“Trust your instincts and lean into the power of self-compassion.”
Ann Bayly Bruneel is an impactful human being who recognizes the depth of human endeavors and seeks to unravel the workings of human emotions in order to provide mental freedom to her clients. She shares her journey, trials, memories, and triumphs in an exclusive interview with Inobal.
As a child, Ann felt the reverberations of intergenerational trauma in her family and surrounding community. While she did not have the language to describe my experience as that then, there is a deeper thread of wisdom that was anchored in her, which she followed and cultivated throughout her life. Her curiosity and deep compassion for shared global humanity lead her to study the intersections of art, psychology, gender studies, indigenous teachings, and intersectional liberated and somatic healing justice movements. She has worked within and across hospital, community, and private practice settings and experienced how our systems need a broader vision of what collaboration and collective care can FEEL & BE like. She subsequently studied in many schools of thought and followed her passion and soul's whisper to align with her values.
Ann describes herself as someone with the heart of a lion, who leads her life with radical compassion, love, and expansive, fluid curiosity. She has always had an adventurous spirit and playful nature, and learned to listen above and below words. She does her best to BE open-hearted and authentic in her communication while holding space for others to listen to the wisdom and agency inside themselves. She comes from a place that values deep listening and noticing how our mind, body, and heart communicate and listen differently. She says, "I embrace vulnerability in myself and others and will lean in as needed to meet what arises. I welcome discomfort and processes that soften edges and binaries that don't serve our humanity. I celebrate our multidimensional ways of BEing and relating to our world.”
Over the years, Ann has had many memorable collaborators and is grateful for the experience of being mutually influenced and impacted by and through those connections. She practices listening to the lived experiences of fellow humans with complex developmental, medical, and intersectional trauma who hold wisdom about how our liberation is connected and uplifted through dismantling inequitable systems.
She is also inspired when folx transform and alchemize their trauma as gifts they share with our world – through art, writing, or efforts to expand community and collective care initiatives. She knows that her capacity to expand our aliveness and global reach comes through unthawing and mobilizing revolutionary care.
The natural and animal world has influenced her, and she takes great comfort from her experiences of being parented and also being a partner and parent. She loves living in a village and is connected to her neighbors and community, supporting her in living more generously and open-heartedly. She has been informed and inspired by pioneering feminists and empowering abolitionists who were also creative social activists. She is also grateful for her somatic mentors, fellow assistants, and peers who shine brightly in their collective offerings. She is humbled and grateful daily for her family, friends, and collaborators alongside whom she journeys.
At the beginning of a session, she makes sure to orient herself in the space and who she is with. Together, they welcome all parts of themselves and invite a process of co-exploring. She leads with compassion, love, and curiosity and listens deeply to whom she is with and what they want for themselves. She remarks, “I offer ways for us to engage in sensory and implicit memory systems, inviting collaborators to notice their breath, body, mind, and spirit. Various art materials may assist in processing unconscious and embodied information. As a person who values our neuro-complexity, I have a lot of things in my office to support the exploration of senses: comfort aids to nurture wellness, warmth and soothing, and different types of cards that allow space for questions, affirmations, and reflections.”
For her, Psychotherapy is a soulful journey that holds space for self-leadership and emergent authenticity. She sits with people in the complexity of their feelings and experiences with compassion and curiosity. At the same time, she supports them in honing their instincts, intuition, self-compassion, and inner knowing. She says, “I hold emergent, expansive, radical and transformative possibilities so that they can dream awake and feel bold in their desires support them to reclaim and dismantle anything that is a barrier to them living in their truth and authenticity.”
Starting in an embodied and grounded way at the beginning of the session supports Ann to lean into the emotional resonance of who she sits with. She clarifies and focuses on what a person wants for themselves so that she can follow their needs with care, compassion, and curiosity. Therapy involves holding space and deepening our capacity to sit with paradoxical feelings and experiences. They sit with layers of intersectional and multidimensional perspectives and know the binds and adaptive survival strategies we use as humans.
Ann feels that joy plays a key and vital role in the healing process. It is necessary to have the capacity to feel and be with both joy and pain and to hold expansive possibilities for ourselves and who we are with. One of the lasting impacts of trauma is that many of us are cut off from our capacity to play, create, and live with spontaneity. She describes how our world nurtures us to be productive and contributing—The healing process invites our natural impulses to play and explore, and we reclaim what may have been lost or stolen.
She acknowledges that while the work of psychotherapy is heavy at times due to the impact of intergenerational traumas, existential dread, and financial pressures and fears, the therapy does aid in peeling the layers and helping people in the process. She recognizes the golden threads of hope, strength, resilience, connection, and joy within moments of pain, suffering, and messiness. She says, “I feel deep gratitude that I get to co-create safety and journey alongside others as we wade into the depths of the water together. Along the way, there is often mystery, awe, grief, sorrow, joy, gratitude, and a returning to home within oneself.”
Ann Bayly Bruneel has been awarded multiple times, has spoken internationally at Women’s Entrepreneurship Leadership events, and has collaborated with different writing projects through Psychology Today, WHY magazine, Passion Vista, Brilliance Magazine, CIO, and CXO Times. She has also received recognition for her contributions in the field, including an honorary doctorate in Psychology from Azteca University, The CREA Global Award from Brainz Magazine, Recognition as Top Psychotherapist in 2024 from the International Association of Top Professionals (IAOTP), and being honored as a Global Game Changer from Unified Brainz.
“Trust your instincts and lean into the power of self-compassion.”
Ann Bayly Bruneel