Women Empowering Women with TIMBo
““This area needs a group where people can connect and heal from trauma, grief, shame, and fear.””
Never underestimate the power of women sitting in a circle, sharing and really listening to each other. It’s an immeasurable force.
Alex Murray-Golay, Licensed Clinical Mental Health Practitioner
In the fall of 2019, local psychotherapist Alex Murray-Golay brought such a circle of women together in Peterborough, New Hampshire to experience TIMBo, a healing modality intended to help women “become catalysts for positive change in their lives, families and communities.”
Alex is a licensed clinical mental health practitioner who believes in the power of the mind-body connection and the capacity to recover and heal.
She started working in the field of psychology and mental health in college, and has continued her practice over the past 20 years. Through this journey, Alex recognized that trauma is at the heart of all symptoms, and that people can recover when they connect to their bodies and create new responses.
Through her specialty in trauma, Alex has worked with severe and persistent mental illness, in crisis centers, residential treatment and emergency rooms, and is currently in private practice. She specializes in EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) and TIMBo (Trauma Informed Mind and Body).
The TIMBo Collective to which Alex belongs comprises mind/body teachers, yogis, educators, mental health professionals and activists who work through partnerships with local and global organizations to create transformation from the inside out. TIMBo founder Sue Jones has trained and delivered TIMBo to more than 4,000 women globally.
When Alex brought TIMBo to Peterborough last year, which she co-facilitates with local herbalist Katherine Gekas, it was the first TIMBo Circle ever held in the state of New Hampshire. I joined, both to learn about this new modality of trauma work, and to continue my own journey of healing from my own traumas.
It was a powerful experience.
The TIMBo model combines yoga-like movement, breath work, guided meditation, and a workbook-based approach to explore and better understand the impact of emotions such as fear, guilt, shame, stress and grief in our minds and bodies. By healing the triggers of these emotions, women become empowered to make change.
The TIMBo group gathers weekly for 90 minutes over 16 weeks. The first hour of each week together is spent discussing a chapter in the workbook, which focuses on one emotion at a time.
In our group last fall, learning about an emotion each week typically brought up triggers around the room that we were welcomed—but never forced—to share at the level of our own comfort. Some participants were silent for 16 weeks, others spoke up weekly and often throughout a session, and the facilitators engaged in sharing as participants, even as they were guiding the group. There is no right or wrong way to participate and there was value for all who were present. No one is considered an expert, not even the facilitators.
We learned active listening and trauma-informed tools to hold space for each other during sharing, which was important whether speaking or listening, as often our stories would resonate with each other and bring up collective or shared traumas. Deep, painful, personal traumas, memories and realizations were shared each week and we learned and practiced breath work to help these emotions move through and out of our bodies. This practice also modeled, in the moment, how to handle a trigger through presence and breath.
Following our discussions and breath work each week, we were guided through 20 minutes of gentle yoga-like movement to further help the processing of the emotions that had risen in our bodies during our discussions. The yoga-like movement can be done from a chair, if needed. Finally, we closed each week with a 10-minute guided meditation.
No one is ever forced to do anything during a session; we were only asked to use the TIMBo tools to stay present.
Research shows that upon completion of one full 16-week TIMBo program, participants’ symptoms of depression, anxiety and trauma (PTSD) are significantly lower, and women score higher on a measure of self compassion after participation in the program, as compared to before.
“This area needs a group where people can connect and heal from trauma, grief, shame, and fear,” said Murray-Golay about her intentions for bringing TIMBo to Peterborough. “Everyone experiences these things and the commonality found in a group cannot be matched; being seen and heard is the antidote to shame.”
While these groups are typically held in person so that all may sit in a circle and see each other, Alex and Katherine are hosting TIMBo virtually at present, and have found that online groups are just as powerful as the in-person groups.
Email Alex at alexisgeorgina@gmail.com to receive information about the next session. The series costs $350 for all 16 weeks, including the workbook. Paying in full saves $30, but you can also pay in two installments of $220 for the first 9 weeks and $160 for the second session. The maximum number of participants is 13 to ensure all can be seen on Zoom, and all must register for the series.