to understand and experience the old patterns, and integrate a new state of being. The process involves emergence of the new through conversation, breath work and applying new practices in ones life from the inside out. We experience the freedom from the patterns and an emerging empowerment that comes with this process. With support, we become more proficient at recognising the old and the new mind/body states and become masters at releasing ourselves from the patterns that create suffering.
A key concept and an important integrated experience that is facilitated at Conscious Solutions is “self responsibility”. We experience empowerment when we have “deep body knowledge” of what is ours to own and change and what is outside our ability to change, such as other people’s patterns (including their thoughts, feelings and behaviour). This process encourages people to honour other people’s journeys to take responsibility for their own patterns, if they choose to! It promotes compassionate detachment – a state of love for self and other even when we perceive the other to be acting in ways that are destructive. The process also promotes discernment and expression based on self love rather than reacting to other people’s patterns or from our own. And most importantly, it facilitates awareness and release from emotional memories such as fear, anger, guilt, abandonment and resentment that recruit us into remaining stuck in unhelpful dynamics with other people.
With awareness we learn to make “choices”. We think we make choices all the time however, many of these choices are not really choices but rather unconscious patterns that we keep playing out. At Conscious Solutions people are given compassion and a safe, non-judgemental space to explore these patterns so they can learn to make choices that empower themselves and by default give other people around them the opportunity to empower themselves.
For information about this service or appointments please Phone 0424 507 101
Written by Vanessa Bushell, Conscious Soloutions: Empower yourself through the Discovery of Meaning, Purpose & Connection