Helping you Transform with Chew-Nyet Lee, Registered Counselling Therapist, Certified Hakomi Therapist, Certified Yoga and Meditation Teacher

Frequently Asked Questions

1.What do you do at Connect Health?

I help individuals change limiting beliefs that are causing pain and suffering, using different modalities, including Therapeutic Counselling, Hakomi Therapy, Guided Meditation and Mindfulness, Yoga and Life Coaching.

2.What is Hakomi?

It is the most effective and satisfying method that I have experienced and studied. The process has helped me to understand my core beliefs, get rid of aches and pains in my body, and transform my triggers into pleasure points. It is applied Neuroplasticity.

It is a mindfulness-based, body-centered psychotherapy method developed by Ron Kurtz. The Refined Hakomi is the integrated use of mindful loving presence, nonviolence and the body. The method is grounded in a set of principles – the shifting paradigm that reflects the evolutionary vision and wisdom of our times.

Summary of the Principles:

Organicity: Living Systems self-organize, self-create, self-maintain, and in many ways, direct their own evolution. Life is its own authority. Life is creative; it tends to jump around and come up with new ways to do things. Unlike machines, living beings get bored. The principle of organicity asserts our respect for life and our faith in the healing power of the individual. (*1)

Mindfulness: The Path of Consciousness

This is a state of mind as well as a principle used in Hakomi. It is characterised by focusing on present experience, an expanded state of awareness, bringing the conscious attention to the internal world for studying core beliefs and their influence. Mindfulness is a natural state of consciousness – sometimes it is the first step a client needs to learn and to develop self-awareness. (*2)

Nonviolence: Reverence for Life

This is the practical recognition of organicity. It is a policy of staying with what is natural because it works. It is not assuming that we know best. “Can you love people and lead them without imposing your will?” For every force, there is a counterforce. (*3)

Mind-Body Holism

This principle is the recognition of the influence of each aspect of living on all the others. Mind and body influence one another. It sees patterns and interactions and nonlinear science. Hakomi is interested in the influence that deeply held beliefs, guiding images and significant memories have on behaviour, body structure and all levels of physiology. This ranges from cellular metabolism and the strength of the immune system, to blood flow and the distribution of heat and muscle tone in the body, to the expression of these beliefs in posture, movement, gesture and facial expression.

Unity: A Participatory Universe

We live in a participatory universe – in a world of subtle but constant interconnection; a world where everything informs, acts on and interacts with everything else. This means that there is a force that wants to move things in the direction of greater wholeness. (*4)

Psychotherapy brings a useful harmony to the functions of the mind, the body and the exigencies of the outer world.

3.Why is it called Hakomi (Hah-co-me)?

It is a Hopi Indian word meaning, ”How do you stand in relation to these many realms?” A more modern translation is,” Who are you?”  It is derived from David Winters’ dream in which Ron Kurtz handed him the words “Hakomi Therapy”.

4.What is the difference between self awareness & mindfulness?

Mindfulness is an expanded state of consciousness that includes self awareness, as part of its experience. Mindfulness focuses on a present experience. They both have the characteristics of effortless attention, non-doingness, openness, sensitivity and they bring an inner wisdom with them.

5.What are the benefits from a Hakomi Therapy?

Generally, Hakomi helps us to understand our core beliefs so we can grow and change our habitual behaviours in alignment with who we are and who we want to be, so we can live our full potential effortlessly.

Specifically, benefits are to reduce and manage stress, to sleep better, to lose weight, to improve communication, to grow more satisfying relationships, to improve intimacy, to ease and transform triggers and so forth.

6.Who comes to see you?

I see a lot of people looking to improve their wellness and happiness or their state of mind. One recent example is Claudette who for years has tried different ways to lose weight. After a Hakomi session, she happily changed her relationship with food and eating habits and as a result she lost the extra weight.  Another example is Dagmara who is learning to reduce and manage her stress in her life. (To read more go to www.chewnyet.com/testimonials)

7.How do you bring your clients to a mindful state if they don’t know how?

Each client is unique, and depending on an individual’s level, I will guide them through their breath, sensations, touch or movement from their story.

8.What does a therapy session look like?

Every client is different. Each person is unique in her/his experience for safety to be in mindfulness. Typically, with loving presence, I listen to what they want out of the session. I will guide them to be present by helping them to connect to their bodymind; listening, observing and following their unconscious and conscious organically.

9.After a session is completed, what can a client expect?

The client will get a roadmap of integration steps to implement in their life.

10.How long have you been doing this?

I have been a Hakomi Therapist for eight years, while raising my three children. I have also been teaching yoga and meditation for 17 years and practising personally for 29 years.

11. What kind of professional training do you have?

I am a Master Therapeutic Counsellor registered with the Association of Cooperative Counselling Therapists of Canada. I went through the training offered by the Institute of Hakomi BC, Hakomi Education Network Vancouver and Ron Kurtz’s Trainings in Ashland over four years.

I was certified by the creator, Ron Kurtz, in December 2006. Ron received a lifetime achievement award from the United States Body Psychology Association and an honorary Doctorate from the Santa Barbara Graduate Institute. I am registered with the Hakomi Institute in the United States.

Prior to moving to Canada, I was studying yoga and meditation in the Far East between 1985-1989. Initially, I started my yoga and mindfulness practice to heal my lower back injury and to learn to take care of stress. I did my yoga teacher certification training with the yoga guru, Sandra Sammartino, in White Rock.

I graduated with a BSc (Hons) combined degree in Computer Science and Operational Research from University in the United Kingdom. I worked as a Software Engineer, Systems Analyst and Business Analyst in the IT industry for 16 years prior to working as a Therapeutic counsellor and a Life coach.

 

Suggested Reading Book List:

*1.The Hakomi Method by Ron Kurtz (HM) – page 24

*2 Page 26 from the Hakomi Method  and page 179 of Hakomi Mindfulnesss-Centered Somatic Psychotherapy by Halko Weiss, Grey Johanson Lorena Mond a(HMCSP))

*3.Supporting Defences – page 41 from Grace Unfolding by Johanson & Kurtz 1991

*4. Page 30 from The Hakomi Method or page 42 of Hakomi Principles and a System Approach to Psychotherapy from HMCSP

 

Chew-Nyet Lee is available for 60 or 90 minute appointments. Please call Client Services for more information or to schedule an appointment.

 

“KNOW THYSELF”- offered by the Master Therapeutic Counsellors at Connect Health

Please join us at Connect Health starting Wednesday, October 7, 2015 5:30 pm – 7:00 pm to participate in the “Know Thyself” Mindful-Assisted Discovery. This is a four-week workshop series where you will discover and recover love connection. Pre-registration is required. Cost is $150 plus tax. Read more here

 “Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom” ~Aristotle