About my work:
What has led me to support people to listen more deeply to themselves and each other?
My work has grown out of a three decade long career on frontline crisis services, managing community & social projects at local, regional, national and global levels. I have trained large teams to work on face to face and remote listening services, that support people facing multiple crises.
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Simultaneously I have had a dedicated long term practice of inner exploration supported through deep friendship, creativity, psychotherapy, parenting, meditation & embodiment practices.
There has never really been a distinction for me between the impact from the work that I have done out in the world and the work that I have done within myself.
The deeper I have gone inwardly, the greater my capacity to hold and support outwardly has become.
Conversely, my extensive work with marginalised people and stigmatised social issues has repeatedly turned me towards caring for my own experiences of internalised stigma and oppression from my lived experience and expertise of trauma and of mental health distress including self harm. All of this has contributed to my capacity to listen deeply to myself and to others.
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How do I work?
As I have become older, I have increasingly known that slowing down and working more with the elements of spaciousness, kind heartedness and deep attunement are the most important gifts for both myself and those that I support.
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I combine classic Rogerian active listening with my training in Mindfulness, Nervous System Science and The Hakomi Method to create a spacious, kind and attentive approach towards individuals and groups. I am very client led, and simultaneously I draw from a wealth of lived and learned expertise, from which I sometimes offer perspective and direction.
I am excited to be developing an approach to listening that combines traditional active skills with what I call the Receptive Ground of Practice. Together these create my version of Deep Listening.
Deep Listening is an approach that is ideal for anyone who's personal or professional life calls them to be present to themselves and others in ways that invite authenticity, open-heartedness and a depth of connection. Rooted in Mindfulness, Hakomi Psychotherapy and Nervous System Science, it offers a quality of listening that minimises the risk of burnout and that nourishes the listener as well as the speaker, therefore making it sustainable for the long term.
To find out more about one-to-one Deep Listening sessions please go here
And to find out more about listening trainings and courses please go here
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"Jenny has shown me how to connect with my deeper wisdom, in particular my subtle energy and somatic needs. She has huge compassion, discernment and capacity to be with the unknown and challenging aspects of being human"
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Jennifer Horsfal ~ Gestault Therapist.
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Qualifications and training:
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~ Carl Rogers ~ Humanistic Client Centred Listening Skills (Trained in and set up three voluntary sector mental health & addiction projects founded on Rogerian work.)
~ Hakomi ~ Body Psychotherapy (Currently studying.)
~ Joanna Macy ~ Work That Reconnects. (Qualified trainer.)
~ TreeSisters Global Women's Reforestation ~Feminine Leadership & Nature Re-connection. (Worked as Groves manager three years.)
~ Bristol College of Massage & Bodywork ~ (MTI qualified.)
~ Marlies Cocheret ~ Meditation and Women of the World work. (Long term student of.)
~ Trauma Sensitive Mindfulness ~ With David Treleaven
~ Mindfulness Instructor Training ~ (Currently studying with Zenways, London.)
~ Right Use of Power
~ Race and the Body ~ Resmaa Renakem
~ Trauma Recovery ~ Carolyn Spring
~ Training the Trainers (City & Guilds.)
~ First Class Honours Degree in Deaf Studies ~ (Bristol University.)
'I feel sure that the place from which we listen to each other is the single, most significant factor in what makes a difference to the experience of being truly served in human relationship.
Jenny Smith
