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Ollie Frost

@olliefrostpt

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Integrative Counsellor · Bodymind Therapist · Artist
Depth & Lightness Workshop Nov 29th👇🏻

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Who might you become when you allow yourself to experience more of being human?

For a long time, I was interested in what it takes to perform, adapt and understand ourselves.

Over time, my own experiences, and the people I’ve worked alongside, have drawn me towards a different question.

What happens when we stop trying to understand life from one perspective?

My ongoing practice has evolved through integrative counselling, bodymind therapies, movement, sound and the sometimes surprising territory of human connection.

Each offers a different way of knowing. None tells the whole story.

Practice Inquiry is an evolving synthesis of this journey.

A space to explore what happens when we let the body participate in the conversation.

Our first exploration is Depth & Lightness. For me, depth without lightness can become effortful. Lightness without depth can leave us untethered.

Perhaps the invitation is not to choose between them, but to discover how each makes room for the other.

👉🏻 On the 28th November, we’ll gather for a day of movement, inquiry, relationship, creativity and sound.

Not to arrive at a particular answer, or to become a better version of ourselves, but to experiment with different ways of being, seeing and relating.

The day will be a collection of small experiments, with space for curiosity, discovery and the unexpected.

The day will be left unrecorded, by design. Just an opportunity to arrive as you are, participate in your own way and be with what unfolds.

🎟️Booking link in bio, hope to see you there

In presence & practice, Ollie by @olliefrostpt

Finding steadier ground.

Can we ever really be certain of anything other than uncertainty itself?

Never before in human history have we experienced change at such speed and scale. Change, a universal law of nature, has become increasingly present in our everyday lives.

Yet, despite the pace of change, we remain ancient beings. Hardwired for rest, connection and simply being.

Perhaps one of the bravest choices we can make in the modern world is to pause. To turn inward. To question the relentless pursuit of productivity, optimisation and the need to constantly do more.

We are nature embodied, not machines designed to endlessly meet the expectations of the modern world.

Here at @head_up_retreats we are proposing a different question, a deeper inquiry into what it means be fully human.

📸 @morecreativestudio

#bemorehuman by @olliefrostpt

Can I remain aware of myself while remaining sensitive to what is happening with you?

Listening through movement. Paying attention to all the sensory field that is rising and falling.

Two bodies in motion, sharing weight, following sensation, constantly adapting to one another.

I’m continually reminded how much of the practice is about curiosity.

Finding our edges. Noticing our habits. Exploring the familiar and the unfamiliar.

What happens when we stop anticipating the next moment and actually listen to the one we’re in?

Weight shifts. Muscles soften and tense. Momentum changes direction. Sometimes there’s flow, sometimes awkwardness, sometimes complete uncertainty.

And perhaps that’s where things get interesting.

Where you are when you don’t know where you are is one of the most precious places offered by improvisation.

I’m particularly interested in how this translates beyond contact.

Learning to sense our boundaries. Becoming more comfortable with the unresolved. Discovering when to resist, when to yield, when to say no and when to open ourselves to something new.

Until we have the confidence to say no, can we fully trust our yes?

There’s something beautiful about a practice that asks us to listen to ourselves while remaining genuinely receptive to another.

Perhaps the invitation is simply to let each moment become the seed of the next.

We are not straight lines. We curve. We branch. We adapt. We are nature embodied.

Big love to @dankells_ for weaving together, excited for the journey into CI.

Thank you @2faceddance for re-igniting this within my awareness, having a been a founding member of 2FD 20 years ago. Its a re-membering.

Thank you @seb.vant for capturing the interplay so well.

#beyondhuman by @olliefrostpt

How does deep listening create a context for the emergence of meaning? How might our ways of listening inspire a deeper experience and reality of community?

Questions that may not be answerable, until we untangle ourselves from listening simply as a way to gather information.

Generative listening is when we tune into the whole field and with the possibility that you might be changed by what you hear.

🌳 @head_up_retreats
📸 @morecreativestudio by @olliefrostpt

Bodydreaming ~ Ectone
Sunday 25th October 🌚

To listen curiously is to allow everything in, without resistance.

When we truly listen, rather than simply hear, we listen with the whole body.

The body becomes the receiver.
The conductor of the energy we both emit and receive.

As we re-member, we begin to awaken the sensing, perceiving and knowing that have always lived within us.

Bodydreaming is a space to slow down.

A space to listen beyond what is already known, and into the in-between the space where ambient and experimental live music can meet.

We’re delighted to be at @autmhaus in Hackney Wick, where your experience begins with access to the sauna and plunge before we journey into sound together.

Once again, we’re partnering with the spatial audio pioneers @parametrica_studio , creating an immersive four-point sound system that allows the music to move around and through the space.

Come and listen differently.

🎟️ Tickets via the link in bio.

#bodydreaming by @olliefrostpt

Life energy and information come in and go out of living creatures.

Is this energy fixed, habitual and stale in your life, or is it creative and free flowing?

Are you entangled in symptoms and the tension of past experiences? Or are you creatively opening to expanding yourself?

As my journey into integrative counselling and bodymind therapies combine, there is a greater appreciation of what the mind expresses is felt; manifested and held in the body.

Through experiments in living, human presence and intentional practice, curiousity and ease become possible.

👉🏻 I am currently in London once a month for treatments. Thursday 24th ( 2 appointments available ) & Friday 25th ( 1 appointment available ) DM for more info.

Thank you 📸 @seb.vant

#bodymindtherapy #somatictherapy by @olliefrostpt

Courage is a word that tempts us to think outwardly.

But its original template looks in a more interior direction to the the old norman French “coeur”, or heart.

Courage is the measure of our heartfelt participation with life, with another, with a community, a work; a future.

To be courageous is to seat our feelings deeply in the body and in the world.

To live up to and into the necessities of relationship that often already exist, with things we already care deeply about : with a person, a future, a possibility in society, or an unknown that begs us on - and has always begged on us.

To be courageous is to stay close to the way we are made. ~ David Whyte

With gratitude and open hearts to @head_up_retreats & @head_up_charity a snapshot of our time together at @cabillacornwall.

📸 @morecreativestudio by @olliefrostpt

The body is a speaker, amp and microphone all at once.

The process of feeling sound is an ancient conversation between what’s going on outside the body, and the 37 trillion cells inside your physical form.

Musical vibrations impact the entire human system, from the physical structure to the our emotional and mental faculties far beyond the conceptual understanding we place on sound.

What I find even more interesting is what happens when collectively we listen.

When we choose to open ourselves to sound without judgement and categorisation.

Sound is a conductor for right brain activity, the part of our beingness that doesnt see the world in linearity but rather colour, light and imaginal qualities that lay dormant in a heavily swayed left brained culture.

I have been sharing the celestial handpan sounds to military personel, both serving and veterans with an intention to simply share my love for sound.

It has been gratefully recieved and supported from the great team and mission @head_up_retreats.

The curiousity with sound continues deeper and fuller into the unknown spaces of what it actually means to be a human being in these times of immense complexity.

📸 @morecreativestudio ( a magical moment that was captured from the brilliant creative that is EK ) by @olliefrostpt

BODYDREAMING — ECOTONE
The space between 🍁

For our final gathering of the year, Bodydreaming enters the ecotone.

Bodydreaming is a deep listening experience. A pause, rest and space for connection in the midst of the pace of modern life.

The topic we are exploring is the space where different worlds meet.

Where forest becomes grassland. Where river meets sea. Where nature meets the city. Where one thing dissolves into another and something new begins to emerge.

THE JOURNEY

1.45pm — Arrival
2–4pm — Sauna, cold plunge + live music
4–6.30pm — Extended live sound journey
6.30pm onwards — Ambient sound continues into the evening.

We are a growing community of people who value deep listening, human connection, analogue experiences and the space to simply be.

Come as you are, awaken the senses. Step into the space inbetween.

🎟️ To join us, click the link in the bio.

Animism Records × Bodydreaming

#bodydreaming by @olliefrostpt

The space between….

Adopting a playful mindset in a culture where time for money is deemed ultimate success isn’t easy.

Rest and play have to be “earned” in a world that’s driven by metrics, numbers, accumulation, status and meeting “deadlines”…dead-lines? Who ever thought this was actually a way to inspire human potential?

What if our true nature is rest, play and creative pursuits? What if the right hemisphere of the brain is regarded just as equally as the left?

If you’re born into this Western late capitalist culture, we are all playing the game.

As much as going off grid and disappearing sounds glamorous, for those who value service and creating generative communities, it isn’t so easy. And that’s one of my key drivers.

So how do we reorient ourselves? How do we access pure play, creative practice and rest?

We go back to the child within us.

The child that was deeply curious, receptive, aware and open to possibility in each moment….

Stay curious.
Ollie by @olliefrostpt

Beyond techniques, orientations and practices lies self-trust.

To fully align with any particular intervention for change begins with developing the sense that I can trust my own experience enough to be present for another’s.

@humanstatetraining was born out of a need to create the conditions for self-trust, which can then create space for collective trust within individuals, groups and teams.

Pete and I are continually checking in on what actually drives human behaviour. What is it about us as humans that creates trust?

The paradox sits between safety and risk which is at the heart of the work. Too much safety, and there may not be enough stretch in the system to evoke change. Too much risk, and it can become an overflowing river without enough containment to withstand the pressure.

This dance is nuanced, complex and deeply felt. It reaches beneath the isolation that can exist within Westernised approaches to healing, towards something simpler…..a stance of receptive listening and reverant curiosity…… As we learn and unlearn to listen beyond the response.

As our own relational dynamic strengthens, so does our trust in one another and our belief that trust really is the cornerstone of change.

This weekend, the work continues with @head_up_retreats

📸 @morecreativestudio

#humanstatetraining by @olliefrostpt

This week’s reflections on where I’m seeing positive outcomes in my 1:1 and group spaces.

Beyond models of conceptualisation, healing paradigms, pop psychology and the latest trending intervention, there is still a human being sitting with another human being.

So what are the levers for change I’m becoming increasingly interested in?

Perhaps they aren’t new at all.

They are timeless principles.The kind Carl Rogers was speaking about over 50 years ago, which still hold remarkable relevance today.

As we stand on the shoulders of giants. There is value in remembering this as the modern “space holder” resynthesises ancient practices alongside the latest evidence-informed modalities.

At the heart of the work is relationship.

Creating relationships that feel safe enough and trusting enough for something different to become possible. Not perfectly safe. As safety can never be guaranteed.

In individual and group spaces, I’m forever curious in how we stretch our capacity to remain present with mild to moderate stress without immediately needing to escape, suppress or resolve it.

Within that stretch perhaps more becomes available?

This creates choice to observe our thoughts without being completely captured by them.

We can feel our feelings without needing them to disappear.

And over time, the stories we repeatedly tell about ourselves can loosen enough for something new to emerge.

This integration…presents itself as a process of not erasing what came before, but allowing old patterns and neural networks to update through new experiences.

Perhaps meaningful change isn’t then always about finding the newest intervention or decontextualising ancient principles…

The challenging art of being a human being continues…

Thank you @head_up_retreats 🏕️
Thank you to the artist that is @morecreativestudio

#practicebeinghuman by @olliefrostpt