Breaking the Rules
I want you first to know that I’m extending the Summer Sale period until Friday the 18th (was supposed to be last Friday the 11th). I’ll tell you more later.
There’s 1 butterfly package left (10 X 1:1 session for 1500chf instead of 2500) & 5 starter package (3 X 1:1 session for 520chf instead of 800)
For a long time, I struggled with the fact that I was offering personal support for women but didn’t have the “normal” qualifications.
I’m not a psychologist or a trained coach. I don’t have strings of capital letters before or after my name.
I did many other kinds of training.
I expanded my knowledge and skills by following people and practices that held value in my own eyes. Some of them don't offer formal certification or institutional recognition.
For example, I devoted two decades to diving deep into the intimate and personal teachings of Buddhist psychology and meditation.
Though I did that for the benefit of my own interest in healing, with time I realised that it meant I’m willing to put myself in the trenches with others rather than be satisfied with learning theory.
I’ve completed many trauma-informed courses that taught me things not included in my Master's studies.
Even the Hakomi therapy training which I began in 2020, completing the first level this year, is not an institutionally recognised practice.
But in spite of it all, when I lapse into comparing myself to others in my field, when the voice in my head saying “Who are you to…?!?!?” gets louder, I become trapped in low self-esteem, entangled in the sticky net of “not-enough”.
We read Frost’s poem ‘The Road Not Taken’ with sentimental fervour, but in our daily life, as a society, we find it difficult to credit unusual choices
Getting caught between critical inner voices that diminish our agency and the persistent heart’s desire to be seen and appreciated for who we are is not an easy place to be in. Many women who deal with a mother wound are familiar with that swing:
They want to move away from people who don’t seem to give a s”t about them but they’re afraid they’ll be left without friends
They want to reduce connection with diminishing even abusive family members but they feel obligated to stay in touch
They want to do something in the world that they deem worthy, valuable, even necessary for the well-being of us all, but they’re afraid of cutting loose from the familiar ways of doing things
It’s a powerful trap. And we’re stuck there because we follow rules which were made by men and for men.
Some rules are formal and I don’t think I need to elaborate much on that.
But there are many informal rules such as “family is family”. To this, I tell my clients that “family is not a permission slip for a free ride hurting you."
As women, we internalise unspoken rules about what we’re allowed to explore, how loud we can be, how much attention we’re entitled to, how hard we must work in order to be taken seriously and so on.
To be freer from this trap we shift our conversation from rules to boundaries
The problem with rules is that they’re external. Most of us are inheritors of rules that have very little to do with our life.
Rules are rigid. They don’t teach us about friendship, reciprocity or compassion. Instead, we learn to ignore context, personal circumstance, and simply follow some form of “supposed to”.
Rules teach us how to obey and be “part of the current society”.
Boundaries teach us how to bring everyone’s needs or values into a conversation. They teach us how to exercise our creative faculties so we can build the strong and caring society we want to live in.
Connection, caring for context, being flexible, clear and communicative is the way women do things
A woman’s way of cultivating a body of knowledge is through connection—with her body, with others, with the elements. The earth, the moon and the breath.
So if we want to reclaim the birthright to do things differently, we must realise which rules we’re following and find the support that will encourage or teach us how to break them.
Over the past five years, I’ve gradually gained more and more confidence in my life path, my professional development choices and my way of doing business.
Like making a quilt blanket, I’ve gathered pieces of knowledge, encouragement and feminist perspectives that brought me back to my origins.
What I've discovered over the years is that the untrodden way does make a difference.
But it’s not really untrodden.
We only need to look beyond mainstream rules to find many women who’ve blazed a trail for others to follow.
For me, some of these women include Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Simon de Beauvoir, my 8th-grade teacher, my first therapist, my mentor Trudy Johnston, the psychoanalyst Alice Miller, my feminist business role model Keri Jarvis, my grandmother, Susan Sontag and so many more.
I don’t always get to see what the effect of my path is. But when I do it’s the most uplifting experience.
Just recently I received a beautiful letter from a woman who’s journeyed with me for a year and a half to heal the wounds of neglect and manipulation left by her narcissistic mother.
Her psychiatrist blamed her for being too hard on her mum. Her therapists told her she needs to forgive her mother. She was given a false diagnosis. When she came to me she was afraid I wouldn’t believe her, she had very little faith in making any progress with her healing.
But the little bit of belief in her capacity to grow beyond the limitation imposed on her by her mother wound came into this:
“Strangely enough, my mother was the one to encourage me to contact Shelly for therapy.
My mother was never ever able to take accountability for what she did in my childhood and teenage years. And sure as hell she won’t even these days accept any form of responsibility for how her way of treating me affected me. But she read Shelly’s website and knew it was about the mother wound.
After a bad phase of acute PTSD, I was finally able to look deeply at my childhood.
Maybe referring me to Shelly and her way of therapy was my mother’s acknowledgement, from deep down inside her narcissistic personality, of the wound she had left behind. This gave me the liberation to accept the apologies she never gave me.
At first, it opened up a deep wave of grief that led to compassion for myself and then towards my mother. I faced my mother wound fully without feeling like a victim. I now understand fully that my mother was a mother who cannot love.
Thanks to your work, Shelly, I do know now what is hurting me and was able to be open about that and focus on working through that hurt. And without hate against my mother, but with the clarity that she was a human person just like me who had her own story and her own reasons for why she was like she was. It doesn’t mean that what happened was OK, but it does mean that I am able to accept it and go through the pain to heal.
Thanks to you Shelly this was possible when I had the honour to be guided through a really hard time in my life by you.
I can recommend Shelly highly, and working with her is more than any therapy I have ever experienced before. She has the talent to heal deeply and without words. Thank you dearest Shelly for the support over the 1.5 years since 2021! ❤”
You’ll have great success in working with me if you’re:
Interested in a somatic-based, embodied practice of healing
Looking for a guide to explore and discover together to the way that’s right for you
Happy with a therapist like me who’s listening to her intuition alongside her professional training
Curious about a compassionate, organic and trauma-informed way of healing the mother wound
My offers are not a good fit for you if you’re:
Looking for talk therapy
Feeling confident only with mainstream qualifications
Needing someone who’s claiming to be an “expert” and gives a sense of “the only way”
Looking for a step-by-step, formulated approach
If you recognised yourself within these lines, I do have a special offer for you.
Since I was totally taken by my cat’s illness over the past two weeks, I haven’t really had the time or energy to write to you more often and help you make a decision whether my way of healing the mother wound could work for you.
So I’m extending the offer time until Friday the 18th. It’s another five days.
I will hold a Q&A webinar on Thursday 17th at 18:00-18:45 CET (5PM BST/10AM ET)
I’ll give a brief introduction to the three principles that guide me in healing the mother wound and you’ll be able to bring in any question you might have about the mother wound or my work
SUMMER SALE OFFER
For a limited time and a few slots, I’m offering a substantial discount on my 1:1 sessions:
35% OFF my “starter package” which includes 3 sessions—at 520CHF, instead of 800!
40% OFF my “butterfly package” which includes 10 sessions—at 1500CHF, instead of 2500CHF!!!
Here's why:
Sometimes, these offers make it possible for us to get on the 1:1 support we need
Summer is a quieter time and this offer can both help me financially at a quieter time of the year and keep on helping women in the ways I'm most passionate about
I’m interested to see how price-sensitive the 1:1 sessions are
I’m always interested in ways in which I can give and this is another of the many offerings I have which are mostly free or based on pay-from-the-heart
EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THIS OFFER
First come, first served— 5 starter packages left (at only 520CHF) 1 butterfly packages left (at only 1500CHF)
Booking—until August 17th (included)
Scheduling—must start during the summer, somewhere between your booking and September 2nd. You don’t have to complete your package in that time but I do ask that we start during the summer
Payment—possible in one payment or more. 2 non-punitive payments for the starter packages (260x2) and up to 3 payments for the butterfly package (750x2 / 500X3). If you’re able to pay in one payment it’ll be very much appreciated and will allow me to keep on offering 1:1 sessions on donation to women who can’t afford to pay for my work
Bonus—when paying in full you’ll gain access to my exclusive resource page that includes many recorded meditations and nourishments to support your process
More bonuses—when paying in full for the butterfly package you’ll receive a book which we’ll choose together to support your growth process
Included—as in all my packages a PDF summary of the session with mp3 recordings and access to me between sessions via email or WhatsApp
HOW TO BOOK
Please don’t just click to purchase and download because it’ll count in the total number of the limited slots.
Simply click on either of the images below.
You’ll be led to my online shop.
The price is set on 0 CHF because I can only offer these affordable offers if I can avoid paying horrendous fees to PayPay (which I consider an unethical company).
Once you’ve completed a purchase you’ll receive a PDF file with all the details to complete your package with payment options within Switzerland or internationally and everything else you need to know.
Shelly’s helping women whose relationship with their mother left a negative impact and want to become Un-limited in their personal or professional life
Learn more about Life Alignment
