A Moment of Shift

Sitting in the room with Judy, I watched her work with a client who very quietly volunteered to come on the chair. Well, these were those days when the world was live and in person. His eyes fixed on the floor, shoulders drooped, neck down and breath shallow, the unmistakable physiology of someone carrying the weight of something unsaid, heavy or un-resourceful. When Judy asked, “So what are you working with today?” he replied, “just… depressed.” That was a slang and not a clinical language, it was a felt sense of a state that had overstayed its welcome. What he called depression looked more like a narrowing of perceptual space, an internal looping where options disappear, a stuckness shaped as much by posture and breath as by thought.

Judy’s response was both empathetic, precise and elegantly intentional. With a voice that invited safety, she asked, “How would it look to you to look me in the eye when you say yes?” This question which looked so simple on the surface, was an elegant Miltonian linguistic pattern; and the academic underpinning was clear, by inviting the client to shift his gaze, Judy was inviting a physiological change, moving from a collapsed, inward state, to one of greater openness, stretch, and fuller breathing. The act of looking up, of saying “yes” while meeting another’s eyes, presupposes not just linguistic participation but a reorientation of the body and mind. The subtle double bind, considering both the act and its meaning, opened a door to new experiences without demand, leveraging the interdependence of posture, breath, and psychological state. This, to me, is the spirit of sponsorship, the ability to fully honour what is present, the pain, struggle, human limitations, while, in the same breath, gently pointing toward the “much, much more” that might be possible. Judy did not rush to fix or reframe; she stood with the client, acknowledging, “.. and yes, I honour the fact that there could be many things out there that could give the feeling of being depressed, after all we live in a world where it rains on our parade and hails on our crops.” This set the foundation for any intervention that was to follow. Later, she named the subtle shift as a kinesthetic dissociation from an un-resourceful state (CRASH) to a resourceful state (COACH), while holding the truth of the client’s narrative. This embodied movement can sometimes unlock new options, and she was careful to add, “This may not be the answer to everything, especially not when people have chemical imbalances or other impediments. In those cases, things can be addressed in another way.” Her humility refused to reduce the complexity, if any, of the clients experience to any single technique.

What I carry from this experience is not just a new tool or a process or some phrase, but a renewed sense of awe for the space of human interaction. To witness my teacher, my magus who could hold both ‘the depth of suffering’ and ‘the possibility of something new’, with such skill and therapeutic presence, is a gift. It reminds us that at the heart of our work is not in the cleverness of our act, but in our capacity to see, to honour, and to stay present with what is, while never losing sight of what could be.