I met Natalie at a festival a few years back, and we stayed in touch until I went on a trip to Egypt, led by Natalie called The Union Retreat, a group tour through Egypt. Following that we did three sessions of bodywork with an interesting flow running through them, each one seemingly carrying its own theme that gave Natalie a critical piece of insight to integrate.

Natalie is a Rose Mystic and Divine Feminine Guide. You can find her at: https://www.instagram.com/thenatalierose__/

Where I was before

I had an expectation, or a desire, for more ease in my system. Less of the holding and contraction that my body had gotten into a pattern of. It's like picturing a coil, and wanting it to uncoil. That was the intention, really. Releasing some of that pent up, stored tension that had somehow become just a way of being.

What surprised me

The first session was at my parents' house, and that was interesting, because being back in that environment put me in a kind of portal to being back at home, back to where so many of my struggles were as a teenager. I was able to access that time again, and there was so much grief in it. I've had this relationship with suicide and death, and I felt again the intensity of what I'd experienced around not wanting to be here, while knowing my body was still holding that on some level, even though my reality now is that I don't feel like that anymore.

That was the surprise. Even when you've moved on from something, your body remembers those deep times. It was almost like I could have been right back there. It felt real, like there was still a realness to the fact that it could have been true, which is amazing when I think about it, and it made sense of the heaviness that was in my system.

I talk a lot about death. I have a very intimate relationship with it, and there was an acceptance in that session of course I know death, of the dance around being in that space in between the living and the dead. That's been a theme running through a lot of these sessions, this deep acceptance of why my soul chose these aspects, and coming out of it with a radical awareness that of course I chose these things as part of my life's path. But it was empowering too, knowing that isn't where I am now.

There was a lot of compassion I needed to give to the younger version of me who went through so much of that alone. Nobody really understood. I was going through OCD, and my parents told me OCD doesn't exist, that I was making it up. So I was alone with it. And in that session there was deep compassion for that, for how hard that path was, and an acceptance of it rather than pretending it was fine. I let myself go into the grief of it, because I think we try to stay out of being a victim sometimes, but we often need to go there and just acknowledge the pain.

What bodywork has to do with it

It feels like magic. When I first met Ben, I somehow knew we'd be bringing this work to Egypt, I didn't know how, but it felt ancient to me, like an offering the priestesses and priests would give, mainly when men came back from war, bringing them back into their hearts to heal from the suffering and grief of what they'd experienced. I've since done training in this with ISTA in Guatemala, and it makes even more sense to me now, because for me this has always been linked to the temples and the temple work.

There's a tending that we don't receive in the world now, and I love that word, tended to, because it allows the body to actually catch up with any parts that haven't fully integrated. Beyond the touch, there's a deep ancient practice in being held by a loving presence, someone who can let the body do what it naturally knows how to do. I'm noticing I don't use the word bodywork much anymore, because for me it's so much bigger than that.

How the sessions built on each other

My first session was very much my old self, the version of me as a late teen going through a difficult period. My second was deeply ancestral, about my grandma and her pain, we were in her old bungalow and I felt her energy in the session from the beginning, clearing something of hers. The third went back to another period, one of narcissistic, abusive dynamics in relationships, and allowing my body to accept some of that pain too.

That third session came after training in Guatemala, and I think going in with the background of ancient ritual and temple practice meant I wasn't seeing it as just a bodywork session anymore, I was tuned into the magnitude of what was available. That's why the first thing I said at the end was, the war with myself has ended. I'd gone deeper because I could hold both the reality of how extreme those periods were, and the cosmic joke of it too. There isn't one without the other, especially for someone who feels things as deeply as I do.

What's different now

Coming out of that last session was almost annoying, because it was so transformational that the victim part of me didn't have space anymore. I could see why I'd chosen those abusive dynamics, that they matched my frequency at the time, because I didn't love myself and believed I deserved abuse. Once you see that, you can't really blame anyone for anything.

The biggest realisation was taking radical responsibility for everything. That's profound, because the moment you go into blaming, or being the victim, or feeling sorry for yourself, something in you can catch it now. I remind myself I'm the creator, and ask what this is teaching me. That's been a spiritual practice for years, but something in me shifted more completely after that session, even if it's sometimes annoying, because sometimes I still just want to be the victim.

There's less fear now too, about going out into the world, about someone manipulating or abusing me again, because I know I create my experiences. If something like that were to happen, I'd be creating it, and there's real freedom in that.

What I'd say to someone considering this

I imagine it can feel like a big step if you're not in this world and don't understand it yet. It's beautiful to come back to the tending, to allowing someone to hold you almost like the Divine Mother, because so much of this is about coming back to receiving love from the mother. If people could give themselves that opportunity in this life, with someone like Ben, that would be amazing, because ultimately it's about realising we're worthy of unconditional love. That's where it begins. He's holding space for you, unconditionally, with loving presence, and that's a gift everyone deserves. Beyond that, magic happens. But offering yourself that is a beautiful place to start.