Learning to Trust and Finding Emotional Strength Through Pregnancy, Birth | Julia Aziz

In today’s episode, we talk with Julia Aziz, LCSW-S, Rev., CCH, holistic psychotherapist, ordained interfaith minister, and faculty at AOMA Graduate School of Integrative Medicine. She supports women struggling with anxiety, grief, and big life changes through individual counseling, hypnotherapy, and the Release & Empower online community, a weekly women's practice that combines writing, movement, meditation, and personal sharing. She is also the mother of three children and the author of Lessons of Labor: One Woman's Self-Discovery Through Birth and Motherhood and When You're Having A Hard Time: The Little Book That Listens. Today we define and discuss holistic psychotherapy and somatic release, and how these practices can be used to help people towards healing from anxiety, trauma, and other struggles. We discuss Julia’s spiritual background and ministry. We then discuss Julia’s approach to helping women who have experienced trauma navigate birth, and how childbirth has the potential to be a healing experience for some people with trauma. We talk about the importance of simplifying mental health and coming back to this moment by slowing down and living in the present. We also the discus the importance of recognizing how everyone is different, including with the use of medication. We talk about an intuitive approach to finding the best treatments for your problems. We talk about spirituality and rituals associated with birth. We discuss how to learn from your dreams during pregnancy. We then discuss how to help parents when a pregnancy ends in loss, as well as ways of dealing with grief. We finish our discussion by talking about how you can develop a mantra that will help you through your birth experience. We invite you to learn more at https://juliaaziz.com/.

• 3:07 What is Holistic Psychotherapy?
• 10:10 Helping Women With Severe Trauma Navigate Birth
• 22:18 How to Find the Best Treatments and Assistance For You
• 37:31 Helping Moms Manage Grief After Loss
• 46:25 Finding Your Mantra

“We basically do self-healing practice together. So we do a writing practice, and we do somatic release, guided meditation, and then a brief sharing, where we’re just witnessing each other rather than doing cross-talk. And so it’s like a weekly practice for women who are often caregiving for other people — like moms — to make some space for themselves.” 50:27

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