How has your personal experience with chronic illness and pain impacted your work?
My personal experience has taught me to understand, from the inside out, the challenges my clients face every day, because I live it too. Discovering and trusting my inner resources has helped me to turn crap into compost. I have had to embrace the patience of accepting limitations and the courage to defy them. I know how hard it is and I know it’s possible.
Can you describe the evolution in your career and how you developed this work, including what kinds of training and professional experience helped you refine your approach?
I learned everything I could to help clients coping with chronic pain and illness that were not being served well within our existing medical model. Through the years and as I took on more complex cases, it became evident that many of my clients were trauma survivors. Understanding that connection, responsibly addressing their needs while keeping them safe, intrigued me and became increasingly important in the evolution of this work. I still feel compelled and fascinated as I continue to dive ever deeper into the study of neurobiology, trauma and attachment with some of the top trainers in the fields.
Clients often report how frustrating it’s been to not have health professionals who can connect the dots or even have the time or experience to listen and understand their whole story. The lack of integrated, practical resources for addressing complex multi-layered conditions in a truly holistic approach drove what I needed to study.
I, myself, was someone for whom medical and pharmaceutical intervention had caused more harm than good, so I understood the limitations of chasing symptoms and killing pathogens without supporting and regenerating the health of the whole system.
I had a background in dance, psychology, yoga and movement and went back to school to study clinical orthopedic massage and oriental manual therapy at first, which I practiced, innovated, and refined for years before adding Structural Yoga Therapy, Ayurvedic medicine and other somatic movement disciplines. For my own healing I needed to challenge common beliefs to discover a personal healthy diet of nutrient dense food, from the soil it’s grown in to how it’s prepared.
In my work as an environmental organizer, I’ve been awed by the connections between climate change, ecosystem regeneration, biodiversity, soil health, forest ecology, water and carbon cycles and human ecology. This study of natural systems has also informed my understanding of human systems and I’m glad to see the growing awareness and interest in Ecological Medicine. The disconnect we humans have from the nature we are part of is another tragic aspect and symptom of not knowing who we are. I cofounded the Regenerative Farming, Forests and Food Systems group of Climate Action Now WMass to help bridge that divide and educate about the connection between personal and planetary health and healthy ecosystems, biodiversity and climate. In this video I shared some of the purpose and origins of the group’s work.
I have had a meditation practice since I was 16 so it was only natural for me to carry that awareness and respect for my client’s innate capacity and inner resources into the therapeutic setting.
I had been searching for trainings in somatic psychotherapy focused on trauma for years and finally came across Hakomi and then Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, founded by Pat Ogden. That was the missing piece I had always wanted to study, even back in college, but it didn’t exist as such yet. It has given me a greater neurobiological understanding for what was happening in sessions with clients and a robust bottom up (vs. only cognitive) psychotherapeutic protocol to integrate the work even further. For more info on this wonderful method: https://sensorimotorpsychotherapy.org/resources/#client-education
More recently I became certified after studying Janina Fishers Trauma Informed Stabilization Treatment through the Academy of Therapy Wisdom of which I am also a member of their Trauma Wisdom Circle continuing education program. Though TIST was developed originally as a model to treat structural dissociation, it is applicable and can be modified for any of us especially given what we understand now about our neurobiology.
I’ve developed curricula in holistic health education for health care professionals and college students, presented to the public, assisted at somatic psychotherapy trainings, taught manual therapy to massage therapists and athletic trainers, and continue to learn as much as I can to contribute what I can.
Attached is a professional work summary
Why do you believe a therapeutic relationship can be of invaluable help?
The wisdom and answers are within us but how can we access our inner knowing if we can’t hear it above the oppressive din of this external world and the fearful static of our mental world. Our minds are cluttered with the static of fear from expectations, beliefs and indoctrination before we could even think for ourselves; in large part because humans are neurobiologically wired to survive come what may and what may come is harm at the hands of other humans who were not given what they needed to thrive
Having someone accompany you in your process to find your answers can be a beautiful collaborative creative fun adventure, albeit scary, confronting and challenging at times
1+1 = >2. When we explore together the potential is extraordinary because it’s not limited to what I know or what you know but what we can discover with the help of a wisdom greater than the two of us. We carry a collective wisdom, ancient, sacred but miraculously accessible because what we are is dependent on and connected to our source of existence
What helps you personally to practice what you encourage in others?
I have had the great fortune of being introduced early in my life to an experience of personal inner peace that is not dependent on intellectual explanations or belief systems but based in a knowing of the self. I enjoy a daily practice where I get to turn my senses inward and spend time with that un-nameable, unchangeable ‘wow’ within us, that brings me peace even in the midst of the madness.
No matter the distracting noise around me or within my own mind. I get to listen every day to discourse that reminds me what matters most. All of this has anchored me so it’s easier to stay with my breath and remember the reality that I want to pay attention to and not get hijacked as frequently or for long. It takes constant effort, but it works. I am grateful to have received so much guidance and learnings from Prem Rawat.
It also helps me to be more aware of my triggers, my need to control, my fears, my expectations… so I can see what in the situation is making me uncomfortable and what outcome I’m attached to. That honesty towards myself clarifies how in some situations those fears could affect others and create more tension. Letting go of those unrealistic expectations, not taking on what doesn’t belong to me, being supple and holding onto my peace, helps me create some distance from the problems.
You mentioned your environmental organizing work- Are there other kinds of work that you’re involved with?
The volunteer work that I’m most passionate about is supporting the global humanitarian initiatives of The Prem Rawat Foundation. I am particularly excited about sharing the free course offered through The Peace Education Program with communities I am connected with and underserved populations in diverse settings.
Lenore Bryck, TIST certified, LMT, RYT, CSYT, SP Level II Graduate, RMT, NCBTMB CE Provider