My introduction to BodyTalk came through a recommendation from my mom. I heard peace in her voice and I had her set up an appointment for me on my next trip home to Nipawin. I didn't know what to expect, but I hoped it would be BIG.

It was.

I had been consciously struggling with a childhood belief that I was stupid. If anything anyone said or did could be interpreted as them thinking I was stupid, I would lose it. I would get defensive and start beating myself up and a lot of times it came off (and sometimes I aimed it) that I was angry with the person who had implied it. How dare they?!? I had tried thought retraining, traditional talk therapy, EMDR, and while it helped, I was still fighting the idea that I absolutely knew to be not true.

One of the first things to come up in my session was an Active Memory. An active memory is one in which there is still emotional baggage. When we relive the memory, our whole being experiences the memory again. Regina Taschler of Infinite Health in Nipawin was my first Certified BodyTalk Practitioner. She told me to start thinking of memories. A slideshow of all my painful moments started flashing through my mind. And as soon as she said, "That one," I stopped the slideshow. It was an image of my dad standing in our kitchen mid-yell and angry. He was telling me how stupid I had to be that I couldn't even get the dishes done. There it was, the root cause of my belief. And wow, did it hurt! She asked me to be in that memory to the fullest extent while she performed the technique to allow the emotional baggage to be processed by my system.

A lot of other things came up in the session, but I don't know what anymore. All of it was important though. I stared at her BodyTalk protocol chart during the whole session to see if I could follow along as she told me what was coming up. I was fascinated.

When it was over, Regina asked me how I felt. I know now that this is a very hard question to answer sometimes. I asked her to give me a moment, to let me listen to myself. The first thing I did was imagine walking into my parents' living room and seeing my dad. In my mind, I walked up to my dad and hugged him fully for the first time since I hit puberty. Tears rolled silently down my cheeks as I hugged my dad and allowed him to hug me for as long as he wanted instead of trying to get away. It was magical.

The next thing that I felt was a weirdness in my diaphragm. It was like a tickle, but not. It was familiar, but not by itself. After a minute or so, I recognized it. It was the feeling of laughter without actually laughing. So I forced a laugh. And as I watched the minutes tick by, I continued to laugh. I took drinks of water and had to lie down as I laughed for a solid 20 minutes before it started to dissipate. What an incredible experience of release.

Thank you, Regina, for this first experience of BodyTalk and what can happen when I let myself be truly seen. It has led me down my own BodyTalk path and my own business of Choice BodyTalk. So much gratitude for these moments.

It's been a long time since I tried to dig into what makes me me. I went hardcore for about 5 years, but then I had two more children and sabotaged another friendship and got very burnt out. So, while I kept most (not all) the lessons I learned about who I am and my world.