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For those who may not remember, a kaleidoscope is a “toy” composed of a tube you look through, where fascinating shapes form when turning the wheel or shaking it. Regardless of how beautiful, striking, and curious each form may be, they are all constructed, temporary, and ever-changing, existing solely within that magical tube.

What if viewing reality were akin to looking through a kaleidoscope?

What if you are the kaleidoscope you look through? What if we all are?

All the beliefs we carry with us—whether conscious or unconscious, likes and dislikes, fixations, obsessions, preferences, demands, experiences, situations, memories, etc.—create a pattern, much like the form in a kaleidoscope, through which we perceive the world. This influences our internal and external narratives, shaping how we explain ourselves, share stories, defend our perspectives, make decisions, and take actions.

From this perspective, we talk, praise, love, hate, and live according to the composition of shapes and colours in our perception and interpretation. Interestingly, we often fail to question whether our perceptions align with reality or if our ideas, sensations, and emotions are influenced by biases from our own minds.

So, how can we trust the image formed by this “kaleidoscope” shaped over the years?

Don’t you feel compelled to set aside your personal kaleidoscope for a moment and truly see what lies beyond?

It seems straightforward, doesn’t it?

So, why doesn’t it happen?

One reason is that it’s incredibly challenging for us to abandon the map (our references) through which we construct our understanding of everything, including ourselves and our lives.

For many of us, these references, constructs, and structures were formed to protect us during what was perceived as, or indeed was, extremely challenging or even unbearable experiences. Consequently, our internal systems might resist or even prevent us from approaching them, deeming it dangerous or painful. These constructs have been our protective mechanisms.

Remaining present, appreciating the moment for what it is, without evaluating it through the lens of our mental kaleidoscope, challenges our established character and structure.

Being present without judgement can open doors to various experiences, sensations, emotions, and memories. It’s like a dam wall opening, allowing things to flow freely and dissipate.

Deconstruction occurs naturally. Beliefs fade when they are no longer necessary for being right about this or that.

We might feel like someone standing on a balcony, observing a landscape or scene without any particular intention beyond that. This can lead to a different, fresher, and likely more genuine relationship with both external and internal events.

There’s less mental noise, fewer judgments, and less chatter.

Space and a profound silence begin to settle.

Something wiser guides our actions and decision-making.

It’s not about becoming unfeeling but rather evolving into a human being less encumbered by acquired constructs and more open to the flow of life.

This transformation is a process we can undergo in an Amanae Emotional/Energy Release bodywork therapy session, where the power of touch and presence facilitates deep emotional and energetic shifts, helping us reconnect with our authentic selves and embrace the flow of life more fully.

24 – 04 – 2024

As you know I am trained as a Sports & Remedial Soft Tissue Therapist and doing the work I’ve learned about different compensation patterns in my own body and within clients bodies too.

So, what is compensatory muscle patterning? When primary muscles do not work properly in movement, the brain tells other muscles to perform that movement instead. Research in functional movement has found that no single muscle performs a movement. Rather, movement occurs through chains of muscle contractions and releases along lines of kinetic movement.

Patterns of compensation can  develop for many reasons as there are many causes for a muscle to stop doing what is suppose to do: weakness, nerve inhibition, lifestyle and poor postural habit, repetitive motion, injury, surgery, environmental, overuse, joint immobilisation, problems with joint stabilisation, dysfunctional movement (yes, compensations can actually create other compensations), etc.

When any of these occur, the brain sets up another way to make movement happen. In other words, the brain compensates.

I’ve been able not just to identify compensation patterns at muscular level but at emotional level too, as much in myself as in the people I treat.

Me: Anything happening? (during an Amanae session)

Patient: I was wondering about shopping.

Me: Great. Take me with you into your shopping.

How does shopping feel for you?

Patient: (Crying) Seems it is the only joy I can have now. There’s so much sadness. When I’m shopping I feel I can be someone else, that I can have a different life.

There are many reasons why we may use a coping mechanism for stress, difficult emotions, physical ailments, and other issues. They can provide us a temporary respite from reality and everyday life. They can enhance our sense of pleasure and decrease inhibitions and anxiety. Some of us have had the experience of being able to talk and connect easier with people in a party after a couple of drinks and not feeling that void, hole in the stomach.

Coping mechanisms are compulsions, or habits formed over time, that serve to help a person manage with particular situations or stress levels. Not all coping mechanisms are maladaptive or destructive; however, addiction is both.

Coping mechanism can be seen as crutches: a method or a tool of dealing with unhappiness, stress, or other uncomfortable issues. It is whatever we do to handle negative emotions or problems. We can use drugs, alcohol, shopping, gambling, sex, internet use, eating, not eating, work, exercise, relations, pleasing people, and so many other behaviours. 

It is understandable that cravings for the behaviour can be intense, and withdrawal can be difficult, as stress levels and unhappiness will increase if these behaviours are not repeated.

In Amanae we work along the body, specially with the nervous system, with these uncomfortable sensations, to expand and explore them in a non judgmental safety environment. This allows the body/mind to unlearn old ways and be retrained as new neurological pathways develop to understand in the flesh, these sensations can be felt without us perishing.

18 – 03 – 2024

At the end of the session:

“I am feeling so much sadness
And it’s OK

Actually it’s really good

We learned, my brother and I, not to allow sadness at this church we were sent to.

I am glad I went as I learned how to be optimistic and upbeat but at the same time it feels like feeling sadness was forbidden. Like we were doing something wrong if we allow ourselves that sensation

It’s nice to have the permission to feel sad and not feeling guilty for it”

Overflow
Sometimes we think that everything is going to be an overflow
Like when water overflows
A disaster

We can feel many emotions wanting to get out and at the same time fear that if we let ourselves to feel, we’ll sink into the depths of the sea of emotions and we’ll never be able to get out.

It’s an idea of ​​our mind
It’s not a reality

Quite the opposite

The more we allow ourselves to feel what we are

02 – 03 – 2024

Patient: “I am trying to visualise I can trust my body to do this”
Me: That’s really interesting.
Thank you for letting me know.

This morning when you were going to have your shower, did you try to trust? 

P: No
M: Did you visualise your body trusting? 
P: No
M: Did you visualise your hand going into the water before you did it?
P: No
M: OK
I guess you just put your hand into the water to see if it was good or not for you, isn’t it?
P: Yes
M: That’s exactly what happens here
I would like you to see if you can come to the sensation you are having where my hand is on your back and explore it. 

The patient has an opening and reports feeling calm.

In Amanae we go under the mind’s radar, under what we think and the thoughts we have about whatever is rising.
We don’t go with “the story” of what is happening or make “a better story” or try an “improved one”. This is normal as it is the way most of us live our lives: in our minds.

On the contrary, in Amanae, we recognize what we are thinking, the ideas appearing as part of the moment and stay within the body.

This acknowledgment and the space given to the moment including everything, allows the body / mind to have, to see itself from a different, deeper perspective which is “love” as spaciousness, acceptance, openness. 

Having a bit of distance from the painful identification of “ME & MY THOUGHTS, ME & MY PROBLEMS” the body is able to release the gluey stickiness of it.

A connection to freedom in the flesh.
The solace of the heart’s space that is always here for us.

28 – 02 – 2024

My digestion was impossible for the first 45 years of my life.

My first memories have to do with severe stomach pains, struggling with severe constipation and mishaps at school due to stomach problems and diarrhoea.

These problems were often accompanied by severe headaches and insomnia. Grandma’s  milk with brandy and sugar recipe didn’t do its magic when I drank it at 10yrs old.

During my 20s I changed my diet to vegetarianism to see if it would make any changes. Then to veganism.

The improvement did not come and my body showed more and more digestive problems, vomiting, headaches, fever, poisoning, skin conditions, allergies, muscles and joints.

I continued trying different ways of eating and hundreds of supplements.

Along this path I had the opportunity to receive help from various therapies until I reached Amanae, emotional liberation, which I began to receive in 2010 and then I began to learn, interested in the rapid and profound changes that I could appreciate.

I can say that right now I feel the most comfortable I have ever felt in my body. 

This body’s digestion is normal, painless, and does what a healthy digestion is supposed to do: process what is ingested, receive the nutrition it needs and let out what is not needed.

This process, as it is, is what for so many years I couldn’t  do with my emotions and feelings.

This mind-body learned to take responsibility for processing emotions, feelings and situations that were not at all mine. That I didn’t have the capacity to process at all as a child. And doing this I assumed roles that were not my own.

As I was not able to “fix”, process or express these situations, feelings and emotions, this body kept them. They were so overwhelming that they remained trapped, blocked without being able to be “digested.”

Colloquial expressions such as having a knot, a hole, stones or butterflies in your stomach are a palpable description of the sensations that I experienced all the time and that many people experience too.

Amanae Emotional Release therapy was the click that made it possible for me to understand my body. To understand what this body/mind learned to do to protect me, to survive in the environment I grew up in and how that that was learned unconsciously was repeating as a cycle.

Emotional Release bodywork allowed me to see my digestive difficulties as the result of traumatic situations from my childhood.

The body does not need to be “fixed”, this body needs to be listened to.

22 – 02 – 2024

Amanae, Emotional release bodywork is not for the faint hearted.

It works better if we are at a place where we are open to see what the body wants to show us, to see ourselves naked, to feel our deepness.
If we don’t feel like it, it’s totally fine. Wherever we are is exactly where we need to be at the moment.

When the body doesn’t need to apologise it shows itself in its splendour. This can be felt as intense for some of us.
When a human animal body has the space to be without apologising it does what  human animal bodies do: smell, taste, move, cry, shout, laugh, feel anger, feel sad, feel rage, kick, hug, embrace, sing, feel happy, feel peaceful, feel joyful. Feel deeply in love and awe.

We have normalised in so many ways that what human animal bodies do is wrong, is shameful, and embarrassing.

“What was that!?”, “I don’t have a clue of what just happened”, “That was quite something”, “Uuahhhhuuu, that felt like a trip!!”, “I don’t understand how that could happen”, “That wasn’t me at all”, “I can’t recognize myself”, “I haven’t felt like that ever”, “I don’t have words”

To experience the body taking up whole space, doing what it needs to, can bring sensations of freedom and lightness and also awkwardness and self-consciousness as we’ve learned to keep this inside, repressed, out of sight, even from us.

Part of me feels fine with these comments and another part of me can feel unease, like if I’ve done something terribly wrong.

This is mine: when I was growing up I felt I was too much, too intense, too loud, that I took too much space, too much attention. This is something I am continually working on. 

Sometimes it is amazing to see how fast the mind, all our layers of protection can tell us to retract, go back to the known. Feel ourselves deeply, feel fully alive can bring fears. It is incredibly touching to experience in your own body and witness the beauty of an open heart.

I am really aware the first session could be the only time I’d meet a person in this lifetime so my commitment to be present and open as fully as I am capable of, is my aim and the gift to myself.

(BTW, I don’t “DO” anything because there’s nothing that needs to be “DONE”: in this type of work you and I, we both work together consciously all the time, slowly at your own pace; breathing and being present. This allows your body to be as it needs to and shows its magic).

I come from a place in South America with huge mountains and powerful rivers, incredible sweet fruits and vibrant colours. Maybe this is also the reason I like Amanae Emotional Release bodywork, because it is truthful. It goes through the heart and touches the roots. 

01 – 02 – 2024

Amanae bodywork works within a dimension where we can be aware of what our mind is doing without being totally trapped on that doing. We can be aware of the flux of our emotions and allow them to rise and flow through us without being tumbled by them, without feeling trapped inside them. We can be aware of the kind of thoughts our mind is having: it says this and then it says that.

Getting in touch with that dimension, the 4th dimension allows us to start to be clear, to feel in the flesh the difference between being in the mind, the thinking space and the clear aware space presence of being in the heart.

Stepping into this awareness can bring an enormous difference in vibration frequency and everyday performance that we can start to notice pretty soon.

Our ability to think clearly might get enhanced as compulsive and more than often, useless thinking gradually subsides.

We can experience aliveness and peace because we are not as much “Me & my problems” as we get a different understanding of our emotional, thought, and physical processes.

When we are more conscious within our hearts, into this open spaciousness; we can have a better understanding of the people around us and our physical environment that can lead us to make more aligned and careful decisions, keeping our focus and knowing what’s important at any moment.

We can enjoy life and live in the moment more often as we are not trapped in an overwhelming past or in an anxious future anymore, as we do when we are “Me & My Problems”.

In these circumstances we are possessed by thoughts, judgments, overwhelmed by memories, worry, anger, resentment or sadness. Every thought and emotion feel absolutely important and absolutely right: “THIS is how it is”. “Let me tell you how things are”.

The space of simple awareness and presence of the heart, is the opportunity to be fully open to ourselves and the aliveness of the flowing movements of life.

16 – 10 – 2023

There are four attitudes that come from rooted beliefs or convictions that create disconnection and separation.

These attitudes steal energy from our relationships and from us. They are leaks draining precious energy.

They are:

• Wanting / need to always make a good impression
• Wanting / need to always have the reason / be right / to be on top
• Wanting / need to please
• Wanting / need to fix

We might feel we can make good impressions by saying we have read a book we haven’t, pretend to be interested or know about something we don’t care at all in or saying yes when we know and every cell of our bodies feels we want to say no.

When we need to be right or be on top we might look for ways to find other people’s faults, weaknesses or mistakes. So, it is difficult to cooperate or connect with a person that needs to be wrong for us to feel right or feel good.

How difficult is it for me to be wrong, to not have the reason? Maybe I feel if people find out I am wrong I won’t be loved, appreciated, I might be judged. Maybe I won’t be the lead I suppose to be?

Some of us have been or are people pleasers. There’s this need in us to say YES to everything regardless of any feeling that says the contrary in us.

Some of us might feel we need to do everything for everyone, in this way even if they don’t love us, at least they are going to need us.

If I say no, they might not like me, love me anymore.

If we don’t do everything for everyone we can be completely alone.

Or the world would end.

As professional fixers some of us go into improvement projects instead of relationships.

Why am I always interested in someone that feels in need of improvement / help?

How would I feel if this wouldn’t be the case?

So, which one of these leaks is the one that for any reason you think is big in you?

Are you the one that always wants to make a good impression, or the one that is always right, or are you the one that always says yes and wants to please everyone? Or the professional fixer or saviour?

Fluent in all four?

Master in one?

Being able to see / be aware of a pattern is a huge first step for them to start to change.

They most probably develop during childhood as a way to cope or survive or we were taught or we learned this was the way to be. They were useful for a while and they are not anymore. And, they can be really detrimental to our well being.

All these voices are based on fear and survival.

Amanae is the space to discover the real inner voice and listen to it.

04 – 10 – 2023

Acknowledgment—seeing and being seen—is a deeply powerful experience. Research has found that having someone, sometimes a complete stranger, just sitting with us while we perform a painful task reduces the pain we experience compared to doing it alone. And if that someone is a calm adult, children can show reduced cortisol levels.

“Compassion is an act of witness and being fully present to another person—and helping that person understand that someone sees them, hears them, and knows who they are…” (Parker Palmer)

Humans are interdependent. We are shaped deeply by our environment. We are wired to connect. One of our greatest needs is to be SEEN, not for who we pretend to be but for who we truly are. Feeling seen helped us to believe in and recognize ourselves.

A fully present person being with us, even without giving any advice, can help to regulate our physiology, reduce stress, anxiety and make a positive impact on our life. Having this experience also, may allow us to be present and have more compassion towards ourselves later on.

Instead of having the typical response of harsh self-criticism when we make a mistake (that can just produce a sense of isolation and pain); we learn to connect with the pain, recognizing it before going into problem-solving mode.

We learn to see and feel that it is actually a common human experience, not something that isolates us from others or something that shouldn’t be felt or happened.

Some of us might worry that self-compassion would only encourage weakness, laziness, or letting ourselves off the hook for mistakes. This actually doesn’t seem to happen. Self-compassion in fact can improve performance as there’s no stressful painful emotions  stuck and energy flows freely within our own compassionate presence.

28 – 09 – 2023

The purpose of this bodywork is to be present with another human being in a non judgemental and open way, using touch and breathing so they can feel an inner sense of themselves.

Amanae emotional regulation breath work is a general hands on discipline that allows for a deep relaxation in the client that is receiving the work. The touching presence of the practitioner allows the person under their hands to listen to their inner selves from inside out. The practitioner facilitates a safe space for that person to be whoever they are at that moment.

When someone is really present with you, there’s something about that that you don’t feel alone with your deepest feelings. That’s really healing. That’s where the magic happens: when we are able to navigate difficult emotions, when we can have space for them they themselves leave us.

The kind of touch used , it’s a presence touch. A listening touch.
When you find yourself being touched in this way there’s a sense of “safety”, of being contained, that allows you to unfold, relax your muscles and often come in touch with parts of yourself that you were not familiar with or have forgotten about.

When we are born healthy and we come into this world we move from the top of our head to the tips of our toes with every breath we take and as we begin to be a little older as long as we feel safe, there’s going to be a movement within us that is natural and easy.
But if we don’t feel safe for any reason, we start to put ourselves away and we do that with our muscles. We just start to hold back and hold down and when we do that, it affects the diaphragm, our breathing muscle. And this means we start to make ourselves smaller than how we really are and we lose that natural ability, that natural flexibility we have in life, our natural resources to deal with our life situations.

The heart of this bodywork is remembering who you really are and out of that, you find more possibilities of how you live your life with freedom and at ease.

06 – 06 – 2023