Q: How do you access emotions?

A: In Radix work, we work with blocks to energy flow in the body that are associated with blocking feelings. Some people have a deadness, or lack of feeling, or difficulty knowing or expressing their feelings, and work with them is geared to help them center, and know what they are feeling, and work through blocks against physical expression of feeling. Other people are overwhelmed with uncontrollable feeling that can be frightening or come out inappropriately; work with them is geared towards learning how to focus feeling with less chaos, and how to come out of feeling when that's what's needed.

We combine verbal and cognitive work with physical exercises, positions, and exploration, to identify what's going on at the moment and then how to move it more deeply and naturally. The work is experiential: the client does it in session, as well as talking about it.

As an example, think of a person who hasn't cried in 25 years. They will typically be rigidly tight in all the musculature associated with crying (and breathing): eye area, jaw/mouth, throat/neck, shoulders, chest, back, diaphragm. We would begin with helping to relax at the top (eye/scalp) and when feeling/energy can move there, continuing on to the mouth, etc., always integrating as we work downwards. Over time the person will be able to have a more full-body expression of sadness.

As an example of the "overwhelmed" type of person, think of someone who goes into overwhelming rage when their 3 year-old defies them. We would work with reality grounding, physically and cognitively, and breathing awareness to avoid escalation, and ways to keep centered and in contact while not raging; and also helping with fuller and more focused expression of anger in safer or more appropriate ways.