We've all had painful experiences in our past that we learned to defend against in order to survive. For example, you may have discovered at a very early age that when you expressed need, no amount of crying, asking, or clinging led to an adult giving you what you needed. As a survival strategy, you learned to bury or suppress the feeling of need. Many years later, you may still use that same self-defense behavior, often unconsciously, even though it's unnecessary now that you're an adult and gets in the way of your fulfillment. The problem is, you may not remember any other way of being. Such defenses get imbedded in your memory and in your body like frozen blocks of history, which prevent the free flow of energy and keep you from being fully you in the present. Core Energetics is all about finding those hidden defenses and freeing up blocked energy.

Working with Energy - Charge and Discharge
Using charge and discharge, Core work helps you actually feel the feelings you've been protecting yourself from, unlocking and releasing your blocked energy so it can be used in positive, life-affirming ways. Charge involves homing in on the energy block through breathing, hitting, kicking, exaggerating the holding, making sounds, and expressing taboo or unsupported feelings. Discharge involves releasing the trapped energy into the body, bringing it into consciousness. This is done through involuntary movements and reactions, including muscle vibrating and all forms of spontaneous feeling such as crying, laughter, and rage.

Bringing Movement, Consciousness, and Experience into Harmony
In Core Energetics, our goal is to achieve harmony using the concepts of movement, consciousness, and experience or feeling.

Movement: Because we are alive, energy constantly moves through us. When blocked energy is freed up and flows unencumbered through the body, we feel charged, balanced, and connected to ourselves and to the world around us. In Core, we are looking for the hidden places in us where the movement of energy has become stuck or frozen. We are also working with movement that is out of harmony - too much movement or discordant movement.

Consciousness: Self-awareness, or consciousness, regulates our actions and responses to our everyday world. When we're unconsciously responding to the present based upon past experience, our life-force energy doesn't flow in harmony with the reality of the moment. Core work informs your consciousness so you can be present - right here, right now - with full awareness and openness to life as it's unfolding.

Experience: Our ability to feel and experience ourselves and others is what supports the harmony between movement and consciousness. If we use past experiences, and our defenses against them, as our key reference points, then we stop ourselves from feeling, taking in, and experiencing what is happening now. The Core approach helps us bring full energy and awareness to each and every moment.

THE CORE WORK SESSIONS

We do Core Energetics therapy with individuals, groups, couples, and families.

• Individual sessions use physical movements, emotional expression, and conceptual exploration to understand and transform the energy that you are withholding from life. The outcome is deeper pleasure and fulfillment in life and a connection to your integrity.
• Group sessions use these same techniques in a group setting. They offer an opportunity for you to learn how you behave in a group and how your behavior affects others. Group work lets you try new roles and behaviors, and use the relationships in the group to understand and transform your life outside.
• Couples sessions use the energetic dynamic of the couple to explore issues and uncover truths. Where conventional couples-work focuses mainly on communication skills, the Core process offers the opportunity to work on all levels of relationship - spiritual, emotional, energetic, and conceptual. This work helps create a relationship that is powerful and alive.
• Family sessions offer exploration of the energetic dynamic of the family system and create opportunities to uncover blocked and held energy, opening pathways to deeper intimacy and awareness.

For more information on sessions, see Workshops/ Ongoing.