Vessel Work
Somatic Alchemy
An offering to awaken your capacity to
hold, move, and transform the experiences of your life.
A holistic, full-body approach to accessing your creative capacity more fully.
Where attentive touch meets emotional excavation.
This work is not about "regulating your nervous system," it's about recalibrating your capacity to hold the experiences of your life.
To me, this work is about increasing your capacity to create the life you truly want to live. But to do that, you must first excavate the parts of you that were buried long ago- you must be willing to look at all of you. Because increasing capacity requires first taking stock and making space.
SO...
Are you feeling...
disconnected from your life?
disconnected from yourself?
disconnected from your creativity?
stuck and not sure what to do next?
constantly burnt-out and exhausted?
plateaued in your personal development?
like you've tried everything yet are still struggling?
like you're stuck in a pattern/ loop of behavior or thought?
Or are you...
struggling to integrate a ceremony or experience?
struggling to find yourself again post breakup?
desiring to go deeper into your potential?
anxious about change or the unknown?
Then this work is for you.
This work combines a practitioner's touch, a clients curiosity, and our combined attention to excavate and transform stuck emotional energies in the body in order to...
- release trauma held in the body
- create more space for connection
- deepen trust in yourself and others
- cultivate confidence in your creative expression
- strengthen your body's capacity to hold, heal, and engage you in life
- and so, so much more
I don't like to call this work "healing" or myself a "healer." I consider this work alchemy and we the alchemists. As a practitioner, I stand beside you and hold a spacious container to help you transmute contracted experiences (i.e., stuck emotional energy in the body) into movable energy, usable for creating and engaging more fully in life.
In doing this, qualities such as trust, awareness, confidence, creativity, connection etc. become more easily accessible resources through your body as you encounter experiences in life.
At the same time emotional experiences such as fear, shame, hatred, rage, hurt, failure, disconnection, need, want, loss, heartbreak, etc. can be navigated with greater ease. When these experiences arise, we can meet them with gentle curiosity and move with them so they don't contract and become "stuck" in the body. When ignored or not fully met, these experiences can cause anxiety, tension, chronic bodily pain, depression, disconnection from others and life, and a variety of other stress related medical, emotional, and mental issues.
In sum, this work is about using attention to come in to relationship with your human vessel by noticing how the way you hold and move energy in the body connects, detaches, and protects you as you engage in life, moment by moment. You are not only learning how you hold and move energy in your body, but also how you move your body through the energy of life surrounding you.
Humans are the summation of every experience they've ever had-
Each encounter molds you.
How do you deal with the summation of your life?
Together,
we'll explore how life's touch has molded you,
and how you embody the totality of those encounters.
Because one thing this work has taught me is there is little difference between a privilege and a handicap when you hold them in your body wrapped in fear or shame.
Any experience can cage you just as easily as any experience can free you.
And you have the capacity to free yourself from any experience held within you.
This work does not ask you to be some "perfectly clear, relaxed channel" or to be "some specific way."
All it asks is that you show up to explore what you're feeling and where you're feeling it.
So, what does a Session look like?
Every session is different depending on what you come in asking to work with and what your body is asking for. Truly, a session depends on what is alive for you in your body when you walk in the door. That energy will be both the most easily accessed by your body and is the most potently contracted energy at the time asking to be seen, heard, and transmuted.
VIRTUAL SESSIONS
In online sessions (60 min), after a brief check in, we use attention and vocal touch to guide you into experiencing the sensations of your body - bringing your awareness to the patterns of effort (how you "hold yourself" together), as well as what changes when you notice, consciously engage, and relax these patterns.
Additionally, we may also use guided movement (with or without music) to aid in moving you into and through emotional experiences in the body.
IN-PERSON SESSIONS
All in-person session (60 min) begin with a brief check-in to determine the sessions focus before lying down on the table. Once there, through hands on touch, a client's attention is guided into exploring the body's sensations as well as any emotions, memories, beliefs, or experiences that may arise and shift as the energy moves. A session then ends with a moment of integrative rest before moving off the table.
** Especially when just beginning this work, you may experience soreness/ tenderness in the body for up to 72 hours following an in-person sessions.
Please note, I do not work with psychoactive substances during sessions. While I believe reverently in the power of plant medicine, this work is about using the body to create shifts in a client's perception of their capacity to hold and engage in life fully on their own (i.e. without the use of other energetic tools or perception altering substances).
Common Questions
How is Vessel Work different from massage?
In a massage session, a client is asked to relax quietly on the table as a masseuse uses their hands to massage knots, tension, etc. out of the body.
In Vessel work, you are asked to pay attention to the sensations of your body as it is being physically (or verbally) touched. Talking is often utilized to help explore how sensations, memories, and thoughts change and move in the body throughout a session.
In this work, the client-practitioner relationship is viewed as a dance, and you are asked to be an active and attentive participant during the session. In this way, your body is learning it has the capacity to shift contractions in the body on its own, allowing the work to continue off the table as well.
How much do sessions cost and where are you located?
Below, you will find the current session pricing.
- 60-min in-person session
1 x session: $175
6 x session bundle: $960 ($160/ session)
- 60-min online session
1 x session: $165
6 x session: $900 ($150/ session)
Please note, bundled sessions must be used within 10 weeks of first session.
I currently serve in-person sessions in Long Beach, CA. and El Segundo, CA.
How do I book my first session?
To set up your first session please reach out to me via email or instagram.
Email: alliechemic@gmail.com
Instagram: @alliechemic
While it is not necessary, I am happy to set up a 20-min free connection call if you have further questions on whether or not this work is a good fit for you.
How often should I come for sessions/ how many sessions do I need?
Everyone's body and history is different, I recommend sessions weekly or at least every other week to start. We are rebuilding the body's trust in itself and that takes both time and consistency.
What I've found is the more curiously I engage in this work, the more there is to find, transmute, and resource. The more fully I explore the depths of my body, the more fully i can show up, engage, and connect in life.
Personally, I have engaged in this work on a consistent weekly basis for nearly 3 years and still find it extraordinarily impactful. Other people choose to come once every other week or even once a month.
What do I wear to an in-person session?
Feeling comfortable on the table is essential to this work, so please wear comfortable clothes to any session. Depending on the area of the body in need of attention (and your comfort level), I may ask that you remove certain articles of clothing (such as shirts, pants, bras, and socks) for me to better address the area.
Is there any preparation to do before a session?
Be mindful of your belly and try not to eat within 2 hours of a session.
Additionally, to get the most out of this work, presence is important. please come fully sober.
On days I have a session booked but am feeling good is there still a reason to come?
Remember that this work is about connecting more deeply to your body and expanding its capacity to hold your emotional experience, not just "healing" from trauma. exploring your capacity to hold "positive" emotional experiences is just as important as your capacity to hold "negative" ones. I urge you to use your sessions to explore both.
I've had a therapist for years, do I still need this work?
Just because the mind thinks it understands doesn't mean the body has released it.
Healing is not a linear process, and many of the "traumas" I thought I "dealt with" in talk therapy I've come to find were still held deeply in my body. While my mind has rationalized through them, these "traumas" were still affecting how I showed up and connected with myself and with life.
Vessel work helps alchemize anything from the experience still "stuck" in the body back into usable creative energy for your life. This work is still extraordinarily beneficial even if you've been in other forms of therapy and healing (I had 10 years of psychotherapy, etc. before beginning this work).
What Outcomes can I expect from this work?
While change can be experienced in just one session, what you will receive from this work is in equal exchange with your curiosity and willingness to show up and explore what it has to offer you.
We live in a world addicted to assurance of outcomes as a pre-requisite to determine our willingness to commit and engage. I cannot offer you certainty of your experience, but what I can offer is my own.
Some outcomes I have personally experienced from this work include:
- Decreased physical pain, especially in areas where chronic pain existed for years
- Decreased self-judgement and self-criticism
- Decreased need to minimize or justify my experiences and emotions
- Deeper trust in my body's capacity to heal itself
- Deeper trust in my capacity to hold both positive and negative experiences (as well as multiple emotional experiences at once)
- Increased sense of personal belonging
- Increased sense of awe, playfulness, and curiosity in life
- Increased confidence in who I am and what I have to offer the world
- Increased connection to others and engagement in life
- Increased awareness and presence in life
- Increased understanding of my patterns, triggers, and automatic reactions and how they play a role in my life
Beyond this, this work has...
- Brought me into deeper relationship with creativity, my body's intelligence, and my intuition
- Made me feel more comfortable in my own body
- Softened my perfectionist tendencies
- Helped me find more ease in everyday life
- And helped me realize how powerful and grounding it is to feel my way through life without the need to rationalize every experience I have