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Self Healing Through Self Discovery

 

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Ellsworth Weekly, March 11, 2004
By: Craig Idlebrook

DTA stands for self-growth

Ellsworth - If your car were in a major accident, you wouldn't take it in just to have the oil changed. You would want a mechanic who could work with the car as a whole. What this whole-car mechanic would be to your vehicle, the DTA Center for Learning & Growing would like to be for your healing.

DTA is a non profit charitable organization that offers both traditional therapy and integrative awareness [Integrated Awareness ®] healing. It offers services to both children and adults. The three partners, Faith Perkins, Sara Pierce, and Karen Sjostrom Hedger, offer their own specific therapies child each one is also trained in integrative awareness [Integrated Awareness ®] healing.

Karen Sjostrom Hedger described integrative medicine as "change through the healing arts." Integrative medicine combines traditional and alternative medicine to work with a client's whole being, emotionally, mentally, physically and spiritually. "The categories overlap a lot," Sjostrom Hedger said.

Sjostrom Hedger believes that there is a major difference between traditional therapy and healing. To her traditional therapy is about working with deficiencies.

"You have a problem, you address the problem," she said. Instead, she feels that integrative healing works with a client's strengths and wishes, what the client wants to achieve. Because of this, integrative healing is more client-driven.

Faith Perkins says, "What I love about integrative awareness is it is not about what I do to the client, it's about self-healing.."

It was this distinction that made these three change their philosophy and their practice. They were part of a therapy office in the same location, but found something lacking. "We saw another way to make change," Sjostrom Hedger said. They studied integrative awareness [Integrated Awareness ®] and reopened as a non profit in June of 2002.

DTA works with all ages of children and their families. When working with new families, the recommend that parents have a session in integrative healing before the children. This way parents can support their children throughout the process.

Adults are welcome at DTA, children or no. Sjostrom Hedger described one therapy where adults come with a desire to change some aspect of their lives.

They lie on a massage table and make a wish at the start of the session. One of the three integrative healers will then use gentle touch to help the client find the answer or means to change. "You don't have to have a problem to benefit from it," Sjostrom Hedger says.

DTA also hosts workshops and programs in Ellsworth. Workshop titles include "Brain Cramps & Stomach Knots" and "Parenting with Presence." In a recent workshop on voice, participants learned how to listen and work with their own vocal instruments. Meanwhile, programs at the center include "Baby Clinic," "Infant Massage" and "Handwriting without Tears."

Many DTA clients refer themselves. "We have a strong grassroots connection," says Sjostrom Hedger. Others are referred by social agencies or Head Start Centers. Fees are on a sliding scale and MaineCare is accepted. Sjostrom Hedger emphasized that cost should not prohibit access to DTA. "We find a way to work it out one way or another," she said.

Please send questions and comments to: dtaus@hotmail.com or call (207) 667-6783

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Integrated Awareness®: Self-Healing through Self-Discovery
By: Karen Hedger, IA Teacher

“Healing is not simply a restoration of some previous status quo.
It is acceptance embodied in the present moment of space
And has been accomplished
When the self no longer resists, resents or rejects its current state.

A good description of healed is:
* Physically when you are capable of doing what you want
without fear of pain or reoccurrence;
* Emotionally when you are responsive to present events
instead of using them to recreate past hurts;
* Mentally when you are quiet and without sense of coercion;
* Spiritually when you live in a state in which all parts of you are present,
your energy is congruent spatially with your structure,
your consciousness is anchored in the current moment
And
No part of you wishes it to be different”

~ Lansing Barrett Gresham
Founder of Integrated Awareness


In this time of darkness, unrest, pain and sorrow in the earth and the world, self-healing is how we can each contribute to healing the universe. The healing vibration from one becomes the healing vibration of all; we are all one. Integrated Awareness is one of the healing arts broadly applicable to anyone wanting self change, and uniquely personal for each of us exploring congruence between all parts of Self.

Integrated Awareness® is a set of (re)learned states and skills which can be (re)discovered, integrated into daily life and can evolve into a path of service and a journey of compassion, joy and the freedom of personal responsibility without obligation and blame. Infants enter this world with an open perceptual net and a full flow of information through all parts of self – emotional, energetic, mental, spiritual and physical bodies. As we grow and develop, humans tend to limit the flow of information. The shutting down phenomenon, like lowering a blind or shade, is, in part, culturally fostered. Energetics are not discussed or supported, and fitting in is a biological imperative. Limits and restrictions in our perceptual states are reflected in emotional wounds, energetic blockages, mental activity and physical limitations. We often experience and interpret these limitations and blockages as pain, and develop habits and strategies to inhibit feeling.
Through expanded consciousness, higher dimensional healing, and gentle touch and movement we can heal our wounds, increase possibility, and reopen our perceptual nets. We can cocreate the life we want, learning in each moment as we go. An Integrated Awareness® Teacher can serve as a guide and partner in this process, through table sessions, small group floor processes and / or aquatic suspension sessions. In private sessions, the guest typically states a wish, which can be for anything, from concrete to abstract, relative to self. A wish, a dream, a problem morphed into a desire for change – the wish sets the intention for the connections, and sets the stage for self-healing. The teacher, present, with open perceptual net and modeling congruence between soul and personality as best they can in that moment, will impart these same skills directly to the guest within the context in which the guest seeks healing.

Our great potential for feeling pain and sorrow is directly connected to our great potential for feeling joy and compassion. It’s all about feeling, and unlimited possibilities. As Lansing Gresham has said, “Healing is acceptance embodied in the present moment and space.” Our physical body is the only part of self that always exists in the present moment. Other parts of self can travel forward and back in time, distracting us from our present occupied experience, and we assign meaning to past and future, coloring our experience and memory. Having the courage to face our wounds, strategies and feelings can free us to experience more love of self and other, joy, compassion, congruence and connection through excellence. How very healing is the vibrations that is gentle to self. Integrated Awareness® is one of many ways to move forward on our journey of change and healing, and one certainly worth more exploration.

Karen Sjostrom Hedger Certified Integrated Awareness® Teacher

Karen and her partners offer IA® classes, table sessions and pool session through the non-profit DTA Center for Learning & Growing. To explore change in physical, emotional, spiritual or energetic health, or development for your child, call us at 207-667-6783