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An Introduction: What is a name?

Hi, my name is Brian Kimmel. Brian means strength. I often use dia/they pronouns. When these pronouns are used for me, I often feel more breath and peace. And, don’t sweat it! Pronouns are a complex issue, combining layers of meaning and story individually and culturally. Combined with a name, they can habituate us to power, privilege and oppression. Respect one’s pronoun and the journey they may have taken to ask for that pronoun to be used for them. And, come home to what it means for a culture and a people to ask for these identifiers.

As for names, I have often thought what it would be like to live without a name, or to live with many names fluidly and in abundance, shifting and changing forms to what the circumstance and relationships call for. Cyrus Grace Dunham wrote a memoir about being transgender called “A Year Without a Name.” This is one context of what a name means.

Take a moment to consider what your name means to you. Which name? What does it communicate about you and your heritage or streams of influence?

As an artist, counselor, and body-mind teacher our work together, our play, study and practice is about finding solutions to some of the most pressing issues and concerns in your life right now. This might have to do with your thoughts, and above all, the relationship of thoughts and actions. What you do, how you think, and who you are matters.

That’s why I start with a name. Names are sometimes the first vocalized expression we offer to those we do not know. And for those who know us or want to call us forward in their minds, they say our name. Saying one’s name is an instrument of social insistence, is a practice of bringing to awareness what might be hidden, fractured, or silenced.

What does it mean to say your own name?

Working Definitions for our Study and Practice Together

Our Work Together is multicultural, strength-based, multi-modal, and focused on nervous systems regulation, co-regulation in relationships, and introspective within oneself as an organism and the body, individual and collective, as a phenomena of power and resilience. Here is a look at the themes we might be with together in sessions, trainings, and retreats.

Somatic means literally “in the body” and in practice means everything that is a part of who you are. Being in the body can include the body of your work, relatives, ancestors, heritage, culture, the earth, and the entirety of the person you call yourself, your communities, and the life you lead or want to lead. This is a holistic path of practice that you get to create for yourself based on unique, and cooperative explorations through present moment, bare and spacious awareness to what is needing attention and support. What is calling you to be still, move, sound, or be silent with and for? 

Justice is about doing the hard, loving work of doing you. Not doing what institutions like race or socioeconomic status or gender tell you to do, but of doing you. Sometimes it’s finding how to rest. Sometimes it’s attending to the mess that systems of privilege and oppression have made for you. Sometimes it’s finding the motivation to begin again and again on a path that is soul-birthing and empowering for you and those that depend on you.

Creativity is what comes from you, your own way of being and communicating in the world. Counseling is a dynamic, relational process. A creative and expressive process. It’s art. It’s not about me telling you what to do and coming up with solutions for you. It is about us coalescing, co-creating, being responsive to a time and space that can help you identify and grow in the process towards change. 

Crisis no matter if we like it or not is a part of our lives. Crisis is a breakup with a friend or loved one. It’s separation from a home or a familiar place. It’s not having a home or not feeling at home. It’s violence. It’s despair. It’s emotional turmoil and instability. It’s not knowing what to do, or how you feel, and what you may need to get you through. Crisis can be an instigator of change, can call change up in your life, and show you what is not working so you can understand the situation better and make improvements. Our work is to catch a crisis before it happens and to manage the crisis that you are in. It’s also about getting up underneath a crisis, for solidity and support, and doing the heavy lifting together and with numerous streams of support to help you lift what before was an insurmountable pressure and dominating force. For some on the path of recovery with mental health challenges, pain and/or injustice, this working through crisis might be a lifelong journey. And sometimes crisis is a temporary state. In either case, if you have found your way to this work, you already have more than enough skills to get you through. It may be the case of applying these skills to your everyday life, and knowing which skills to apply that can make a difference and a step towards desired change.

Change is everywhere and everything. Sometimes the best medicine is to stop and notice what is actually going on within and around us in a supportive and restorative way. This is what a large part of our work together is. This process is facilitated through identifying current resources and strengths, body-mind interventions like connecting with your breathing and defining what breath is for you, awareness of sensation, grounding, focused movement, narrative and talk therapies, community building, and frameworks and cultural perspectives you bring to the table.