Hi there! Here at Tender Heart we’d like to offer our support to you as you’re navigating your life’s daily ups and downs. We’ve worked with people in the past with a wide variety of backgrounds. Some wanted to destress and have someone listen to what’s going on in their lives, their jobs, their relationships and get some clarity and understanding. Others wanted to dive deep into difficulty they experienced, understanding how to deal with and resolve pain around sexual assault, childhood trauma and other forms of violence they witnessed or were the recipient off. And yet others are looking to simply expand their heart by practicing gratitude and compassion with some guidance.
Right now, 2 people in the Tender Heart community are offering these 1:1 connections to you, they are Shea and Leo.
How it works
Here’s a brief way the process works:
- We schedule a time to connect over the phone or Skype for a short 15-30 min intro call to get clear on your goals and intentions and also answer questions about the our empathy based practice.
- If we both feel connected and have some trust that this would be helpful, we can schedule 1 hour (or in person if you’re in the Hudson Valley, NY area) calls.
- On the call, you get a chance to share what’s going on and what you’d like to talk about and the call usually naturally unfolds from there.
Our training involves several fields of healing and is most firmly rooted in mindfulness practices, the communication tool Non-violent Communication and the therapy method Somatic Experiencing, which Shea and Leo are both undergoing training currently to become certified therapists.
We may start a call with something that’s alive for you, an anxiety, a sadness, a thought that’s bothering you, a challenging old memory, and then explore that together. We’ll pay attention to any sensations in the body associated with that, particularly the belly and the chest as well as the face that may be related to what’s going on in your life and make guesses as to what your body and mind may be wanting. Often this leads to shifts and or deeper eruptions of the underlying pain, which we’ll hold and make space for, without being overwhelming or retraumatizing. Towards the end of a session, as everything has unfolded, it may become more clear how this experience fits into your life or you can see what happened in the past from a more grounded lens. Most important to us is to bring warmth, empathy and understanding for whatever may come up in a session for you and hold that with care.
How much does it cost?
Our intention is to offer our time and energy freely to you, because by getting to support you, we’re meeting our own needs through a sense of contribution to other people’s wellbeing and a sense of purpose and meaning in our lives for doing work that we enjoy.
We also learned that by asking for a donation for sessions, the value of the time and energy received has gone up for people. Therefore we’re asking for a $50-$150 sliding scale donation per session, depending on your financial situation. You can give more or less, depending on your own circumstance. On our end, your donation will go toward building out and supporting the offerings of the Tender Heart community to the world, so that we can be sustainable and healthy in the long term.
I’m interested!
Great! We’d love to hear from you, you can just email Leo at l.widrich@gmail.com or Shea at sheariester@gmail.com directly to schedule a first session.
Our dream is to help you feel more ease and freedom in your body and thereby in your life and it would be a joy to get to know you and be able to spend time together. Talk soon!