Testimonials
an invitation to get to know us

I have attended 2 of Vicky and Gabi's Wisdom of the Body sessions and have been nourished and enriched by them both. The sessions are predominantly experiential and somatic, with teachings and wisdom from the world of polyvagal theory and how to work with trauma interwoven into the trainers' rich understanding and experience of Hakomi and Mindfulness. I have come away from both sessions feeling more empowered and confident to offer some of what I have learned and experienced to therapy clients and can feel the benefit of expanding my understanding of my own responses and reactions to the trauma I carry in my own body.

Karen Allan

In Praise of Vicky’s trainings of How To Become A Trauma Savvy Practitioner:

Loved your choice of upbeat music and the openness and kindness of your teaching

I liked the self-reflection on me and on my work; connection with others; the physiology of trauma; resources given out to help me to continue with this work

Re delivery – it was excellent Vicky, great repetition of information (as there was a lot) – applying all the principles of working with trauma in your presentation

Very informative, essential knowledge and understanding for anyone working with clients, particularly at this time

I have known Gabi for more than 4 years now, in trainings and individual sessions and I can say with certainty that her work has been transformative in my life. From the very first session, her warm, attentive and profound approach allowed me to feel safe and understood. Gabi has a unique ability to accompany me in my process of self-knowledge and healing through Hakomi Therapy and Somatic Experiencing, tools that have allowed me to connect deeply with my body, my emotions and my thoughts.

What I value most about Gaby is her ability to create a space of trust in which I can explore my vulnerabilities without judgment. Through Nonviolent Communication, she has helped me to listen to myself and express myself more clearly and lovingly, both to myself and to others. Each session has allowed me to move forward in my personal growth, with a sense of peace and clarity that I did not know before.

Her professionalism, empathy and commitment to my well-being are evident in every encounter. I feel grateful for her accompaniment, because thanks to her I have been able to heal and learn to connect with my being in a more conscious and loving way. Without a doubt, I recommend Gabi to anyone who is looking for support on their healing path who combines experience, deep knowledge and a heart full of compassion.

Debora B.

Hi, my name is Ati and have done Hakomi training and sessions for at least for four years. I know Gabi since before, we did the Somatic Experiencing training together for three years, so we connected pretty much and this is how we started.

I was working with trauma and Somatic Experiencing but I was kind of lack of empathy, my heart was a pretty closed, I noticed in the sessions, so I was hoping to get something more, I was looking for community, but also something more heartful. So this is what I was hoping to get from the Hakomi training. I know Gabi and she was so compassionate and caring and this is what attracted me the most to start with the process. Also, I was going through a difficult divorce so I was really outside of my country, I'm living in Sweden, so I was really, really needing community and support.

My experience in the training sessions, it was amazing. It was a huge change in my life. It gave me support, it gave me a sense of community, I started to cry every session I remember, and I became more soft and it was beautiful to start to connect with all these together with Somatic Experiencing-. It was like they were holding me, creating all this container, so my container was pretty big, so it was super nice.

What I benefited the most from the training, as I say, I think the most was the sense of belonging, community and also the big big compassion from everybody it was super supportive. It was also men in the group at that time and it's been such a support for me, I don't know what I will do at that moment without the Hakomi group. It was the most beautiful and touching and loving and it was like having a sweet mother with me beside me.

I have been working with these training sessions for four years. We had a big and in a small group, and it became personal and deep, it was beautiful.

This training changed my life, with first of all, Love, I mean unconditional love that I mean I really felt it, I really felt like I was loved as I was, with no judgment and I was hold in the most difficult, one of the most difficult parts of my life. I felt it was a lot of healing happening through that, just that sense of we are here for you, I mean, that was everything, everything for me, and that was a super healing.

Also, I think Gabriela has this power of service is such a loving soul, and I just love, I just feel completely yeah, like, I trust her. I think what's the most important part of the whole process that I really trust her and I see that she is really like that and she was very honest.

I also feel that it was true, whatever I reached in that process, that it was deep inside my soul, it felt like this is true and that gave me a lot of like sense of keep going and support and it was beautiful, beautiful.

Form the training I feel that I am more compassionate with people. I'm still working on that. It comes and goes. And also that love is the way to go, even though it gets difficult but I think I deeply, deeply understood that love is the only way and that is pure magic to reach that point. https://youtu.be/WV0hgIOUXiw?feature=shared

Ati - Somatic Experiencing practitioner

Hello, I am Gonzalo Diaz, I want to share with you my testimony of my experience with Hakomi and with Somatic Experiencing for the management of trauma.

I am a person with early trauma since I was very young, and trauma complicates life in a horrifying way and each person has to take the hint according to that infinite constellation of emotions, of strange sensations that make life so difficult and that incapacitate the person, as was my case, to flourish more in life, to enjoy life more. So I want to encourage you to give yourself the opportunity to try these new techniques. The important thing is: nothing comes before or after, if you received this information from these courses, these sessions and you feel that you have this happening for you; I know that each one has its own time discovering it, each one is discovering it, but if you feel that you are stuck, stuck, surely there is a trauma core that is there, that you have to dismantle like a clockwork piece.

And these techniques are formidable, I can tell you that, I have spent a lifetime chopping stone with all the possible techniques and Hakomi and Somatic Experience, well, they are the tip of the spear for me.

They have saved my life, they have given me spaces that I thought I would never recover, not issues of bonds, issues of attachment, issues of how to self-regulate, how to better understand how the trauma is lodged in the central nervous system and how it is activated. How can one generate resources to manage it better and better? and to space out those wonderful times of simply being in peace, going out for a coffee, walking, exercising, chatting.

That is to say, the fears go away, I do not want to go into symptoms and invite you, give yourself the opportunity, nothing comes before or after, and if you heard about these sessions, experience them. I am sure you are going to be surprised, because it is amazing, the new light it sheds on, at least it was with me, on people who already felt hopeless after trying so many things, to say, f**, this gave me back my hope with tangible results, that is, feeling them, and I am feeling good, so try it, you will not regret it

Thank you. https://youtu.be/WIMJ50Kt7Ik

Gonzalo Díaz

Enjoyed the ‘bringing up to date’ with the intergenerational trauma – so important. Also the effect of that ‘drip, drip’ trauma which many probably don’t even think it’s trauma but is reflected in them in some way

The digital presentations were the best I`ve seen on zoom. The moving diagrams and so on were of an exceptionally high standard. Great use of different mediums to engage interest and appeal to different learning styles

I’m in awe of your zoom/technical knowledge and use of it

Gabi is a very skilled Hakomi Trainer and a very kind person who embodies the knowledge of all her psychotherapeutic trainings and her own inner work. She brings her sensitivity, gentleness and wisdom into the space that invites safety, intimacy and healing, which is especially essential for healing trauma.

Bettina Deuster
Hakomi Trainer Germany

The practice of Hakomi as an “assisted self-knowledge technique” has been one of the most important experiences of my life. Within its apparent simplicity, there is a deep sea of insight into the human dynamics that cause us to experience “unnecessary unhappiness”. By self-studying with the support and loving presence of therapist Hakomi, we reach unsuspected places, but heal the deepest wounds and also the subtlest ones. Hakomi's workshops have been one of the greatest gifts I have given myself.

In the Hakomi Training having the wisdom and presence of Gabi Valdes, who has an authentic loving presence and an enormous knowledge of the technique as such, allowed me to enter into personal spaces of much pain, but also of deep healing. As a trainer Hakomi helped me to get in touch with areas of myself that I would not have been able to see without her help.

Margarita Soberón
Director of the Upledger Institute of Mexico and CranioSacral Therapist

For me Hakomi, summed up in one word, is transformation. I came to Hakomi because of a drug problem and I found more answers and ways than I expected. It has been like that pleasant surprise when you go to the movies or to a party, that you have a better time than you thought you would. It exceeded my expectations. Not only did it help me with my addiction problem, it teaches me to see myself with different eyes. It teaches me to see myself, to accept myself, to not judge myself, to be present, to listen, to love. All this, through states of mind that you learn and practice during the sessions, such as mindfulness and loving presence. It is a method of assisted self-study that teaches you to be a better human being, because it teaches you to be the human being you would like to be, the one who is happy to be here, not the one we learned to be, the one who acts, the one who reacts. The one who without thinking and automatically responds to the stimuli of life without thinking, without decision. Hakomi for me is love, it is beautiful people who suffer, enjoy, accompany themselves and live their lives feeling, accompanied by themselves and their community. You are not alone.

Gabi is a great teacher that from the first moment I saw her, her smile and her sense of humor made her stand out from the rest. She is authentic, she is compassionate, she has the right words for every moment. There is something about her that invites you to share. She has a gentleness and sense of life rooted in the earth and understanding of self, which are essential to this practice. All my respect for her as a person, as a teacher and as a friend.

Hakomi Student

I come from a very humble family with great difficulties of all kinds, (as a child) at home there was daily violence... and yet for some reason at the same time I was given the necessary tools to forge the person I am today; I learned true kindness and love from my parents.

The good thing is that it occurred to me to study a career, and I did it, I studied, I didn't have a single book, and with only enough money for transportation, and I made it, I did it, I am a nurse.

I felt very guilty... in hakomi therapy I re-signified a lot of erroneous beliefs that prevented me from feeling happy and at ease with who I am; I stopped feeling guilty and accepted that life is....

Monica Garcia (my therapist Hakomi) showed me the path of compassion and how one day she taught me to turn towards me, to develop compassion towards me; that was a real revolution, I discovered in compassion a real strength.
I came back to believe in love, in true love, compassionate, combative, beautiful, full of meaning, powerful and moving.

Paty Valenzuela
Nurse and Hakomi Practitioner

THE DEPTH to which self-study with Hakomi goes is one of the things that has most transformed my life and my work. Learning to use mindfulness allows me to realize with great fidelity what I feel, and how I receive people's presence or words. I have also been able to see clearly how some of my beliefs lead me to react automatically and live my life in ways that have caused me to suffer. Hakomi has allowed me to get to know my unconscious and, instead of fearing it as if it were a pit full of dark passions and things better left unseen, to find that it has been an unconditional ally, and that appreciating it with compassion and bringing it into the light of awareness is a source of wonder and love for myself and allows me to open myself to faith and love of, and for, others.

The principles of Hakomi not only serve as a working tool, but make our lives and the lives of those around us kinder and fuller. They have also granted me the privilege of sharing their humanity and living the fact that we are all on the path. Thank you, Gabi, I have fond memories for your sensitivity and gentleness and for allowing me to have the experience of being truly seen and heard.

Virgilio Chavez
Body Psychotherapist and Hakomi

Some time ago I was going through life as if it were a high peak to climb and I didn't feel able to go through it.
The world was not a safe place for me.
My experience and training in the Hakomi Method has been a great gift that has allowed me to transcend those deep-seated core beliefs. It did so in the warmest way possible: with the constant practice of Mindfulness and Loving Presence. With them I have returned to my personal power and respect and to a true contact with life.

I feel comfortable in my own skin and better equipped in my work as a psychotherapist. Hakomi, like meditation, more than a method, is a way of life.

On this path I have been fortunate to have the guidance of the trainer Gabi Valdés, who more than a teacher is a friend, generous and always willing to share what is in her power with anyone who approaches Hakomi.
With her generosity and courage, I have learned that entering deeply into human suffering brings great benefits, a deeper look and a more open smile. This is how Gaby looks, smiles and teaches.

Thank you Hakomi, thank you Gabi, for showing me a way in which I can accompany others to study themselves in a loving, conscious and playful way.

Monica Del Puerto V.
Family Psychotherapist and Hakomi Practitioner

As a psychotherapist and patient, I know both sides of the therapeutic relationship and have been through many experiences. In my journey as a client, I have had healing experiences, but I have also had harmful ones: from the seductive therapist, to the painful body psychotherapy; passing through different moments of poorly attended countertransference that made me feel judged and defective. I firmly believe that if the therapist does not take care of his role to reconstruct the secure attachment (relationship), healing is impeded, an aspect that attachment theory studies have shown to be a physiological fact (polyvagal theory). This is where Hakomi therapy stands out from other approaches, for its principles of loving restraint and gentleness. I highly recommend it.

Flor Montero - Psychotherapist

What I appreciate most about Gabi is her capacity for caring, her vision of collective needs, her proactivity and her ability to give space and depth to experiences. Her desire to prioritize connection generates in me confidence, tranquility and hope to walk life in all its human expressions with compassion

Karla Mozzo

My experience with Hakomi.

I met Gabi Valdés in 2018, when she came to visit Creel, Chihuahua, where I live, and there I participated in a little workshop she offered on Hakomi, I loved the experience. It was an encounter with the gentleness of this form of accompaniment.

Throughout my life I have participated in different forms of therapy as emotional accompaniment, it has always seemed to me that it is a commitment to life to try to continue healing to have a better relationship with life, with myself and with others, so being in or taking therapy is not something new, I have always sought new ways and what Hakomi offers was what I needed.

In the jobs I have been in, I have always had to accompany people who needed to be heard, validated, recognised and supported in their processes; most of the time through accompaniment in the defence of human rights, a path that can be like others, very painful and that does not look at people beyond being victims of a crime, it always seemed to me that this human look was missing and I always looked for tools to see, really see and listen to people, the Hakomi gave me those tools.

I had approached Psychosocial Accompaniment for the care of victims of crime with a focus on the community, that is to say, understanding that the impact of a crime - an injury - is always inflicted not only on the direct victims, but also on those around them, including those who are victims of crime.

This accompaniment considers first the person affected, but then those around them and looks at the impact of the community where the event takes place; it considers the culture and the ways of coping that the community has and considers them for healing. Hakomi, being a form of accompaniment that starts from who the person is, their ways and resources, through empathic listening - with loving presence - allows and empowers the person to be in charge of their own healing process and for us as therapists to be their witnesses and companions.

I asked Gabi to be trained in this methodology, I started at the end of 2019 and I joined several of the groups I had, first in the groups of those who were starting and gradually I joined the advanced groups, so I lasted three and a half years. It was very enriching to meet others and other people who were in tune with that: learning to listen, learning to see the other; there was a bit of everything, those who just wanted to learn to use it in their own lives or those who already gave therapy and with this training enriched their ways of approaching others.

In my personal process, I understood more deeply that the relationship I have with my body is the most important way to be connected to myself. I learned to listen to myself in new ways, to be aware of my own disconnection. I learned to look more closely at the ways in which we tell ourselves through the body, to observe, to self-observe, to be aware of my own disconnection. I learned to look more closely at the ways in which we tell ourselves through our bodies, to observe, to observe myself, to listen to myself, I am still learning.

All this has allowed me to develop my empathy, to be compassionate, mainly with myself; to give answers instead of reacting; to understand that I can self-regulate, to take care of myself.

This training has helped me to continue to know my own wounds, what triggers my reactions and to accept my own fragility and vulnerability and to see all this with respect and tenderness, in order to be able to accompany others.

Currently we accompany families who have been displaced by organised crime, a situation that causes deep wounds to entire communities, where there are murders, kidnappings, rapes and in the best of cases, only the loss of material goods: their houses, their land, their animals, their belongings... this involves a lot of mourning. Through this accompaniment, I have continued to learn to respect our own ways of coping as indigenous peoples and communities, to see people as the mirrors of our humanity and resilience, to have patience and hope, and to know how to see and listen to otherness, to respect it and validate it. Amidst so much sadness and pain, what makes me fall in love with Hakomi is the loving and compassionate presence that trusts in the other, in the other, in the others, and how this resilience and hope rebuilds us all.

In addition, the tools that it offers us for the accompaniment in trauma and the acceptance of pain as a natural process for healing; I share an example: a woman who has been displaced for 3 years shared with me that every night she dreams of being near the place where her brother was killed, then her father and finally her brother-in-law.... that she woke up every night hearing the shots, from one and the other, that it prevented her from sleeping; we worked with pendulation, approaching little by little the moment, with each one, as far as it was safe and could be resisted, then I asked her to remember beautiful things shared with each one and to imagine how they were now... little by little she told me that they were fine now, that they didn't die again every night. Every time we see each other she tells me and says that she is almost not scared anymore, that she can think about them more calmly; we work a lot with the present moment, with her physical sensations, her posture has improved, before she was always with her shoulders contracted, she smiles more and she is sowing, working with the earth comforts her, she is Rarámuri, for this people -for all of us I think-, the connection with the earth is part of her identity; she gets emotional when she talks about the little plants.... She can now see the present through her daughter and her husband, and through what she is planting, she is re-imagining the future.

We have worked using the specific tools of Hakomi and other ways, and this gives me hope that it is possible to build other forms of human relationships. In the accompaniment work with indigenous peoples, we have learned that the ways of coping that some of us have will not necessarily be the ways we have in Western cultures, that there are other tones, other words, other ways of looking at things, even though we are all human. I am still learning and I am very grateful for the opportunity to have approached Hakomi.

Alma Rosa Dozal Estrada.

Creel, Chih., January 2025.

My background is:

Zootechnical Engineer. B.Sc. in Educational Sciences.

Diploma in ADHD. Diploma in Psychosocial Accompaniment. Training in English teaching. Training in Arts, without certification. Training in Hakomi, without certification. Diploma in Popular Communication.

Work experience:

Teaching at primary, secondary, high school and undergraduate levels.

Accompaniment of indigenous peoples in the defence of human rights, in community health processes; dissemination of indigenous cultures and human rights through radio and workshops.

Teaching of Arts (painting) Teaching English as a second language.

Accompanying in processes of emotional, individual and collective healing.

Alma Rosa Dozal Estrada

The search that brought me to Hakomi was through the Compassion training I was doing. I found Hakomi training in Argentina and Spain, but I really liked the Zoom call I had with Gabriela and her way of being, which led me to do the training with her.

My experience was truly wonderful. I met Gabriela Valdés, a teacher who, through her warmth, care, respect, and a life that embodies the principles of Hakomi, gave me the confidence and peace of mind to safely experience the process.

I really liked the pace of the work, the respect for each person, and the time given to each person. I think it is important to mention that the process helped me reinforce a new positive neural network and develop personal resources, where the loving presence was a light that guided the way.

Hakomi has had a great impact on my daily life. On the one hand, I feel that I am more loving in my work, which allows me to connect in a more human and profound way with my patients, from a personal level. I feel more present, I enjoy the things that happen more, and at the same time I feel I have more resources for those days when I am travelling through my hells, which has helped me not to get stuck in suffering, but to connect with my resources and get out of it more quickly.

I must mention that this training complements what I was already learning and continues to add to my new knowledge and training. In particular, it is a huge contribution to my work with trauma, where presence is essential for staying in touch with myself and with the people I work with—children and adults—and being able to better support their processes.

Rigoberto Cerda

Clinical Psychologist

Master's Degree in Mindfulness and Compassion

Trained Teacher Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC)

Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT)

Somatic Experiencing (SE)

Rigoberto Cerda

As an art and movement workshop leader, it is essential for me to create a safe space to accompany other women and attend to individual and collective needs.

My experience during the training was very enriching, full of constant learning and wonder.

I really enjoyed Gaby's support; it's easy to feel safe and listened to when she's around. She is able to open up spaces in very loving ways that are often difficult to navigate... her guidance softens the process.

I discovered Hakomi in 2020 and it has been with me ever since.

My life has changed in every way. Hakomi is like a spring of fresh water that allows you to water your seeds with loving presence, to listen to them, care for them, and nurture them.

Hakomi and the space that Gaby creates is the place where I felt I could be myself.

This training gave me the beautiful opportunity to reconnect with myself, to discover myself from a gentle place, to open myself to life and receive it as it is without so much resistance. With Hakomi, I learned to see the beauty in all beings, to respect their processes and phases, to listen compassionately and to dilute judgements.

Karla Barreto

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Testimonials an invitation to get to know us

Testimonials
an invitation to get to know us