In “Living with Voices” by Romme and Escher | write about my relationship with my physiotherapist: “During a 3 year period of on/off physiotherapy ‘experienced building a relationship with a man, based on trust and mutual respect forthe first time in my fe (..) He helped me experience my body as 2 safe place and | realised how tormented | wos by anxiety like. deer always ey to take flight. For the rs time in long, long time tel able co be in my body, feel my emotions think my thoughts, Near my voices and fee! that whatever Iwas experiencing ‘was allright, and that things were going tobe okay. (.) Discovering that I could ve through a whole hour without having a single self-destructive thought or impulse and ance in while even enjoy being me — was very unfariliar and quite scary. That maybe | deserved tive after ll ~ and live without constant fear ‘ond pain, Thot perhaps there was a way of healing years and years of dissociation, of separating myself from myself and others.*(p. 149) I was along and slow process to get to the point | describe above. The work my physiomeraptst did with me was based on Body Awareness Therapy, Iwas 2 mix of simple massages techniques and physical exercises and it was all about grounding and centering. Everything we did was designed to help me stay in my body ~ became aware of my Body fram within, | used to think! had loads of body awareness because | had been dancing for many years. But | slow realised that there isa big dtference hetween being aware of your body from the inside and being aware of your body trom the outside. The body awareness |had learned through dance was all about observing ‘myself and controlling my body. Being aware of my body, of my movements, of sensations and feelings from the inside was a whole different ball game. At Fistit was frightening. | think | expected to be overwhelmed because that was how Ihad experienced myself for as long as | could remember. That, as soon | "woul come bactc to myzat rom my various escapiams, | would he completely overwhelmed with my sensations, emotions anc thoughts nad to learn hat was sae in my body, chat my adult selves could handle the things thac used to overwhelm me as a Kid. By doing gente stretches and movernents could calm myself down, calm my senses and find peace. In verious trauma and anxiety work, there are strategies and vsualisations we can use to create inner (or oute) safe spaces. This is what my physiotherapist did ‘with me. Today | get anxious and nothing else works — na calming seit tall, snothing exercises, no music or walking or sstracting works ~ what | dois revisit ‘nose sessions. | wil raw the safeness | experienced back then into the here and now. The mematy o this deep sense of safety is ingrained in my body, available to me when Ineed it, | think tis vitally important that we continue to create body memories es adults that can support us and mayb help balance out painful body-memories frm ‘the past. ‘Today when | stand in the woods on the hil, looking out over the valley where live, Ian actully feel the ground beneath my feet. can feel how solid itis — or how mucldy itis when it's been raining, at tends to do in these parts am not just watching my feet on the ground, registering it as if observing someone else. really feel it | feel my Feet in my socks, in my boots and the soles of the boots connecting withthe soil or the stones. I feel the cold damp seeping through the leather and | feel the warmth of my blood trying to cspel the cold.