Laurel Holmes, ABs, LMHC

Longggggg Breaths Out

36 years ago, at Fairhaven College in Bellingham, Kenneth Freeman would start every Body Awareness class with long OMs. As an attachment and trauma therapist during the Covid Pandemic, I now understand what he was up to. With each of the nearly 20 OMs we did, we were directly impacting our vagus nerves by ourContinue reading “Longggggg Breaths Out”

Robust Vulnerability

Robust Vulnerability is coined by poet and philosopher, David Whyte.

Care & Feeding of Us

Sometimes, there comes a poem that cracks you wide open, gently strips away everything, back to a key ingredient for everyone I know–and especially the elderly and the teens I know and love. Love yourself. Love yourself. You only get one life, and its completely yours, for your own creative meandering. Embrace the whole agonizingly exquisiteContinue reading “Care & Feeding of Us”

Guiding young children with “3 Tickets”

We love our children. The greatest act of generosity is showering our children with with attention, soothing, and love. And yet, loving a child doesn’t mean giving into all of their whims. Often, to love them is to bring out the best in them, to teach them to understand what is difficult. Does your young childContinue reading “Guiding young children with “3 Tickets””

Creating a Secure Relationship

Relationships. Life is full of them! They are everywhere if we are able to form them. Friendships are some of our most important relationships. So are the relationships with our parents. As for intimate relationships, they are a complex unfolding, as David Whyte expresses: “We are each a river with a particular abiding character, butContinue reading “Creating a Secure Relationship”

The Power of the Yawn

Yawning: every creature that has a spine yawns. It’s a built in repair circuit which triggers the parasympathetic nervous system, which calms everything down in your body. Yawning is particularly useful when your body is stressed, injured, or ill. If you’ve got a head ache, try yawn “surfing”– where you literally try to yawn overContinue reading “The Power of the Yawn”