Embodied Integrative Healing podcast episode 4 - Being Held, Being Seen (pt 1)

What does it truly mean to be seen? To be held? The answers to these questions goes very deep, and has vital importance on the healing journey.  In this episode I'll explore these questions with Marta Burton - Somatic Intelligence & Integration practitioner.  Join us in this heart centered conversation as we explore topics such as:

• Holding each other until we can hold ourselves
• Building safety in the body, learning safety, and expanding capacity for excitement and vitality
• Different kinds of healing touch, including NeuroAffective Touch®

Marta Burton does the work of Somatic Intelligence & Integration through supporting people with:

• Integrative Bodywork
• Somatic Coaching
• Psychedelic Preparation & Integration

You can learn more about her and her work at https://martaburton.com/

Marta is also a beautiful vocalist and writer of spiritually inspired spoken word on her substack: @resurrectshakinakai and in her music as part of the band Bhaktisphere (Jordan is also a member)

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:15

All right. Well, welcome everyone to this next episode of Embodied Integrative Healing. I'm so glad you're here with us today. And I have a really special guest, my good friend and also fellow healer, facilitator, Marta. Marta, welcome to the podcast.

SPEAKER_02 0:33

Oh, Jordan, thanks so much. I'm so happy to be here.

SPEAKER_03 0:36

Yeah, I'm so glad to have you here. I'm just feeling your presence already and I'm just feeling more calm.

SPEAKER_02 0:42

I love that.

SPEAKER_03 0:46

Yeah. So so on this podcast, just for people who are maybe new, really just exploring healing in general, kind of the topic of healing and like what that means and what it means to heal and different modalities of healing. And on some episodes, um, I'm just kind of exploring the modalities that I use and you know, uh sharing that with people and exploring how that is a healing process. And and then on other episodes like today, I'm inviting um other practitioners and kind of inviting them to share their modalities and what they view as healing. And so um, so maybe Marta, if you want to maybe just start with sharing a little bit about um kind of the work you do and how you kind of look at this whole healing process and healing journey.

SPEAKER_02 1:35

I'd love to.

SPEAKER_03 1:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:36

It's such a big question because healing, I think, is it's actually the process of living and unfolding and experiencing what it is to be human. Healing, healing requires like that we're wounded in a way, right? That we're that something has that things have happened to us that we don't yet know how to be with or integrate or um navigate. And that's what we're here for, is to experience things that change us and that then we get to uh digest and those things transform us. So healing is like one word for living, experiencing life. It's a whole process. Um, but the question you asked me was like, what do I do? And uh I'm calling my work somatic intelligence and integration. And so I do integrative body work, uh, somatic coaching and psychedelic preparation and integration. And what I feel like I really do is I walk with people who are going through really difficult passages, through dark nights of the soul, through grief and loss and unwanted change and um initiatory experiences. And I do it in a different number of ways. One is with hands-on body work, and the other way I can work with people is um is on Zoom. Um but I think that for me, the body illuminates our path through this life, it carries the experience, it carries our wounds, it carries the intelligence for us to move through that and to transmute what has hurt us. Our body is has this intelligence and the wisdom to guide us if we'll listen to the body and if we can learn how to be with the body. And as my philosophy is developing, Jordan, I I really feel like most of us don't know how to hold ourselves completely. And I feel like what we're here for is to hold each other until we learn how to hold ourselves, and then we can hold each other even better, and we can hold more and more in this loving, witnessing, caring, containing way. So I think that it's about holding, it's it's about holding this experience of life so that we can digest it. And I don't think we come into that world knowing how to do that. I think that you know, we're held inside our mother's womb, hopefully safely, but maybe not. Or we're held after we're born safely, hopefully, but maybe you didn't get held, or maybe something horrible happened to you that you didn't even know how to talk about, and so you couldn't tell anybody, and so nobody could hold that. And I think we go through life with this longing to be held in the places we weren't held, and that's what we can do for each other in all these different ways, you know, through meditation, through, through friendship. Like you said at the beginning of the call, you felt better just after a few moments of being with me. And that's because we hold each other. It's we're we're built for that. We're not supposed to do any of this alone, and yet we have work to do that is on our own. So there's a bit of a dichotomy there, but we really never do anything alone. We totally only get to be here on this planet by receiving what the the earth is offering us and the holding of um the the magnetic field, if nothing else, or we would all just float off into space. We have to be held. So that's my long-winded, even though I could say so much more because I I love this, and it it's beautiful to be held in my sharing of what I'm discovering for myself and what I want to do in the world. So thank you, Jordan. You always have such beautiful listening and capacity for holding.

SPEAKER_03 6:12

Oh, Marta, thank you so much. Wow, I'm getting a little teary-eyed um actually listening to your description. Um, there's so many things I want to ask you. Um, I'm just like feeling held right now, just hearing you talk about it. I'm like, I need I want to do another session with you again. Just sort of for the listeners, I've uh I've done sessions with Marta and it's so good. And now I want to do another one. It just reminded me. Um, wow, okay, so we're gonna go with this, this the being held. Wow, that's I think that's really touching me. Like how we're kind of how you're saying you're sharing, like we're built to be held, and we kind of like come into the world, like you can't not be held in a way. It's almost like that's what being a human is on the earth. It's like you're on the earth and you're held. And can you just yeah, share more about that? That was really touching me, actually. This whole kind of we're built for that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:15

It touches me too to talk about it so deeply because I know that I've had such a deep yearning my whole life to be held. And I didn't have language for that, but I was really well held by my mother. I remember it. She did a beautiful job of holding me in many, many ways. And still things happened that I couldn't share with her, so she couldn't hold me. And I think our yearning to be held is literally why we came here into being in bodies so that we could experience being held and being alive. And we literally cannot live if we're not held. You cannot exist, you cannot be born. You're held, you're you're you're a potentiality inside a mother's body that then is infused with life force, and this little plasmic potentiality light literally lights up within the mother's womb when it is seated. They have pictures of it now. And if that little cell isn't held inside this body of this mother, it can't grow. It has to be held, and it's held in this amniotic fluid in this beautiful world. And then if it's lucky enough to get through that safely and make it through this birth canal and come out of the mother's body, it instantly has to learn how to breathe for itself for the first time, how to eat through its own mouth and not the umbilical cord. It needs to be held on its mother's body or it will die, even if it's fed. If it's not held, a child will die. Wow. And then there's this we go through this separation from our mother, which also has to happen at some point, you know. But our bodies need to be touched, they need nourishment from touch. Um yeah. I mean, sometimes I think I've been single for quite a few years. And honestly, if my dogs didn't sleep next to me most of the time, I don't honestly know how I would have survived the diff most difficult periods in my life without these two creatures. And it's like they knew, like one squished up against my right and one squished up against my left.

SPEAKER_00 10:11

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:12

And, you know, like I would make them go where I needed them. And then a pillow on my chest. Yeah. Um, there's so much beautiful um body work that is develop has been developed out of the need to be held at different stages of our um development. Um there's so much to learn. I kind of I kind of I've been binge learning about body stuff, how the body works and how different kinds of touch um creates safety. Um like if you weren't safely held as an infant, there's a certain kind of touch that creates that in your adult body that they've that they've researched. There's a thing called neuroaffective touch that I've been studying a little bit. And it's you can literally sort of wrap a person up in like uh blankets and bolsters, sort of like restorative yoga. And but you wrap them and you make sure every curve in their body is held, especially like the back of the head and the neck, because if you think about how you hold an infant, you sort of hold, you hold them on their sacrum and you hold them at the back of their head, head and neck. And to hold an adult like that, even to hold yourself, if you were to put your hands there like holding the back of your skull, yeah, and a hand really anywhere else on your body, and relax into that, you'll feel something happen.

SPEAKER_03 11:50

I I just tried that just now and I felt it immediately. Like I had my hand on my back of my skull in my sacrum, and I just calmed down a bit. Just ah Yeah, me too.

SPEAKER_02 12:01

I took a deeper breath. I put one on my heart. That's a comfortable, that's a really comfortable posture, back of the head. And I sort of like to give just a teeny lift to the back of my skull, not a pull, but just a tiny lift. Like I'm being held. And this is something you and I were talking about, us talking about on this session was safety in the body. And the woman who teaches this neuroeffective touch, Dr. something LePier, Aline LePierre, she says that when she works with clients who experienced neglect in particular, that and she'll hold their head, they will say, I've never been held where I felt like I wasn't gonna be dropped before. Wow. Imagine, like that makes me cry. I'm like, wow.

SPEAKER_00 12:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:56

That so many beings come into this world that aren't held safely and have been dropped in a way, you know, whether they were dropped or not. And of course, children have been dropped. It's not like they have bad moms. Do you know what I mean? Stuff happens, it's life. But what a beautiful thing to offer that holding to a friend, like just knowing that I'm like, oh my gosh, I could just hold a friend at the back of the head and give them comfort or hold myself. And this is the beautiful thing about what I said about we there are ways we can't hold ourselves until somebody has shown us what that is and what that feels like.

SPEAKER_00 13:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:38

And then we can do it for ourselves. It's not quite as good as having somebody else hold us, yeah, but it's pretty good.

SPEAKER_00 13:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:45

Like our body can learn. That's the other thing is our body can learn safety from these having these experiences. Our body can go, I know what that's like now. And then, like any skill or experience, you can practice it. And you can expand your capacity for safety in the body so that you can experience more things safely and do more things safely. But I've been holding my head this whole time because I notice in my body, and a big part is noticing too. I notice in my body when I'm talking to somebody like you and I'm sharing what I'm excited about. My excitement can kind of tip over a little bit into anxiousness. Um, and but now I'm noticing it. Before my excitement tipped over into terror. So my capacity has up for excitement was really limited. I was like, I don't want to be terrified. My body's like, I'm scared now. But I I'd be like, but I was just really happy and excited and saying something I wanted to say. And then I got I went into shutdown because I got terrified. And yoga and all these practices have helped me to broaden that where I'm like, oh, I can be excited and actually know I don't have to be afraid. Wow. Yeah, but I'll still get a little overactivated when I'm talking, like my voice gets high and I start talking fast. I'm so excited.

SPEAKER_00 15:18

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:18

And I'm starting to notice and like tend to myself, and I'll put my hands somewhere on my body. And like, wouldn't it be a beautiful world, Jordan? If in the middle of a podcast I could say, Jordan, I have to pause and slow down because I'm so excited. I'm getting scared.

SPEAKER_03 15:35

You can totally do that on this podcast.

SPEAKER_02 15:37

Yeah, let's do it. You want to do it?

SPEAKER_03 15:39

Yeah. Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_02 15:40

And we'll just check in. So this is this is part of what I do in my practice with myself and my the people I work with is just placing hands on the body wherever it feels good.

SPEAKER_00 15:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:53

And catching your breath or noticing your breath or just noticing, like not fixing anything. Just be like, hello, I see you. Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_01 16:02

Oh Marta, you're so excited. You're about to cry. You're so, oh Marta, you're so happy that you have this friend Jordan that you can share yourself with like this. Oh wow, let's take a moment to feel that.

SPEAKER_03 16:18

Yeah. And just inviting all our listeners, just join us. Join us in this practice, as Marta kind guides us. Yeah. I've got a hand on my heart and a hand on my left kidney that felt just very natural to do.

SPEAKER_02 16:33

My hands on like my high heart, like the top of my heart and under my clavicle. And another one's on my solar plexus right now, which feels really stabilizing because Yeah. Yeah. What's so beautiful. One of the philosophies of the people I've been studying with and my yoga teachers is to move at the pace of the most apprehensive part of us.

SPEAKER_03 17:07

Oh, I feel like I want to make that into a quote.

SPEAKER_02 17:10

Yeah. Well, I stole it. It's not original.

SPEAKER_03 17:13

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:14

Um, I I got it from one of my dear, another healer, really special person, Drake, um from my yoga studio, and he teaches all kinds of beautiful things, but I've studied Reiki with him as well as Neurogenic Tremor. And he always says, like, we move at the pace of the most apprehensive part. And what that means for me, it's not that we don't move, it's not that we don't do the thing that might be a little bit scary, but that we check in with the part that's scared before we do it. So it's the opposite of the Nike commercial. Just do it. No, it's not that. We're not gonna force our system where it's not ready to go. Yeah, we're gonna check in and say, you know, okay, this is what I'm doing in my body. I'll say it out loud. Like, okay, I can feel this part of you, Marta. This part that's a little bit, it's kind of activated and excited, and and and it it feels like it's a little too much. What what do you need from me? So it's just showing me like by taking a big breath and another breath like that, just letting the breath be honest. And I just get like a very simple message, like, can you just slow it down a little bit? Like, and then sort of the wise part of me saying, Yeah, yeah, there is enough time. And Jordan and I can we get a talk again. This isn't our only chance to talk.

SPEAKER_00 19:07

Thank goodness.

SPEAKER_02 19:08

Yeah, so we we don't have to say everything right now. Yeah, there's this this very excited learner part that of me that wants to share everything and say everything today.

SPEAKER_03 19:21

Right.

SPEAKER_02 19:23

There's a there's like another part that's kind of like, but we want to listen to Jordan too and not talk over him and give him some room to speak. So like I have all these little parts that are all so lovely, and so I'm just gonna let them know like I hear you, yeah. I I really get that. I get that one of you is really excited to share, and one of you's getting a little overwhelmed by that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:57

And that's and I love you. I love, gosh, I love you, Marta. Oh my god, you're such an adorable person with all these parts. So true. And you're so like your body. Thank you, body. You're like so, I so appreciate you showing me that I can showing me that we were getting overwhelmed and letting me share. Thank you for letting me share this publicly and with Jordan. It likes that.

SPEAKER_00 20:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:26

And then I can sort of check in and go, yeah, how do you guys feel? I really see you. I'm listening. We're gonna slow down. We have plenty of time. And one more breath. Hi, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 20:40

Yeah. Oh my gosh. I just feel like this like abundant, bountiful feast of goodness in this episode. I'm really, there's so many things I want to ask. I'm like on the other side of you, like you just want to share all these things, and I want you to, and I want to ask you about all these things. But I also am recognizing we can do another episode and we can do the other things another time too. Um one thing that has came to me is I really like the idea of like like we'll come all these parts that need attention. We are gonna give you that attention, and even if it's not right now, letting them know we're gonna come for you. We are coming.

SPEAKER_00 21:20

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 21:21

We got you. And maybe, oh, this might be later, but I'm coming. It just makes me think of a kid who maybe there's like a little kid who's like, oh, can we go do this thing? Can we go to this place and get the ice cream? And instead of it's just like, no. It's like, oh yeah, well, not right now, but we're gonna we can get some later. We can't do that right now, but we can get some, you know, after dinner. And then they're like, Oh, okay. It's like it's like that's all right. I I can't have it now, but I I know it's gonna, I'm gonna get it, it's gonna be all right. And I like telling that to the people that I work with too, because sometimes stuff comes up and you know you you know you're working through whatever you're working through. And then I had this happen with one. With one uh one client, and at the very end of the session, all of a sudden there was like an opening that started to happen, and the session was wrapping wrapping up right at the end of the session. And um, and and we for time-wise, we did kind of have to wrap up the session, but it was just I think it was so helpful for her to just be like, well, you know what? We can look, we have time to look at that top layer a little bit right now, and then all the rest of it just let it know we are coming back from it next time. We're gonna we're gonna hear you next time, and we're here with you the whole time, and and we're we are coming back. So Yeah.

unknown 22:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:35

That's you know, one of my teachers, I think my main teachers for the studies I've been doing is Dr. Frank Anderson, and he teaches somatic parts work. And um he says exactly the same thing because we like if we're about to do something really deep, like with a deeply exiled part of us, we also before we do that, we got to check in with the like the apprehensive part, maybe and ask permission. Like, can we go there? And or the exile part might be like, yeah, the apprehensive part might be like, no, you do not have my permission. That's too scary. So you have to tell that the part, the exiled part, like, we're gonna come back to you. We're gonna check back in on you, we're we're gonna come and get you. First, we need to like work with this, these protective parts so that every no part's gonna be left behind. That's another phrase I like. No, there's no bad parts, right? And no part gets left behind.

SPEAKER_00 23:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:36

And it really is like a kind of a soul retrieval too when we go be with these parts. And there's sometimes there's more. Like I've had experiences with, you know, there's a little part, a part of me that um left my body when I was seven years old.

SPEAKER_00 23:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:55

And we went and got her in a session with with my therapist, and she my therapist said something like, We can close the door, you know, she can magically close the door after she leaves this dark basement where it's dangerous. But my little girl was like, We can't do that yet. We need to get my brother. My brother is still down there.

SPEAKER_00 24:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:18

And so we just I just knew that we were gonna go back and get him. And this little seven-year-old part of me in another session, she got two of my classmates. We were doing like practice in our um our um somatic therapy, IFS stuff, and it was just a session online, and I was like, I think I'm ready to go get my brother. And so my seven-year-old girl, who had been like unburdened and free of this sexual trauma, she got these two adults and to come with her. But she said, I'm gonna get him. I just need you to be with me. Like she was so brave, this little girl, me. And we went down back down into the dark basement. And I told my brother, like, everything was okay and it wasn't his fault, and that we could leave now together. And I hugged him and we both went up the stairs, and then we took our magic wands that we, of course, had, and we like magically closed that basement so no more children could get hurt down there.

SPEAKER_00 25:25

Oh god. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:27

It was like, it's so amazing what this kind of work can do. And, you know, we can call it internal family systems and or parts work, but there's a level at which it's really, I really think it's soul retrieval. We are literally bringing home and healing parts of us that got frozen inside of us or even maybe kicked out of our body completely and are just have been watching and waiting to come home into our bodies. It's beautiful.

SPEAKER_03 26:01

Wow. Oh my gosh, I just felt that like the oh closing the door, no more kids have to go down. Oh man. Yeah. Yeah. This stuff is powerful. And it's like we're working, you know, with our mind and with with our just this inner experience, and that's kind of like where the work happens too, right? It's like this, it's so powerful. Like, we can't deny, you know, that inner experience of our mind. And oh, I wanna so we I so as I'm looking at time, we definitely will have to do another episode, which I'm looking forward to. And yes, this episode will be continued. Uh, we're gonna continue this with part two of looking at being seen and being held. So please join us uh next time and let's continue this conversation with Marta. I also do want to let you all know um that um this podcast is supported um by listener support. So you'll see on the podcast episode an option to um make a monthly contribution. Um, and there's many different amounts you can choose from, even as low as say about three dollars. And all of that really helps just to make the podcast continue and to support us as we're doing this work here. So, everyone who contributes, we appreciate you very much.