Community Highlights: Meet Annie Brook

Today, we’d like to introduce you to Annie Brook.

Annie, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
Wow! Who would have guessed falling off a fishing boat wharf would have been life-changing enough to have me start the healing path and never stop?

Early trauma in my twenties had me working on a fishing boat off Cape Cod to gain money, and I had a near-death experience where I felt “held in universal love.” That experience of being “held in love” was so strong, so palpable, and so provocative that I dedicated my life to finding out how to feel that much love inside my body.

I found my way to Berkeley, California, and at age 25, became steeped in body-mind healing tools: meditation, improvisation and movement inquiry, emotional release bodywork, Contact improvisation and performance, volunteering at Children’s Hospital working with children in the trauma wards, and studies in group process and communication. I created the first somatic psychology degree in the country (1981) through my Antioch University BA and went on to get a dual Master’s in organizational development and family systems therapy.

Meanwhile, I worked in public schools with gang youth, with sexually abused foster children, and as a therapist in the classroom for 3rd graders in Seattle public schools. I continued to create and deliver private practice therapy for decades; all this real-life experience is the foundation of the Brook Institute for Somatic Studies and Psychotherapy. I am so grateful to have followed my nose through the healing path; in this field, you must know the work from the inside out.

Truly great therapists are those who understand with compassion what it means to feel messed up and not functional and re-discover a way to heal and be whole. That’s what I help people within my work, and the kind of training I provide and demand of my therapists in training, they heal from the inside out so they can really meet people in an authentic and effective manner. I have to add that body-centered tools, psychological tools, plus an understanding of relationships and groups, build the breadth of the foundation of the Brook Institute methods.

Alright, let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what challenges have you had to overcome?
Anything but smooth, this journey has been hugely difficult at times, exciting at other times, creative and demanding, just like life. Fortunately, I have always felt the heart inside this work and my desire to help others know that they are not broken and that finding the right resources of Body, Mind, and Spirit, and play and movement, really really are the gift.

I’ve had to learn from every difficult event of my life, including being born premature and whisked away from my mom at birth, having my father die at age two and a half, being a high temper tantrum kid who had to be perfect at everything, and then in my early twenties having my hand-built Log Cabin home burn to the ground and my animals killed – was the start of my journey to become a therapist. Even though I didn’t know what a therapist was.

I just knew I had to heal, and I was fortunate for my family, my older sister who guided me towards the meditation School, and moving to Berkeley, California, in the late 70’s, which was a great place to be in order to recover my stability after such trauma. Once I was inspired by the incredible joy, passion, and aliveness I rediscovered and maintained through these different practices, I kept growing and healing myself. This led me through one more difficult relationship.

My second “life partner” and I gutted and remodeled a home together. I thought we were going to get married and start a family, and then he had an affair. This event shifted my perspective; I realized I needed to go back and further my profession. Fortunately, I found a graduate school that was experiential and gave me a dual Masters in organizational development focused on conflict resolution and family systems therapy.

In addition, I’ve always been drawn to nature-based spiritual paths and to following my dreams. At age 32, I went through what I would call a deep deconstruction. With the support of a good therapist, I explored the matrix of my inner beliefs and loyalties. During that time, I spent a lot of time in nature, lived by myself, attended sweat lodges out on Lopez Island, and began to discover who “I” was.

Then I met my soulmate husband when I got a job working in an organization that did 5-day retreats. This felt like spiritual work inside of an organization. However, I left Sportsmind, the organization, when I realized that the internal dynamics did not match the quality of the program they delivered to high-level companies like AT&T. Again, I had to step away when I thought something was inauthentic.

During my meditation training, I had developed a capacity to “listen between worlds,” and during this deconstruction, I had a vision while walking down the streets in Seattle. I vividly remember that around 2 pm, this large black woman appeared before me and said, “I’m your teacher, and you need to get to Africa.”

Because I paid attention to certain signs from my inner world, I knew somehow I was going to get to Africa. Within two months, I had a job there working as a travel guide for Adventure Associates. In Africa, I met Ngoku, who was between 120 and 150 years old. I was able to film her and ask her why she lived so long and what it is young girls need to learn growing up. That experience was very rich in my understanding of life.

My personal life was evolving as well. Just prior to leaving for Africa, I became reacquainted with my original boss from Sportsmind, Jac Cirie, who had just returned from a pilgrimage in Africa where he had prayed to find his soul companion. We started dating upon my return from Africa and continued to deepen our relationship. Jac returned with me to Africa the next January, and then we got married that fall.

This was truly a relationship where I felt met by my soulmate. And it demanded each of us to truly engage in the natural struggles between men and women and how to find deeply centered intimacy rather than get hijacked in a power struggle. We worked with a teacher up in Canada during this time and continued to do our own healing work together as a couple. We processed deep conflict and found a depth of relating I always thought was possible.

We got married and were getting ready to start a family life in a rural community on an island and commute for work (we had ten consulting contracts lined up with high-level organizations). Then, two months after we married, Jac died suddenly. As a new Widow with my dreams collapsed around my feet, I had to regroup and yet again follow my inner spiritual path. The saving grace of this experience was that I knew Jac had passed in a spiritual completion. By a synergy of circumstances, we had water blessed by the Dalai Lama that opened the gates of passage on death.

When Jac finally stopped breathing, the room filled with golden light. My heart was filled with awe and wonder that overrode the deep grief I would later have to process. The experiences I had during his passing brought me to another level of depth and knowledge about “living between the worlds.” I learned what love truly asks of us; I would never have wanted anything different for him than he being able to go back to the light.

The collapse of all my dreams led me to pursue a job at Prescott College and move from the ocean to the desert. Prescott decided not to hire that year, so I moved to Taos, NM. There, I studied with a Buddhist llama and started my own movement studio. I was still in my grieving process and used my movement space to help me move and heal. I also offered classes in movement, Contact Improvisation, body-mind centering sessions, and Playback theater to the local community. I created a one-woman show called “A Widow’s Story,” which was a deep part of my integrative healing.

I’ve always had to support myself since I was 18, so luckily, I knew how to work and keep a part-time job while I was pursuing my own profession. When I moved to Taos I did whatever part-time job I could in order to get the studio up and running. I thought Taos was going to be my permanent home. However, after two years, my studio got a dip in the floor, and I began to look for a new space. During that transition time, I was offered two jobs at Naropa University in Boulder and realized it was time to move north to pursue my passion and career in somatic psychology.

Naropa was a gift because I could teach experientially, which I know is the best way of learning in the healing arts modalities and in the deep soul-searching it takes to be fully human. The next 20 years evolved with me being director of the Body Psychotherapy MA program at Naropa, having a part-time private practice, teaching 5-day immersions In perinatal psychology and Aquatic therapy bodywork with colleague David Sawyer, both nationally and internationally, and starting my own teaching program abroad and at home.

I left Naropa in the spring of 2006 and, in the fall of 2006, co-founded a clinic called Colorado Therapies, which I ran with my business partners for 17 years. I was getting requests from people in Europe for sessions for their children and families and, fortunately, had already developed online methodologies that were successful because COVID hit. At that time, I stopped my in-person training, which I had run for 12 years, and was able to create an online training platform that is university-level learning and addresses all the disciplines that help people.

This became the Brook Institute. Course topics include Healing Birth Trauma, Healing Complex Trauma, Healing the Adoption Imprint, Awakening the Creative Mind, becoming Relationship Ready, and State of the Art Training Program for Therapists. I am currently finalizing my program for hands-on training for infant developmental movement.

A huge contribution to my integrated wisdom has been my studies with Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, who founded the School for Body-mind Centering. Her background was in occupational therapy and gave me the foundation for the unique depth of my psychotherapy offerings. My passion for body-mind integration and holistic healing has been central to my ability to be resilient when life is challenging and has given me the fortitude to create methods that are practical, easy to explain, and produce long-lasting results for people who want to not just survive in life but learn how to thrive and be resilient.

I am grateful for the blessings of my family life growing up and knowing I had siblings who supported my work and a mother who not only was a social worker but went back and studied early childhood education after the death of my father. She ensured we lived in a natural area where I could grow up swimming, playing in the woods and riding my bicycle, doing art and theater at home, playing music, and being very creative as a child. I think this time within nature connected my depth of spirit to the natural world and has been instrumental in my heartfelt approach and love as I share my work.

We’ve been impressed with The Brook Institute for Somatic Studies and Psychotherapy, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
Experiential learning coupled with academics and study has been my educational path. I began teaching others in my late 20s and evolved my skills of delivery and methods for decades. I specialize in embodied learning and psychotherapy. I am known for being “the baby whisperer,” as well as my methods of psychotherapy that address Healing Birth Trauma. I created ANP, Applied Neuroplasticity, to work with complex trauma.

What sets me apart is I work within the group field as a healing modality in my online courses, and my work is very practical and down-to-earth. My methods work and get results, and I believe people are not “broken” but need resources. I teach the “tools that heal,” have over 15K Instagram followers, and deliver free material daily on that platform. I am proud of the fact that people from all over the world reach out and gain benefits. I am also proud of writing the first book on Prenatal Psychology, called Birth’s Hidden Legacy, published in 2014.

This 2 volume set shares the nuances of prenatal, birth, and post-birth imprints, how to set up a treatment office, the psychologies of embodiment, character style, and early attachment, and has an entire chapter of well-explained body-based resources. People can know they will get results when they participate in my classes, can put long-standing problems to rest when they engage in my methods, and that I work with all age populations, children through adults.

Plus, I offer therapy training that helps therapists avoid burnout, get booked because they are that good at what they do, and even get an advanced degree when enrolled in my program.

If you had to, what characteristic of yours would you give the most credit to?
The ability to work hard, to have tenacity, and to believe in myself as well as listen to my intuition and the universe. The incredible teachers I’ve encountered through the years have been inspirational.

My mother has been a certain type of role model and inspiration. She provided her children with the quality of parenting, which gave us skills, limits, and freedom to go out and explore, and demanded that we learn to get along and care for each other. She also focused on education and fought for us to go to a public charter school because local schools had such poor academic ratings.

This mix of experience and academics has followed me, and I am proud to have written eight books and five ebooks that are manuals for learning to understand the language/integration/healing aspect of embodied awareness and movement play. Also, growing up, spending so much time in nature gave me the ability to listen; as a child, I would wander the canals and peer into the water, seeing what was going on beneath the surface.

I think that is the foundation of my ability to “find the hidden story” behind difficult behaviors.

Pricing:

• $300 discount off any course: must use coupon code: Voyage (at checkout)
• $500 discount off BestChoiceBestAction Mastermind Group Immersion: must use coupon code: Voyage1

Contact Info:

• Website: www.anniebrook.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/anniebrooktherapy
• Facebook: facebook.com/thebrookinstitute and https://www.facebook.com/thebrookinstitute/videos/10155565856457483/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCy5Ougvi1A-oHcq4kp66MOQ

Image Credits
Amanda Karst and Joel Kowalski