October 2017
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Turn The Wind Down
This is a picture of my husband, Trevor, walking the slackline. It’s basically a horizontal bungee cord, upon which he somehow maintains some semblance of balance in spite of the fact that it bends and sways in response to the slightest breeze, much less his weight or movement! People see him walking on it in… Continue reading
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Grounded, Not Grasping
So we talk a lot here about there being two ways of living – fear and love – and that we have to pick one. Fear leaves us grasping. It’s the drowning victim flailing away in the water. It’s the cartoon character falling from ridiculous heights, trying to hold onto any leaf or branch they pass… Continue reading
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Race Report – Scotiabank Half Marathon
Yesterday was the day we’d been training for all summer! After over four months of waiting for my chair it shipped over a week ago. Problems with delays at the factory where it was made, and then issues with shipping meant that by Friday afternoon it was stuck in a semi-truck at the UPS Depot… Continue reading
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Trauma, Triggers and Moving Forward
Back in 2011 I was given the opportunity to expand my birth work to include working with women who had experienced sexual abuse. In doing the training for this role, I began to read more and more about trauma and especially about triggers. And the more I read about triggers, the more I realized that… Continue reading
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Grief, Not Guilt
And the prevailing responses in all of these cases is either to become defensive or to grovel in guilt or wallow in shame. The problem with all three of these responses, is that all of them create big emotions that we then use to distance ourselves from the pain of the one we’ve hurt. If… Continue reading
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Infant Loss and Awareness Day
Today is Infant Loss and Awareness Day – and the 15th one I’ve observed as a mother who lost her child. The little boy at the top of this screen is my son. He was born the day before my 23rd birthday – the second of my three children – fifteen years ago this past… Continue reading
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Tuning In
So we’ve spent the last few weeks talking about getting to know the different parts of who we are – heart, soul, mind (part 1 and part 2) and body. We talked about how important it was for us to get to know these different parts of us, because each of these parts are designed… Continue reading
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Canaries in Coalmines …
There is this tendency to want to “fix” people. To make it so that they stop responding “inappropriately” or “fit in” better. But what if we viewed those with disability, autism or mental health issues like canaries – vulnerable yet valuable members of our community, who had the capacity to help us see when we… Continue reading
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Responding To Self-Harm and Suicide
Because of the role that worthlessness and disconnection play in self-harm and suicidality, if someone is courageous enough to tell me about what’s going on, I do my best to respond immediately with deeper connection. I might take them out for coffee, for a walk in the woods or by the water; I might invite… Continue reading
About the program
In 2017 I was newly self-diagnosed with atypical autism, struggling with burnout, and striking out when it came to therapists who could address the issues I was facing. At the same time, I was building skills around life coaching, shame reduction, and trauma-informed therapy for work. Gradually I realized that what I needed – an embodied, autonomous, agency-driven coaching approach to unmasking – was not something I was going to find “out there”, but something I was going to need to create if I wanted to recover my life. This was the moment the Values Based Integration Process was born.
Having developed the program for myself – and having seen the incredible results it brought in my own life – I began to use it with coaching clients. The results were out of this world!
After conversations with Dr. Devon Price, the technique was featured in his book Unmasking Autism. With it, came interest in the technique and the decision was made to begin training coaches and therapists to help make this toolkit more readily available.