Preparing for your session
Everything worth knowing before, during and after we work together.
Thank you for filling that in.
It takes something to put your history on a page, even in dot points, and I don't take it lightly that you did. I read every intake form properly before a session, so what you wrote is already doing work.
Before we meet, there are a few things worth knowing. Not rules. This is simply what tends to make the difference between a session you feel for a week and a session you feel for years.
Read it once now. Come back to the "after your session" part on the day.
Keep a copy
Here it all is as a PDF, so you can print it or keep it on your phone for the day. There is a page at the back for writing down what you notice in the days afterwards.
Or have it sent to your inbox, so it's there on the day.
Part one
Before your session
Give it more time than you think you need
Allow two hours. We spend real time at the start explaining the process and filling in your testing sheet, and there are several steps to work through before the healing itself begins. If you are watching the clock, your nervous system is watching it with you.
Somewhere private, where you won't be interrupted
A room with a door. Let the people you live with know you are not available. Phone on silent, notifications off, pets settled somewhere else. It doesn't need to be a beautiful space. It needs to be a private one.
A laptop, computer or tablet. Not a phone
I need to see you from the waist up for the testing part of the session, and a phone propped against a mug won't give us that. Plug in, check your internet, and set yourself up sitting comfortably with your feet flat on the floor.
Be well hydrated
Drink water through the day beforehand and keep a glass beside you. Energy moves more freely through a hydrated body, and the testing responds more clearly too. Eat something before we start so you are not running on empty, and keep it light rather than heavy.
No alcohol or recreational substances for 24 hours beforehand
Both dull your connection to your body, and your body is where this work actually happens. Go gently on the caffeine that morning as well.
You don't have to arrive with it figured out
Some people come in knowing exactly what they want to work on. Others come in with a heaviness they can't name yet. Both are completely workable.
Your unconscious mind already knows what it is ready for. Asking it is part of what we do together.
If it helps, sit for a few minutes beforehand with one question: what would be different in my life if this shifted? That's your intention. You don't need any more preparation than that.
Music, if you'd like it
Soft healing music in the background suits some people and distracts others. Entirely your call. If you want it, look for something labelled Healing Music 528Hz, two to three hours long, and have it playing quietly before we begin.
Part two
During your session
You are awake, aware and in control the whole time
This is not being put under. You are in a relaxed, focused state, close to that softness right before sleep. You can hear me, you can speak to me, and you can stop at any point. Nothing goes in that you don't accept.
We start with the paperwork, and the paperwork matters
We'll rate where things are for you right now across the areas of your life, then work through your testing sheet using sway testing, where your body indicates what is active and ready to be looked at today. It can feel unusual the first time. Most people relax into it within a few minutes.
You are not going back to relive anything
This is the important one. We are not going back so you can feel it all over again. We are going back to finish something that was left incomplete, with you as the adult you are now, and with me beside you the entire time.
Your unconscious mind will not take you anywhere you are not resourced to go. It has protected you this long. It doesn't stop now.
Emotion is welcome, and so is no emotion
Some people cry. Some yawn, shake, or feel heat move through them. Some feel very little in the moment and then notice everything shift over the following fortnight. There is no correct way to do this, and nothing you feel will be too much for the room.
If you don't see pictures in your mind, tell me early. It is far more common than people realise, and the process adapts easily. We work with emotions and sensations instead.
Where we end up may not be where you expected
You might come in about your boss and find yourself at seven years old in a school corridor. That is not the session going off track. That is the session going to the root.
If it becomes too much, say so
Say "I need to pause", or lift a hand. We come back up, breathe, let your system settle, and then decide together whether to keep going or whether today has done enough.
Stopping is always available, and it is never a failure.
Part three
After your session
Expect a healing hangover
For a few days afterwards, your mind and body are re-wiring. Neurological pathways are changing, stored emotion is leaving your system, and your nervous system is finding its way back to rest and digest. That is real physiological work, and it costs energy.
So in the one to three days after a session, you might notice:
- tiredness, low energy or lethargy
- a headache
- feeling emotionally tender, raw or more reactive than usual
- sleeping differently, or dreaming vividly
- old feelings surfacing briefly before they pass
- a wave of grief for the time you spent living as someone you weren't
- moments of feeling like more than a physical body
None of that means something went wrong. It means something is moving.
It is a bit like the day after a house move. Everything is in the new place, and nothing is in its spot yet. Give it the week.
Let it move through rather than bracing against it
The hangover passes more easily when you allow it than when you fight it. If you try to be fine, get straight back to normal and push the feelings back down, you are asking your body to hold onto the very thing it has finally started to put down.
So if you find yourself crying at a television advertisement, short with someone you love, or welling up for no reason you can name, nothing has gone wrong with you. This is a detox. Decades of stored emotion do not leave politely. Let it come, let it go, and be gentle with yourself while it does.
What to do in the days after
- Water, food, and an early night. Take it easy on yourself.
- Move gently. A walk, fresh air, time outside. Leave the hard training session for another day.
- Skip the alcohol that night at least. Your system is already busy.
- Keep the calendar light. Don't schedule anything demanding for that evening.
- Write down what you notice. Dreams, memories, shifts, things that stop bothering you. This becomes useful material for next time.
- Repeat your mantra as often as we agreed. It works through repetition, not through effort.
What you share, and who you share it with, is yours to decide
You have just worked through something you may have been carrying for decades, and the people closest to you were not in the room for it. Some of them will ask. Some will want the detail. Some will have their own feelings about the memory that came up, particularly if they are in it.
You don't owe anyone the story. Not your partner, not your mum, not the friend who recommended me. You can share all of it, some of it, or none of it, and you are allowed to decide later rather than in the first raw twenty four hours.
One thing worth knowing: telling it too soon can pull you back into explaining what happened instead of letting it settle. If you are unsure, give it a few days first. The story will still be there.
Don't rush the next one
More sessions, faster, is not deeper healing. Your nervous system needs the space in between to integrate what has already moved. We will space your sessions the way your system asks for rather than the way your impatience asks for, and I will be honest with you about which one is talking.
What's normal, and when to reach out
Everything above is normal.
Message me if something feels stuck, if you feel disoriented for more than a few days, or if you are simply worried. "Is this normal?" is a completely welcome message and I would much rather hear from you than have you sit with it.
If you are ever in crisis or you don't feel safe, this is not an emergency service. In Australia, call Lifeline on 13 11 14, or 000 in an emergency. Outside Australia, please use your local emergency number.
Good to know
What this work is, and what it isn't
I am a facilitator, not a therapist, counsellor or medical practitioner. My role is to hold the space and follow what your unconscious offers. The healing is yours. I am the co-pilot.
Root-Cause Therapy is a complementary modality. It sits alongside medical and psychological care. It does not replace it.
If you are under the care of a GP, psychiatrist or psychologist, please keep that care in place, and let me know it exists. Nothing about a session is a reason to change or stop medication. That conversation belongs with the person who prescribed it.
What you bring is confidential, held privately, and not shared, other than where there is a genuine risk to your safety or someone else's.
Everything you have been carrying made complete sense at the time it started. It was not your fault, and it is not who you are now.
If anything here raises a question, email me before we meet at [email protected]. Otherwise I will see you soon, and there is nothing left to do except turn up and be honest.
Mel
