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I Help Highly Sensitive Women Change Their Relationship With Food & Their Body, Through Building Emotional Intimacy & Body Sensation Literacy.

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richelle_ludwig

I help women who feel unworthy change their relationship with themselves & develop emotional intimacy.
Depth Coach/Somatics/Parts Work/Trauma Informed

We might notice that it feels unsafe to a part of

How Brhamari Breath Supports The Nervous System. I

The Autumn Intuitive Yin Series starts next Monday

Often when I'm working with clients I hear them tr

I'm thrilled to be offering an Autumn Intuitive Yi

I totally was into the performative self-love aren

I totally was into the performative self-love arena in the beginning of my journey. I started to post pictures on social media that I wouldn't have shared before. I talked a lot about mindset and used affirmations. I thought bubble baths were self-love. It was all very high vibish and bypassy. I was overcompensating for a huge void of unworthiness I didn't want to feel. And truly, I didn't know any better back then and I love that part of me for trying.

The thing is, I wasn't really in an attuned relationship with all parts of myself, or even my body at that point. I've deepened into something I don't even refer to as self-love anymore. The more I get to know various parts of myself and learn how to attend to their feelings. The more I feel my grief, my shame, my jealousy, my rage, my fear, my helplessness, my bitchiness, my anxiousness, my resentfulness. All the parts of me I'd exiled into the shadow. The more I feel their experience and change my relationship with them, the more I settle into this something else.

As I started to understand the ways in which these parts of me where trying to help me belong or feel safe. As I started to understand the needs of these younger parts of me and learned how to begin to meet them. As I befriended my inner critic, I started to feel something else. I started to find self-acceptance. Self-compassion filled my chest and softened my edges.

Instead of running from and avoiding and rejecting parts of myself, as I began to accept them, I began to feel more whole and more full. As I saw these parts of me through new eyes I realized that I'd never been broken. I developed self-trust, self-esteem, self-respect and self-regard, because I developed my sense of Self. I started to sense who I was at my core seperate from those around me.

This began to fill me up. And maybe this feeling of fullness, could be likened to self-love. There's a beingness quality to it. From desperately shy to contently okay within self. And this embodied type of self-love doesn't mean I never experience doubt or fear or shame. It does mean that I turn towards and tend to those parts of me. No longer making them wrong and trying to ascend my humanity.

The naivety and the seeking to be seen and valued.

The naivety and the seeking to be seen and valued. There's a message that tells many who wonder, "Who am I to do this?" It says, "Who are not to do this?" Yet there's no nuance implored here. Sometimes those concerns and those fears are valid. Sometimes it's a sign that there's a greater base of support required. That it's not time yet. But we're taught fear is simply something to conquer.

We're not taught that there are multiple types of fear and sometimes fear is a stop sign. Sometimes the growth is pausing at the stop sign and taking your time to discern what's next and true. Oftentimes there's growth in slowing down and not acting urgently. Because when we build something on a shaky sense of self, it won't be good for you or others. We will use it to fill that void. Integrity will be lost.

We'll end up performing an identity, rather than sharing authentic parts of ourselves because we haven't yet grown the capacity to be with ourselves. So how can we even fathom, to be with others? And of course it's not about arriving at a destination first, but it does require being somewhere grounded and real. Maybe it's some grey shade between humility and confidence. I don't know and that's okay.

You see, I've learned that when I think I do know. When I have more answers than questions, then I'm probably missing something. We can end up seeking safety in others certainty of what they say they're offering and what it will provide. That's not true safety though. It actually allows us to be manipulated and taken advantage of much easier. When we learn to anchor into our sense of self, we develop internal safety.

We won't need to merge with others certainty to feel safe, because we've acquired it internally. And we know how to cultivate it with others. It's fascinating to me the layers that can exist here, and the urgency to excavate them. The urgency to know and fix and find the answers, which often pull us away from ourselves more deeply. It brings me to some words by Rainer Maria Rilke.

"I beg you to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves.
Continued in comments. 👇🏼

I'm learning that endings can bring up a lot.
Whet

I'm learning that endings can bring up a lot.
Whether they're chosen or feel like they're out of your control, because of logistics.
Whether we're using logistics to avoid other layers.
Endings can bring up big feelings.
Feelings we didn't get to meet in the past.
That we didn't have support or capacity to be with.
This can be really tangled and there can be other layers in it.
But endings can elicit our feelings around belonging.
They can elicit our feelings around abandonment and rejection.
Being included and valued.
Endings can elicit our strategies in which we try to avoid feeling the pain of loss.
Like fixing, denial, numbing, distracting, joking.
All the ways in which we try not to feel the tender ache of loss.
And I'm learning that when we slow down with endings it leaves room for grief to surface.
It leaves room for old grief to surface too.
It leaves room for younger parts of us to express.
And I'm learning especially when we slow down with support from others, where we feel safe enough and we also have the courage to voice and name what is stirring within us, that we can mobilize some of that suppressed material.
That we don't have to fix the grief, or fix the experience in this liminal space.
When we slow down when endings are occurring and something new is coming and we might not know what it is, we get to attend to what is.
We get to remain present.
I'm learning that it can hurt so much while also feeling hopeful.
That the ache can be so tender, while also feeling expansion and a sense of empowerment.
I'm learning that slowness is medicine for the ache and the hope.
Here's to turning towards endings and letting them break you open so that you may meet yourself with more grace and love and patience. 🌌💜

When we struggle with self-compassion it might be

When we struggle with self-compassion it might be because we get blended with our inner critic. We can try to change our inner dialogue and be more compassionate in all the ways, but if our inner critic is still running rampant, it might feel like it's not making a difference.

We might try to silence or ignore the inner critic, but this won't change it or make it leave. We actually want to start with compassion towards the inner critic. We want to acknowledge this protector part of us and understand how it helps us. It does in some way and it's intentions are actually good.

What we often find is that this part of us has internalized criticism towards other parts of ourselves that have bern judged or rejected. Our inner critic is often trying to help us belong and avoid emotional pain. When we can truly understand this in an embodied way, theres a softening that can happen towards this part.

We stop fighting it. And it starts to sense Self. The adult part of us that is anchored within. As the inner critic begins to trust Self, it softens in its critical attacks. It can begin to trust that Self can attend to the pain of our exiled parts its been trying to protect us from. It begins to trust and sense that Self is not impacted by the same judgements as these younger parts.

It's here that self-compassion becomes easier. Because we've cultivated more internal safety through being in relationship with the inner critic that it softens. In its softening self-compassion is let in.

On toxic wellness culture and developmental trauma

On toxic wellness culture and developmental trauma.

🌌 I'm not making any of the types of practitioners or practices I've named wrong. It's just that how we engage with anything can be insidiously rooted in our wounds if we're not aware.

🌌 How these things are being offered can also be insidiously rooted in supremacy culture and not actually provide the healing we're seeking.

Continued from slide:
I believed in quick fixes and acted urgently. I thought I was valuing myself by spending money on various things to heal myself. At least that's what I was being told. I tried spiritual healers, therapists, coaches, a shaman and more. I did mindset work, fell into the manifestation high vibe world, did morning practices, pulled cards, did energy work.

And in the process I did a whole lot of spiritual bypassing. What I realized over time was that many of these things weren't helping me get closer to myself but distracting me. Pulling me away from my grief and not helping me expand my capacity to tolerate discomfort. When we have developmental trauma, things can get messy. We can appease our teachers and perform to belong.

We can hand our agency over to others, and develop identities around who our teachers are or what we're being taught.

This isn't healing.

When we didn't develop a sense of self we experience an internal void and can end up merging with our teachers, practices and toxic wellness culture in general to fill it. We think we're healing because we're taking on a different identity, yet it's not ours.

We can learn to gaslight our experience with various teachings and use them against our grief. This is the harm that can occur when we don't do our developmental healing first. What I've found happens when we begin to accept that healing is actually about changing our relationship to the parts of us that had to protect us, is that the urgency begins to shift. We settle into healing as a life long journey.

We stop looking for quick fixes. As our sense of self develops we deepen into self-trust, compassion and self responsibility without gaslighting ourselves. We stop abandoning ourselves.
Continued 👇🏼

And of course, there's a reason why we end up doin

And of course, there's a reason why we end up doing this. We also need to grow our capacity to stay with that activation in our system. We need to learn how to tolerate discomfort or we end up continuing to bypass our emotions.

The practice isn't about getting rid of feelings that are uncomfortable. It's about turning towards them and accepting them. The intention isn't to feel calm all the time. It's having the flexibility to ride the waves of our inner experience.

Regulation is not about moving out of intensity. It's about being able to stay with it. When we can stay with our stress responses, we can begin to learn how that survival energy wants to be expressed or used (mobilized).

And this doesn't mean we have to dive head first into discomfort. We can break it down into something that's doable. Sometimes we learn all these different tools that are grounding but actually contribute to our avoidance of feeling emotional pain or discomfort.

And there's a reason for that. We need to heal to feel too. That can often start with recieving co-regulation, which allows us to borrow some capacity to be with our inner states.

And there's a reason we lack relationship with our

And there's a reason we lack relationship with ourselves, our body and our feelings. Often this loneliness is really a reflection of not feeling safe inside. We can't cultivate a relationship or intimacy with these inner parts of ourself, if we don't feel safe.

We may have then developed strategies to manage our experience so we don't have to come up against the inner sense of fear. The fear we experience when something arises within us that feels too big or unmanageable.

So we learn to turn away. And in this turning away we never get to meet all of us. There's an inner shield that hides our uncomfortable parts. And how can we feel met within ourselves if we don't get to know ourselves. This loneliness is about lack of connection to self.

Connection comes when we can begin to cultivate an inner sense of safety and grow our capacity to tolerate discomfort. Because we can then begin to connect with the parts of ourselves that have been psychically exiled. In deeply knowing, feeling, seeing these parts of ourselves we begin to experience more inner connection.

And this happens both in the inner work we do with ourselves and in relationship to other. Sometimes we meet parts of ourselves, in the experience of another seeing that part of us first. There's something so beautiful about our tender parts being met with attunement and care. Especially when previous experiences were critical and shaming.

To feel safe internally, it's not just about cultivating a compassionate inner parent. It's also about being able to access our clean anger, which is protective in nature. Anger has a lot of activation, so if we're cut off from strong inner experiences regaining capacity to contain our anger will support reconnection. All of which begins to support the sense of self, and therefore the void of loneliness.

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Land Acknowledgement

I gratefully live and work in Edmonton as a settler (reclaiming my Metis roots), which is located on Treaty 6, the traditional territory and meeting grounds of Metis and First Nations people including Cree, Assiniboine, Salteaux, Niitsitapi (Blackfoot), Nakota Sioux and Chipewyan.

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