Archive for October, 2010

I’ve just driven to and from Adelaide with my little dog on an adventure to check out some interesting new work with a woman called Beverley Searle, who has created a system to heal ‘breaks’ in the psyche which can occur, particularly in childhood, after trauma. Beverley put herself through University in mid-life to study the workings of the mind in an attempt to heal herself after some extreme trauma in childhood and she developed a system of reintegration which has been especially helpful for people who are suffering with phobias, chronic illness, substance abuse and eating disorders as well as other deeply stuck problems.

I tried out her system to help with a chronic health issue that has been very resistant to anything that I have looked at on a conscious or rational level and that was having a big impact on my ability to keep up with work demands in particular. 

Using Beverley’s system (which is actually very non-invasive…mainly you are asked to visualise and follow Beverley’s leads) we found a very traumatised five year old me who had become ‘stuck’ back there and was holding the illness in place.

Having rediscovered the source of this ailment as being a result of a ‘split’ from my unified sense of self, I was able to then visualise that part of me, in the form of the small child, finally receiving the nurture and care that had not been accessible to her at the time and which would allow her to finally rest and heal.

I may not be doing Beverley justice in my explanation of the process but I have come away from the experience with an even greater respect and awe for the enormously healing power and amazingly complex systems of the mind and the devices that it creates in order to protect us and allow us to keep functioning.

I have also come away with an even greater conviction that if we ignore persistent problems for years and hope they will just go away, we are doing ourselves a great disservice.

We’re not here to suffer. Feeling sad, anxious, sick, angry, addicted or whatever, is not our natural state. If you are experiencing these things it is simply because you mind is trying to get your attention so that you’ll finally do something about the problem !

My work is one part of the process, Beverley’s is another level as are other great teachers’ work out there and, like the layers of an onion, issues come up to be healed till eventually, you reach the core.

It’s a matter of trying out a range of approaches till you find the ones that work best for you and there are usually several, because we work through various stages of receptivity on the healing journey. If you’re new to self examination, there’s usually a fair bit of resistance that has to be pushed through at first ! Self work is challenging but no more so than staying stuck in misery, believe me!

Reintegrating the systems of the mind is a very powerful process and Beverley’s work is extremely well researched and highly effective.

As yet, Beverley does not have her website up and running (soon, apparently) but you are welcome to contact her on beverley-searle@bigpond.com  with enquiries. She is based in Adelaide.

Oh,yes… my health concern, you’re no doubt wondering how that went? Well, no radical claims but I’d say there’s been a 50% improvement. Not bad in a matter of days after 8 years of struggling with this! Apparently, it should settle down even more within two weeks. I’ll let you know. In general, though, I feel much more settled and somehow ‘sturdier’ in myself  and definitely more peaceful. Pretty good stuff.

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