Why not start a rebellion?

Natalie Cooney
3 days ago
4 min read

When our lives continue to operate at a pace that isn’t sustainable, the burnout, reactivity, and disconnect remove us from what actually matters. This is how trauma imprinting works, even if it was trauma from decades ago or last year, if the survival imprint never got relief, it compels the personality, the psyche, and the nervous system to carry on AS IF those survival strategies are still needed. Even so much as to project the map of threat onto present-day scenarios that would best be solved with connection and slow intentional orientation to the present.

It is easy to see threat and danger, and the need to mobilize or collapse, when the trauma imprint is alive and active. That is how the brain and nervous system work–what we tend to will grow, what we focus on will deepen, and what we spend our mental and emotional energy on will carve deeper and deeper grooves. For trauma imprints without connection to choice or true power, that means just more of the same– flight, flight, freeze, and fawn.

Unless…

You are given an updated map and a strategy of how to shape your brain and nervous system, so it is no longer induced and hardens towards fear, overwhelm, burnout, disconnect, but rather pleasure, presence, connection, and safety. This is the work of generative and integrative somatics. We go below the words, into the nervous system, to acknowledge the message it is sending about what you have been through, and then we start pointing out and orienting you to other landmarks on the map.

We are being anti-oppressive and rebellious of systems of threat by standing up for and charting on the map:

Pleasure

Goodness

Connection

Aliveness

Nature

Breath

It is an act of rebellion to give our whole presence to today. It is an act of restorative justice to begin the process of gradually reclaiming your POWER, CHOICE, and the right to experience PLEASURE, REST, and CARE.

We do this work with individuals, we do it with couples, we do it with parents and teens, we do it with families. The way out of a stuck trauma imprint is orientation, initially in small doses, to the inner fire of your powerful aliveness and your cravings for things to get better, to change, to shift towards more than just survival. Go on your own lovingkindness rebellion against the conditioning in yourself, be ruthless in the revolution of the systems that are stuck. Stand tall as you shape your next becoming, because as my mom used to say, “nothing changes if nothing changes”. Why not start a rebellion?

We’d love to help if you want a strategy and a guide to chart your course, or need some new landmarks added, or if you keep visiting old landmarks and need help updating the geography. We have openings in both California and Colorado, in-person and online, for couples + relationships and individual counseling. We are great cartographers!

with tons of love, support, and gratitude,

Natalie Cooney

Clinical Director, Supervisor + Creatrix

SEP | AASECT Certified Sex Therapist | LMFT CA-CO-OR

PS: If you are in Colorado and want a couples therapist…read on, my Abby has current openings!

In PERSON in GOLDEN, CO +

ONLINE in COLORADO

Integrative Couples, Relationship and Family therapist

🌼Relationship Healing

👯‍♀️Couple Repair, Intimacy, and Communication

🌳Family healing, repair, and facilitator of new cycles

🌷Integrative and Somatic

🔥Directly apprenticing with Natalie!

(She/her) / MFT-C.0014843

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OPENINGS In person in San Diego

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LINDA'S SPECIALTIES:

🪷Chronic Pain

✨Anxiety & Depression

🌼Neglect

🌿Grief & Loss

🌷Relational and emotional distress, pain, and wounding

Registered Associate MFT148140 Supervised by Natalie Cooney #94578

JESSI'S SPECIALTIES:

🪸Couples + Relationships

🌟Pregnancy and Postpartum

🌏IFS/Parts Work

🌤️ Parent/Child/Teen relational work

🪴PTSD (Including prolonged or complex)

Registered Associate MFT153766 Supervised by Natalie Cooney #94578

Individuals, Teens, Relationships + Couples

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Can’t wait to soak in wisdom from so many brilliant minds and bring it back to share with the team and our clients!

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We specialize in:

✨Relationships, couples, pre-marital

🌿Couples + Families

Communication

🌼Anxiety & Depression

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🪴PTSD (Including prolonged or complex)

🤝Grief & Loss

❤️‍🩹Trauma/overwhelm

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We become calmer during difficult moments. We react less quickly. We listen more openly. We create a sense of safety that teens can feel.

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