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Seven years ago, Mimi Thorp listened to what her body was saying to her and went into action. After receiving BodyTalk sessions that profoundly improved her physical and emotional well-being, she decided to jump in and become a certified practitioner. A powerful modality, the BodyTalk System focuses on the “big picture” of holistic health and the body’s innate wisdom, intuition and ability to heal itself when its energies are balanced.
Grounded in Western principles of kinesiology and traditional Chinese medicine, this gentle, integrative system treats the individual as a complete and complex system in which the mind, body and soul must be in alignment in order to reach not only full health but also the fullest potential in life.
Thorp’s services include bioenergetic feedback, touch and tap therapy, and breathing techniques to help the individual listen to the body’s message and discover its imbalances. Having found balance and ongoing wellness in her own life, she is now poised to help you find yours.
Tell us a bit about your journey to health. What were your challenges and what about your initial BodyTalk experience moved you so deeply to help others?
My journey to health started with me experiencing debilitating, chronic back pain that was keeping me from living the life I wanted to enjoy with my then very young children. When I was diagnosed with deteriorating disc disease and given a rather bleak prognosis of continued pain management and finally surgery, I remember walking out of the doctor’s office and hearing the thought in my head: That’s not my story.
Someone suggested a BodyTalk practitioner to me, and without even wondering what that was I booked a session. I experienced profound changes within the first few sessions, yet interestingly enough, my back was rarely ever directly addressed. As I added other practices to my life, such as yoga and meditation, I found through the BodyTalk sessions that I quickly gained the insight that my back pain was not keeping me from living the life I wanted. It went much deeper.
While working on past traumas, belief systems I had built up over a lifetime, coping mechanisms in response to unhealthy situations and patterns that no longer worked for me, my back pain quietly went away—to the point that I now happily lift anything, ride horses and never worry about my back. But much more importantly, I gained an understanding of the true obstacles that had kept me from living my authentic life. That is where my passion for energy medicine lies: I get to share with people that they are not powerless in their situation, whether it is internal or physical pain, whether it is mental or emotional. Our bodies heal, but so do our emotional and mental bodies.
The left brain and right brain are both important in BodyTalk. Tell us why the coordination between them is crucial when addressing the whole of a person, and how you work with both hemispheres in your sessions.
While the left brain is our logical thinking brain, the right brain is our emotional and intuitive aspect of our brain. In order to connect with the energy system of another person, the practitioner accesses a slower, meditative brainwave state called the alpha, where we create an interface between the left and right hemispheres of the brain. So, working intuitively, we also access all the information that we have learned in our scientific and medicine-based studies.
But to create left-right balance is also important for the client themselves, as they start experiencing a better connection to their own inner needs, expression and clarity. In this very left-brain-oriented society, we often forget the importance of creating our life and health from a state of flow and connection. That can only happen when we create harmony between the two brain hemispheres; it the cooperation between them that gives our clients good results.
Furthermore, we also stress the importance of connecting to our hearts, which can be seen in the same light. More and more modalities focus on the importance of integrating our heart, aptly calling it our second brain. We go even further in BodyTalk and call our gut the “third brain.” During my sessions, I deeply connect to the wisdom of my own heart while guiding clients to theirs—to the truth that the heart so often already knows what the mind cannot yet perceive.
Let’s talk about stress! As most of us know, it can manifest in so many unexpected ways in our lives, knocking us out of alignment and compromising our well-being. When someone comes to you for help, what does that first BodyTalk session/conversation look like in terms of discovering and understanding the specific nature of stress in that person’s life?
Stress is the main disruptor to our perfectly functioning body-mind system. That can be common stresses like an overloaded schedule, difficult relationships, self-esteem issues and work pressures or intense stresses like trauma, chronic pain, abuse and addictions. Really, the list is endless. Our body is designed to deal with stress by switching from regenerative mode, where we heal and grow, to survival mode, where it is asked to minimize extra functions such as digestion, cell regeneration, immunity, healing and growth.
This served us well when we were running from a sabre-toothed tiger, but as our stressors have changed, going into fight-or-flight mode just because we are stuck in traffic is not a healthy way of being. Yet our body often does not know any better. It has been shown that the chemical reaction in our body that actually triggers the fight-or-flight reaction is the same whether you are experiencing a situation physically or just mentally. So if your brain is stuck in a loop of worry about work or relationships or even something that occurred far in the past, you might have the same physical stress response in your body, causing your body to move from regeneration to survival mode.
When first meeting a new client, we do a general health assessment and have a conversation about the overall concerns the client would like to have addressed. The beautiful part is that, even if the client might have missed some concerns, by listening to the body’s needs, the session can unfold naturally and will always go where it needs to go. While sessions often bring us a clear awareness of issues that the client experiences, I feel it is important to emphasize that BodyTalk is not designed to diagnose nor fix. Instead, the practitioner observes from a neutral place, without an agenda, and allows the client’s body to recreate the balance it needs to heal itself.
Share something about yourself many wouldn’t know: a fun fact, an engaging anecdote, or another interesting aspect of your work.
Growing up my greatest passion revolved around horses, from riding to vaulting or even just hanging around the barn. Life circumstances changed, and I slowly had to give up on those dreams. While experiencing the worst of my chronic back pain several years ago, I made myself the promise: If my back should ever heal, I would take up riding again. And thank goodness, I got a chance to follow through on that promise. I eased back in and now ride regularly in a jumping program with my now horse-crazy daughter. But I also got to fulfill a dream: I have two magical horses living with me at home.
While riding brings me joy, and allows me to feel so ever grateful for my healed and resilient body—even a few falls had no long-lasting impact—it’s the deep connection with animals, especially horses, that truly brings me the greatest joy. In my first BodyTalk for Animals course, I got to experience and observe the profound magic animals have as healers and messengers. Following the path of animal communication and healing work finally brought me all the way to Sumatra and Borneo, where I took courses diving deeper into the incredible wisdom and teachings these animals can offer us. These lessons often flow into my sessions and have added much to my life and perspective overall.
Working with animals as clients so often not only gives deep insight into the animal’s well-being but also the guardian’s, as these animals have a profound capacity to mirror our mental, emotional and physical well-being. They so generously hold loving, non-judgmental and unconditional space for what we are experiencing and allow us a glimpse at our hidden patterns from a completely safe place.
In addition, I’ve been excited to start introducing my two horses to my praxis and will soon be able to offer horse-assisted sessions when I can receive clients in person again. They offer such deep and compassionate support while grounding the experience of energy work.
This column was submitted as part of BWB Wednesdays.
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