9 Criteria to Consider in Choosing Support in your Personal Growth Journey
The time, energy and money you invest in support during your inner journey of personal growth can be the most rewarding and transformative investments you will ever make.
But how many of us really do our homework before we choose someone to go to?
Perhaps your journey has been pretty inward and individual so far, and you haven’t really found that process or person that speaks to you.
Or maybe you’ve tried everything under the sun, and you keep reading all the books, but still feel like something is missing?
In my own personal path of enquiry and growth, as well as in my professional education and development I have traversed many routes from the heavily academic, to cutting edge neuroscience, to the esoteric and highly alternative, and have enjoyed an array of techniques, processes, and practitioners.
I’ve learnt a lot, and have gained both the personal and professional viewpoint as to what is effective and what is not - indeed what is and even potentially harmful.
Before you read on to hear about the 9 essential criteria to consider when choosing a practitioner or process for personal growth have you downloaded my updated Self-Care Guide? It’s full of rituals to fill your cup and awaken your feminine energy in the doing so - grab it here.
CONSIDERATION #1 IS THERE Safety and Trust?
The number one, most important aspect to your personal path to re-connecting with your power is safety. Deep enquiry requires vulnerability, and vulnerability requires safety. It is essential that you feel safe, and supported in your body when you do your work. This often requires the person or people with you to be trustworthy, but also to have the capacity to bring you back into the experience of safety by being cued to your body and how to engage in co-regulation to bring your nervous system back into balance.
If you feel uncomfortable or freaked out in what you are doing, then there is a high probability that it is doing more harm than good.
Some practitioners have little understanding of this.
I think about the yoga studios I have visited over time. The impression given was one of relaxation, but a competitive vibe would fill the air as the instructors focused on reaching pinnacle asanas. The rooms would be filled with lululemon clad toned white womxn. As a beginner I often felt out of my depth, like I didn’t belong in this group, and an underlying pressure to move beyond my capacity.
A yoga class may seem like a simple example, but if safety was the first focus you would feel welcomed and met where you were at, and supported to drop in more deeply, connect more profoundly and relax into and enjoy the process. A class like this is nourishing versus stressful and punishing.
Do you trust the person or the process that you are engaged with or drawn to? What do you rely on to determine that trust? Are there testimonials for their work? Are there protocols, policies or organising bodies that protect you? Do you feel this sense of trust and safety your body? If you don’t listen in, examine it and choose wisely.
CONSIDERATION #2 DO THEY OFFER A Holistic APpROACH?
Now, holistic is a word bandied around a lot now days, and is often linked to images of crystals, oracle cards and bush flower essences. None of which I have a problem with per se, but I urge you to look beyond the superficial.
Our state of wellness or unwellness should never be confined to either body or mind but is a global experience that embraces our whole selves. Attending to one and not the other is only carrying out half the task.
A holistic approach to your wellness and growth involves the consideration of your inner and your outer environment, it is to pay equal attention to your soma and your mind, to your spiritual, energetic and your emotional bodies. Everything is linked.
A holistic practitioner doesn’t need to be an expert in all.of.the.things, but will know when to refer you for additional support as required. I recommend looking at someone who does go deep into their own field, rather a jack of all trades.
For example, sometimes I refer my clients on to naturopaths, bodyworkers, and pelvic physiotherapy who can further support them beyond the realms of my own expertise.
#3 Do you retain agency?
Despite what messaging you may have received: You are the expert on you.
Yet we have been brought up in a culture that places professionals at the top of a hierarchy and patients down the bottom. This structure is inherently disempowering. We learn to believe that others know better than us, that there are experts we need to seek diagnosis and advice from, and in following their lead we hand our power over. A practitioner cannot do your inner work for you.
Unfortunately, a great number of modalities and practitioners either work directly on or through you, such as kinesiology, reiki and other forms of energy healing, and offer guidance in tandem. These options are not bad per se, but they are not empowering.
And no matter how well-intentioned your practitioner there is always the risk of projection that you can take on as your own truth, and in worst cases energy manipulation.
Our bodies are naturally designed to self-heal, and I believe that a practitioner should first and foremost be focused on empowering you to be your own healer.
In an embodied approach you as the individual are supported to contact your own truth, that which is embedded deep within you. No one else can do this for you.
CONSIDERATION #4 DO THEY LET THE BODY LEAD?
The body is an incredible communicator, and it doesn’t lie.
Yet our society has tended to promote the power and importance of the brain over the body, and we possess a collective societal discomfort of visiting and inhabiting the body.
Where awareness on the mind-body connection exists it is often looked at uni-directionally, as our mental processes influencing our physical health. But this is far from the entire picture. “Information flow” also goes the other way; that is, the body’s experience also informs the brain, and there a great deal more signals sent from body to brain, than there are brain to body. In fact, both our emotions and our behaviours come to be via the physiological and neurological home of the body – rather than the brain.
Body-led somatic focused approaches don’t minimise the value of clear thinking but understand that the body holds memories and life experiences, including trauma. It is through the body that we can efficiently and effectively find the root of the issue.
Working through the body is an act of reclamation, reconnection, and validation of the inherent wisdom that you hold.
Choose a person who has done their own work, and has an understanding of and experience of their own bodies and has learnt to rest more comfortably in the depths of their own being.
CONSIDERATION #5 ARE THEY ComfortABLE in the Dark?
The new age movement is full of light-and-love spiritual bypassing. There is a great deal of focus on providing relief, and on feeling good.
Yet maintaining comfort is not an authentic practice.
The darker end of the spectrum is valid, and important in our personal evolution. The human existence is full of grief, pain, and frustration. This is part of our experience, and as important in our lives as joy, happiness and excitement. In focusing on the good, and on focusing on staying in the good we don’t equip ourselves with the inner resources to navigate life in all its twists and turns, and we deny part of ourselves.
At their core, somatic practices are about accessing that which lies under the surface, which will include the pleasant and the uncomfortable, the pleasurable and the painful. It is an entryway to an authentic and rich life.
CONSIDERATION # 6 ARE THEY Trauma Informed?
Even if you are not specifically entering a space to focus directly on your unresolved emotional trauma, ensure that the practice or person you work with is trauma informed.
Why? Because we all hold trauma, and we can all be triggered by different things.
A trauma-informed practitioner will understand this, and will know that your safety is paramount, and will be cued to look for changes in your nervous system to support you as necessary, promoting a culture of safety, empowerment, and healing.
Ask around for references, talk to them, ensure that they’ve done their work and they continue to do so. Trauma is a rapidly growing field. It is paramount that you are safe in whatever path that you choose to take, and that there is no risk in re-traumatisation when you do so.
CONSIDERATION #7 ARE THEY DOING THEIR OWN “WORK”?
It’s easy to become a knowledge expert on something and deliver it - teaching style to someone. But as a client you will receive far more support if you have signed up with someone who walks their own talk. You aren’t after the perfect individual who has all their sh*t together, because that person doesn’t exist. What you are seeking is resonance. You want to feel safe, held in the arms of someone who ‘gets-it’ inside and out. You want to know if you trigger their own unresolved trauma they will be able to process it.
You will know if the person you sign up with holds resonance for you or not.
CONSIDERATION #8 What’s their POSITION ON Diversity and Inclusion?
A practitioner who respects the unique needs, perspectives and potential of all is a practitioner worth following up with.
The wellness world has become elitist in many ways because it has shut certain people out. It’s time that we all embraced diversity and inclusivity. The times are asking it of us. It is time that we all become more active in creating environments where people of all races, genders, sexuality, religions, socio-economic backgrounds, and abilities are respected, welcomed and included, equally.
Why does this matter for you personally? Beyond being the right thing to do, this reflects that your practitioner recognises and respects “ways of being” that are not necessarily their own, and it is strong measure of safety for you as an individual.
CONSIDERATION #9 ARE THEY CULTURALLLY APPROPRIATING?
Yoga, spirituality, and the wellness world in the West are steeped in cultural appropriation, white privilege and white supremacy. It’s time we began to acknowledge this, and to start caring about where our wellness practices come from – and what appropriating them means.
It wouldn’t be too much to say that every person in western wellness is taking from the cultures of indigenous people, whether it’s India, Africa or Indonesia - and I include myself in this. Now it isn’t a bad thing that people are trying to help others and share knowledge, but it’s important to investigate the origins of the service you are receiving. Is the integrity of the practice intact, or has it been white-washed to become more palatable?
For example, let’s take the the chakra system. Many Western energy healers refer to the chakras, but how we have come to view them in the West are, at best, a distorted, shallow, and bastardised version of a beautiful, ancient Eastern religious belief which was studied and theorised by many traditions for over a thousand years. To use, and and worse, claim spirituality from, is appropriation.
What to do instead? Look for practitioners that do not lean shallowly on the traditions of another, but have developed a cemented belief and practice themselves, or acknowledge the origins and devote themselves to the continuing studies.
The human soul, the subtle body, and spiritual energy are concepts that supersede cultural boundaries, and I for one, believe that the truth is found within the body, that doesn’t require any external system to make sense of.
These are just a few foundational questions I recommend you asking when you are choosing a person or process to support you in your own journey of self-enquiry, healing, and growth.
I’m interested to hear what struck home for you? Drop me an email below. I’d love to hear from you!
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xo
Jess