Lifespan Integration Therapy

I couldn’t recommend Lifespan integration therapy in general, and Vajralila in particular, more highly. I hadn’t had any therapy before I started my sessions with Vajralila and I was keen to find something that could give me tools beyond those I already had to address some hard to shift psychological patterns that weren’t serving me.
I can honestly say that after 6 months of sessions I feel transformed. I feel happier, stronger and just more myself. The techniques and processes that LI uses were at times intense, but always made intuitive sense and provided profound results. I am leaving with a healthier happier perspective and a set of tools that I’m sure will continue to help my psychological well being.
Thank you.

I’m so thrilled about this I can’t wait til our next session to tell you but I think something profound has happened this week in relation to alcohol and food. I feel as if I’m a different person. If this persists…then LI truly is revolutionary! Ive never experienced myself in this non-compulsive way before. It’s so quietly great.

I’d experienced various types of talking therapy over the years, some more effective than others, but there was always a sense that something hadn’t really been sorted, that the intellectual concepts of what was going on for me were clearer, but the felt problem wasn’t shifting. The Lifespan Integration work I did with Vajralila changed all that. A strong sense of continuity and coherence of self emerged, my sense of my life narrative changed for the better, and it’s stayed that way!

Vajralila clearly explained the process and held the session with empathy and ease.

I was able to be smoothly led into an early traumatic memory with clear guidance and sensitivity to when i needed to pause or have instructions clarified. As a result i found a new confidence in relation to the memory and could feel this as an assured solid feel in the centre of my body. This feels like a touchstone i can reconnect with when i need to. For some days after the session I experienced a lot of energy releasing in my body. I noticed too that it was easier to raise difficult issues with people that i would have previously avoided.

Vajralila’s skill, presence and authenticity are invaluable to facilitate this work that has allowed me to process and to move on from a ‘stuck’ past traumatic event.

I found it a great relief to have somebody to actively listen to my story of my accident. I felt held and heard and able to allow myself to feel safely. It was fascinating to me to see my feelings shifting as we revisited the story as my counsellor reread key points. I also found it a good focus to hear the questions beforehand of what constitutes PTSD and this enabled me to reflect over the following week on my own process and what was happening within me. Although i was processing my accident this therapy made it easier and quicker for me to recover and make sense of my reactions. It felt a healthy structured way to heal.

Yesterday’s session was wonderful, thank you so much! I had a meeting this morning about support groups and it was outstandingly noticeable to me that I didn’t go in to my usual inferiority stance and shameful embarrassment. I confidently held my space and acknowledged with my adult self what I could offer them. It felt great! This is absolute evidence of our marvelous work together, so thank you again so so much!

I felt great at the time of the session, and in what I can only describe as a ‘cloud’ for the rest of the day. I remained aware of my hands – getting visual images of the dolls/a baby’s hands, sometimes of you massaging them, sometimes of them as cold and stiff. The following morning (thank you universe for this meeting). I feel like completing the birth protocol is something I’ve been waiting for, my whole life. while during the birth protocol, in the regressed state and reviewing the timeline from an embodied place of safety, it all felt like a breeze. There was a sense of sadness too, that it hadn’t been there all along. So some grief coming too.

It was quite a surprise to me to feel held in the process during what Vajralila named as hypo-dissociation – a response I am aware I go to during moments of strong distress e.g withdrawal in a heated argument – but I hadn’t before been able to be a self-witness to this experience. This was illuminating. When I was yawning / dissociating I was aware, as I said, of the process being tiring, it felt tiring to be exposed to material from my timeline so many times and to be processing stuff. I felt tired for the remainder of the day.

I feel markedly closer to the experiences of my life now. My life feels like a concertina of experiences that open and close as I pass my eye back through the years.

Having being adopted at the age of 2 months old, I have always held onto the narrative of ‘being rejected or abandoned’ by my birth parents, even though rationally I understood the circumstances were quite different. I have also understood through study, that trauma and memories can become trapped in the body. During my experience with Vajralila, I was surprised at the well of sadness that arose, when during a recall of my timeline (birth protocol) in our session she asked me to say goodbye to my birth parents. I realised with the ability to express my thoughts in the session, how powerless my early years had felt, with perhaps a ‘victim-like’ status of ‘life is happening to me’ rather than knowing and understanding I was part of it and may have influence on it.

A process of mine which I know to be a defense mechanism against shame and vulnerability was to become strong, and not let others in. Although I may be able to show my vulnerability, I have sometimes felt incongruent and repelled by it, my defense would be to push others away, rather than sit with the uncomfortable emotions to process them. I had an experience in my personal life, after my work with Vajralila that allowed me to notice in real time the process of defense rising, which sometimes has me blaming others or myself. To be able to see and feel these emotions and my defense mechanism in action, allowed me to be more congruent and rational about the event and how to proceed in a healing manner, resolving the situation rather than adding destruction to the mix.

The compassion for my ‘early dependent on others baby/child’ was sometimes tempting to shut down in the session, but over time and with the attunement of the therapist, I was able to accept and turn towards the reality that indeed we are incredibly vulnerable in those early years, and that shutting others out, was merely my early coping mechanism against the ‘felt’ shame and vulnerability.