Bodywork Through Storytelling : Introductory Session for Expats
Conscious Storytelling
(Connect Your Body to the Land)
In this session, we’ll slow down and listen to the stories your body still holds, especially those shaped positively by your roots.
If you’ve moved countries, you’ve likely had to adapt quickly: learning the local language, customs, ways of being. While that helps us belong, something essential often gets left behind. Together, we’ll revisit the memories, tastes, and images that once gave you joy, trust, and purpose, through the words you speak, and how you speak them.
This is not therapy. It’s not about technique. It’s a space to notice what happens in your body when you speak certain words in your story. How your voice feels when it’s soft, or when it trembles, or when it suddenly wants to sing.
We’ll pay special attention to your throat chakra, the energetic center where truth and expression live. I may ask questions, offer silence, or move with you if a word wants to become a gesture. You don’t need to over prepare, a feeling, a few words or an image is good enough. Just bring your curiosity and sincerity.
We’ll explore:
Which words or phrases still carry resonance in your body?
What images or moments live inside those words?
How can the story they hold become part of you again — not as a memory, but as something embodied, grounding, alive?
Consider it a midafternoon chat over the fence with your neighbor — well, the one you like. Spontaneity is the key.
Languages: English, Dutch
Time investment: 1 hour ( This introductory session is a space to share your story, reflect on your journey, and reconnect with your sense of self in a new environment. It can stand on its own or open the door to further sessions.)
Price: €75 (special introductory rate)
Living Lineage: Ancestors, Patterns, Resources in Our Body
( private sessions/ workshop)
🌿Why sharing living lineage?
It began with a sentence I once wrote, when I felt resistance toward my ancestors:
“You all suffered so much. I don’t want to bother you.”
That moment stayed with me. I began to see how I was relating to my ancestors, from a distance, with caution, and sometimes without realizing it, from a place of pity, judgment or assumption. It also showed me why I often tried to figure things out alone, pushing through life without feeling supported.
Maybe you’ve felt something similar:
a distance from your family or where you come from
a sense of carrying something, but not knowing what
or simply curiosity about how your past lives in you
💛This workshop grows out of those questions, not from certainty, but from lived experience and mistakes.
We won’t try to change the past. Instead, we learn to see more clearly:
Am I truly seeing, or interpreting?
Am I judging, fearing, or softening the truth?
Where do I place myself in relation to those before me?
Even within difficult histories, there can be strength, resilience, and resources. But first, we need to notice how we are relating, honestly, and in the present moment.
🌿 What this workshop is (and is not)
This is a body-based, reflective process where you explore your relationship to your ancestors through sensation, writing, and awareness. Unlike Family Constellations, we are not working with group dynamics or reenacting family systems. We also don’t go into trauma or relive the past. It is individual inner work.
You don’t need to believe in ancestors as energy or presence, though you’re welcome to if you do.
Whether you experience them as memory, imagination, or something more subtle, we begin with what is real for you.
Instead, we focus on:
→how inherited patterns show up in your body, thoughts, and perception
→how you relate to them right now
→and what happens when you stop forcing change and start observing
What I refer to as “energetic work” is kept simple and grounded: you’ll notice sensations, emotions, impulses, or subtle shifts in your body and allow them to unfold, without needing to fix or interpret them immediately.
This is a practice of staying with what is, rather than trying to move beyond it.
🌿 How I work
I will guide you back to your body, again and again. You’ll be invited to notice:
→sensations (tension, warmth, movement, stillness)
→emotions and inner responses
→thoughts, images, or memories that arise
Instead of pushing them away or turning them into stories, we meet them with attention and honesty. Through:
writing, gentle awareness, inner dialogue and optional movement with the breath.
You begin to listen to what is already present and to sense what belongs to you, and what may not.
🌿 What to expect
This is a guided, inward process. You will move at your own pace.
1. Connecting to ancestors
You’ll choose one ancestor who feels nurturing/supportive.
Through your senses (images, textures, sounds, or general impressions), you reconnect to a moment that feels safe enough to explore.
2. Seeing inherited patterns
We work with simple words, beliefs, or phrases that may live in your family. You’ll notice how they show up in your body and gently begin to question or untangle them with writing and guided meditation.
3. Asking for resources
Through a quiet inner dialogue, you explore what resources might be available without forcing an answer. You allow insights, sensations, or shifts to emerge naturally.
4. Embodying life energy
Receiving and embodiment: Through breath and gentle movement, you stay with what you’ve experienced and allow it to settle in your body at your own rhythm.
💛Who this is for?
This workshop may resonate with you if you:
•feel somewhat disconnected from your roots, family, or sense of belonging
•often rely on your own strength and find it hard to feel supported
•are in a period of transition, questioning, or change
•sense that you carry patterns or beliefs, but aren’t sure where they come from
•feel curious about your inner world even if you don’t “feel much” yet
•tend to overthink, disconnect, or “leave your body” when things get intense
•are looking for a grounded approach to inner work that is not only mental or conceptual
You don’t need prior experience with bodywork, meditation, or this kind of exploration. Sitting with the discomfort of not knowing is enough. There’s no need to strive for doing things right.
🌿What you may take with you
After the workshop, you may leave with:
•a clearer sense of what you are carrying and what you are not
•a more honest and compassionate view of your family story
•a simple way to check in with your body and inner responses
•a writing or awareness practice you can return to
•a subtle but meaningful sense of support as you move forward
🌿Rooted in experience
For years, I lived with a sense of not knowing who I was or where I belonged. Through writing, body awareness, and exploring my lineage, I began to see how much the body holds: memories, images, emotions, and unresolved patterns.
My background includes systemic bodywork, chakra-based practices, and voice and movement exploration.These shaped my understanding of the body, not as something to control, but as something that carries and communicates. Writing has been a key part of this process.
If you’re curious, you can read more here: https://lilymarino.substack.com/
Workshop Price: €65 (minimum 6 participants)
Individual sessions price: €540 (exclude 21% BTW, 3 sessions, 2 hours/ session)
Location: online/Rotterdam