I’m Jodi Alieksaites…

My training in contemplative practice & psychotherapy was focused on Maitri (Tibetan Buddhism), which can be translated as "making friends with oneself. Having gentleness, kindness, friendliness and warmth towards oneself & others." Sometimes we are not very skilled at being gentle & kind to ourselves. Often the opposite is the norm, which results in an endless barrage of self-aggressive thoughts riddled with "shoulds." It's impossible to connect to our life from this place of self-judgement. We can't fake it. Loving ourselves is not fluffy, unimportant stuff. It is the most essential ingredient to living a life of purpose & connection.

All of us have fear, whether it be emotionally-based or survival instinct that has become overwhelming, flooding our body with anxiety & panic attacks. Many of us have in many ways told ourselves a story that we should not be or feel a certain way, which causes conflict & stress in the body & mind. Perhaps we would like to move to a place in our life where fear does not hold us back? Together, we work with mindfulness techniques & body-centered practices to regulate fear & anxiety as well as recognizing the thoughts that fuel fears. The nervous system can be retuned & retrained to address dysregulation, anxiety & panic attacks as well as depressed or frozen nervous systems.

Empowerment means that we trust ourself to know how to align with our intuition as well as know when our body is saying "NO" or "YES"....& to act in alignment with that truth & trust in ourself. My practice is client-centered, meaning the client decides what they want to work on. Personal growth happens when we collaborate based on client goals combined with my insight of what I'm seeing and hearing from my client.

Boundaries are extremely important & impact every area of our life. Let's reaffirm healthy boundaries & what it means to "clean up" already damaged boundaries in our relationships to others & our relationship to ourself. Clear boundaries help our nervous system relax & feel safe.

If emotional intelligence is not modeled for us as we develop & grow we simply do not learn how to clearly name how we feel. We may assume that some emotions are unacceptable to others around us & begin to suppress our feelings. Emotional intelligence begins with knowing how to identify feelings & to learn to attune to ourself.

Mindfulness has become a commonly used term that in some ways has become watered-down due to overly broad use. From my point of view, Mindfulness is our effort to turn our attention & awareness to the present moment in an intentional way. This includes mindfulness of what our thoughts & mind are doing, but we can go further & use mindfulness to work with body, breath, movement & posture. Combining mindfulness of body & mind can create what we call an "embodied" way of being. Being present within our body creates a higher potential for healing trauma & increasing quality of our relationships overall.

Some categories of trauma are obvious & some are not. My view of trauma is that most of us have some level of trauma with widely varying degrees of impact on our daily lives, relationships & over-all emotional functioning. Bringing awareness & attention to trauma is the first step to resolving & freeing the body. My "bottom-up" or body before thoughts approach & simple nervous system regulation techniques help move at the pace of the body.

Fear & grief often emerge during times of transition, even if we are initiating the change. It’s important to understand ourselves & how we might be tripped up by our perception of risk. Risk & the thoughts & feelings that arise around perceived risk must be thoughtfully addressed in order to live our dreams. This is the beginning of walking the path, not just of transition, but of TRANSFORMATION.

Curiosity is key to developing space & gentleness to explore painful patterns & the parts of ourselves that are wounded by past events & needing healing.

Curiosity is often a gateway to playfulness, light-heartedness & creative expression, which is beneficial to therapy.

Burnout is often associated with prolonged stress in the workplace, but I apply this term also to relationships, personal goals, school & burnout related to neurodiversity & sensory burnout. Once one is in burnout we feel emotionally unwell, psychologically stuck & physically exhausted. It is challenging to find our way out once we are at this point.

I help clients to acknowledge burnout & begin to address stress & the build-up of prolonged stress or exposure to toxic environments.