Bonnie Freestone MA, SEP
My work with clients and my own inner practices are interweaving streams of one wild river, always mirroring and informing each other. This challenging, beautiful ride began in my twenties with meditation, movement practice and lots of nature time, launching me into the world of somatics (experiencing the self through the body). Looking back I’m amazed how much changed for me internally and how much I still receive through this mindful way of being.
To me, healing is an intuitive improvisation driven by a deeper, more creative force than the rational mind. There is something powerful at work. As we move through the process of reclaiming dissociated parts of ourselves, learning to love and care for ourselves maybe for the first time, we’re met with a kind of spiritual support, a sense of tapping into a great well of being. We see how much is possible, and life opens like a flower.
Spending time in the natural world has been a huge part of my own healing experience. In my early twenties, while studying transpersonal psychology in California, I discovered how spending time in natural spaces, birds chirping and wind in my hair, soothed my intense anxiety. Taking quiet, slow walks in the redwoods helped me feel for the first time how delicious it is to be small and relatively unimportant.
I began to spend time in the natural world every day, and I have for the past twenty-five years. Even when illness made it hard to even walk, I would bundle up in a sleeping bag by a pond. And sometimes I still just sit with the trees. Being outside makes sense to me and it’s the time when I feel the most joy and the most like myself. Now I love to share the magic of green spaces with my clients, and witness their unique relatedness come alive in the outdoors.
As a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner I’ve spent the past thirteen years supporting people to heal from early developmental and relational trauma. My clients, like me, tend to be empathic, spiritually-connected, creative folks on their own healing journey, often at huge turning points in their lives. I’m humbled by their strength and determination and the strange mystery of healing. I’m grateful for the caring connection that opens for me sitting in sacred space with people.
Although my own daily practices have evolved over many years, the time I spend with myself continues to reveal new horizons to me, of relief in a deepening sense of settling and calm, of ecstatic joy and simple being. I get to meet more peaceful, expansive, loving and happy versions of myself as my practice continues, drawing from a wealth of twenty years of embodied healing modalities. I’ve come a long way. I hope I can help you get where you want to go as well.