Growing Humankindness

Gentle support to soften overeating and eat less sugar

Companioning

Friends, my companioning spots are currently full for 2024. If you’d like to be put on a waiting list, please contact us here. 

When we’re struggling with food or are caring for trauma, often what we most need is emotional support: a place where we can be listened to with warmth, where we can know we make sense, and where we can kindle hope for healing.

This is something different than therapy, trauma healing, or coaching, although it’s a wonderful complement to these kinds of support. I call it companioning.

Companioning is for you if you want gentle, grounded support to help you feel less worried, more strengthened and more clear as you heal your relationship with food. I can help orient you to the path of healing and the many doorways you walk through along the way.

Companioning is especially helpful if you’ve struggled to find places where you can be truly heard. I like the way Focusing founder Eugene Gendlin says this:

Most people have no one who will hear and receive their own inward experience just as it is….Everyone wants to edit it, change it, improve it, put his or her meaning onto it….

When people experience being listening to….there is visible relief. What needed to be heard has actually got heard. It was received. There is no need to say it over and over….there is a free space inside.”

There is nothing more calming to the brain than being fully received.

This is the work we do together:  fully receiving you, hearing what needs to be heard so the ‘free space’ inside can speak. This ‘free space’ – what you may think of as the body’s wisdom – will help guide you to the needs that live underneath the food and places of inner protest that need support. As these places are heard, and as our fears are calmed, our behaviors with food can soften.

How companioning works

As a companioning client, we meet twice a month by phone or zoom. We also have weekly written check ins where you can share what’s arising for you. During our meetings you’ll have lots of time to be heard and to ask questions – to sort through your experience so it makes sense to you, and to be gently encouraged and supported.

We may do some collage or other creative exercises together that help care for the emotional brain. (You can see an example collage on the right.) We may go over your questions about a course.

We may do a brief meditative exercise together where we rest in stillness. I may guide you to some tools that can help your particular needs. And I may also share some attachment science basics to orient you and bring insight to your experience.

No matter what particular piece you need, our work together will support you in gaining clarity and understanding about how food serves you and ways you can come alongside these protectors with wisdom and compassion.

How to begin

There are two ways to become a companioning client. You can buy companioning support calls a la carte, one call at a time. Or you can buy a monthly package which includes two recorded calls and weekly email check ins.

1. How to sign up for a companioning call: If you want a one time check in, or a check in every now and then, you can purchase a companioning call. These calls are $160 USD plus $25 if you want a recording. You can sign up for and schedule a companioning call here.

2. How to buy a companioning package: If you want more help, you can buy a companioning package. We’ll have two recorded monthly calls and weekly written checks ins to give you a strong holding container of support. A companioning package is $500 USD a month. 

To buy a companioning package, we start with a free 20 minute call. This gives us a chance to get to know each other, for you to ask questions, and to see if we’re a good fit. You can sign up for an introductory call here

I have a limited number of companioning spots. If I don’t have a current opening I keep a waiting list, and you’ll be notified once a spot opens up for you.

How to learn about me

Before we work together, you may want to get to know me and learn more about my approach. You can learn about my journey here and how Growing Humankindness came to be. Here are a few other ways to get to know me:

My promise to you

Legally and ethically, it’s important that you’re aware of and understand my skills and promises to you as well as the limits of my support and expertise. I want you to get the right support for you, whether that’s with me or another. And if we reach the limits of my expertise, I will tell you so that you can get the help I can’t offer.

Companioning calls are offered to adults who are wanting emotional support, listening, and practical support in healing their relationship with food. I offer these calls as an educator, writer, and teacher and not as a licensed coach, therapist, nutritionist, or mental health professional.

At this time, I only work with adults and can offer referrals if you want support for a teenager or child.

While I’ve been trained in attachment theory, interpersonal neurobiology, addiction treatment, trauma, group facilitation, and meditation, I’m not a licensed coach, trauma healer, therapist, nutritionist, or mental health professional. If you’re seeking support from a licensed therapist or other mental health professional, please seek this support elsewhere.

My training and education have come from the following organizations:

  • Abby Seixas, group facilitator training
  • Bonnie Badenoch – The Heart of Trauma training
  • Classes and trainings in Sufism, mystical Christianity, Buddhism and the Divine Feminine
  • Focusing: Modules 1 and 2
  • PCPSI – The Heroic Impulse of Addiction with Liam O Mahony
  • PCPSI – Nurturing the Heart with the Brain in Mind, a year long intensive in interpersonal neurobiology with Bonnie Badenoch
  • The Church of Conscious Harmony – training in group facilitation and Centering Prayer
  • The Neufeld Institute – attachment theory and developmental psychology
  • The Orphan Wisdom School – grief, village making, animism, and community
  • Various in person and online seminars on addiction, attachment, and relational neuroscience

Each year I continue to expand my expertise, skills and understanding so I can better serve this work. Often the hard part is picking which training to take! Training that’s on my ‘want to study’ list is my continued work at the Neufeld Institute, Francis Weller’s grief work, Hand in Hand Parenting training, Soul Collage training, and deepening my spiritual practices.

I’m honored to sit alongside you and to be a part of your journey, to witness and support your healing. I take to heart these words from Bill Plotkin, which were taught to me by my friend Rosemerry: “Are you willing to listen with the ears of your heart to the other voices of yourself speaking?”

It is with this reverence that I come to meet you, and to hear your story.

With warmth, Karly

Read + nourish

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