Become a Skilled Practitioner by Learning to Work With Your OWN Emotions
You're reading this article because you want to help people… right?
You're a therapist or coach (or on your way to becoming one) and you want to understand how you can have the greatest impact on your clients. You don't just want to nod along and get paid. You want to facilitate life-changing transformation. You want to see your clients become their best selves, unearthing the blocks that hold them back and finally healing their deepest pain.
This might sound controversial, but conventional education and knowledge aren't the best avenues for becoming this kind of healer. Reading books and attending weekend webinars can only get you so far in learning how to be a truly effective guide for your clients.
In this article, we're diving into the real key to becoming the kind of coach or therapist you want to be. It's not easy, and it won't happen in days or weeks — but the work will be worth it.
Fancy Degrees Can Only Get You So Far
Most people who want to become therapists think they need to pursue years of conventional education to qualify. But while being educated and knowledgeable about human psychology is important, it can't actually make you an effective therapist.
Even if you have the whole alphabet after your name, this won’t necessarily help you facilitate true transformation for your clients… unless you’ve done your own inner work. The power of your work doesn’t come from how much you know, but from the steps you’ve taken to embody and integrate your holistic self.
If you want to help your clients do their deepest healing work, you have to start by doing your own.
Clients Can Tell If You’ve Walked the Walk
As a Board-Certified Dance/Movement Therapist (BC-DMT) with a master’s degree, I can tell you with confidence that my title is not what makes me a good therapist and facilitator. The most underrated yet most important aspect of being an effective practitioner boils down to this:
To lead your clients along a truly transformational path of healing and self-discovery, you need to know what it’s like to walk that path yourself. If you don’t, you won’t have the firsthand experience necessary to be the guide your clients need and want.
By learning to feel and embody your emotions, process your grief and fear, and encounter your shadow parts, you show your clients and potential clients they can trust you to hold space for their own transformations. On the other hand, if you just speak from an intellectual place, informed only by textbooks and theories, your clients might struggle to see you as a capable guide. Building meaningful trust with your clients starts with adopting a holistic approach informed by your own inner work.
Encountering Your Own Shadow Will Make You a Better Leader
I know how to help my clients courageously encounter their shadow parts, because I've courageously encountered my own shadow parts.
I know how to help my clients lovingly and compassionately befriend and protect their younger selves, because I've done the same thing.
I can hold my clients in their scariest moments of shame, fear, and confusion, because I’ve learned how to hold myself in those times without turning away.
I often tell my clients there's nothing they could say to me about their experiences, thoughts, or feelings that would scare me away — and I truly mean that. I can tell them that with confidence because I've done the work of learning how to embody and embrace all parts of myself with love, compassion, and trust.
A therapist or coach who hasn't done their own inner work doesn't only run the risk of being ineffective for their clients — they may even cause unintended harm by attempting to lead clients into territory they don't fully understand. Encountering your own shadow and learning the skills of embodiment and self-regulation will help you hold a safe and strong container for your clients’ transformation.
Embodiment Is the Key to Digging Deep
Most modern approaches to therapy and coaching focus solely on the mind. We use the mind as a doorway, thinking it will grant us entry into the deepest realms of our psyches, traumas, desires, and fears. But this is a problem.
Our emotional and neurological experiences live in our bodies — not just our brains.
Even modern neuroscience is catching up with the age-old idea of the mind-body connection. Recent research from the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Lois reveals a previously undocumented link between the brain and the rest of the body. We also know that “the body keeps the score,” an idea first introduced in 1994 by the research of psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk. Put simply, if we're only ever approaching the process of healing through the mind, we overlook the most important doorway of all — the body.
By learning the skill of embodiment as you explore your own shadows, traumas, and younger selves, you will have access to a much deeper and more complex form of healing for yourself. This will allow you to more effectively guide your clients along a similar journey.
But “doing the work” doesn’t (and in most cases shouldn’t) happen in isolation. You don’t need to run away into the mountains to encounter your deepest fears before becoming a therapist. Healing happens in community, which is why we designed the Healing Embodied Practitioner Training Program. This first-of-its-kind program is for therapists and coaches who want to become transformational guides through hands-on, embodiment-based training.
The Healing Embodied Practitioner Training Program
At Healing Embodied, we approach our work in a threefold way — we prioritize our own inner work and healing as practitioners, we support and guide our clients in their own healing journeys, and we teach other practitioners how to become more embodied and holistic in their own practices. Learning the skills of embodiment and doing the real inner work are non-negotiables for Healing Embodied Practitioners. We never rest on the laurels of our degrees or certifications, because we know this isn’t what makes us what we are.
In 2023, we launched a year-long certification program to teach you how to lead others in their healing from the foundation of your own embodiment, and we’re diving in with our next cohort in 2025. Grab a spot on the waitlist or schedule a free info call with one of our instructors today.