Somatic Therapy

One-on-One Somatic Inquiry

Our work begins with a simple question:

What is happening right now—in your body, your nervous system, and your relationship with yourself?

We start there.

Instead, we slow the experience down enough to notice what is happening in the body.

Through sensation, breath, movement and guided inquiry, you learn to stay with what arises without immediately trying to change it creating more space for clarity, choice and a different response.

Awareness is the beginning. It is not the whole process.

We can understand our patterns intellectually and still find ourselves repeating them.

Lasting change happens when awareness becomes embodied, when we can notice the pattern as it is happening and relate to it differently in real time.

The body has to be part of the change.

Together, we move from simply recognizing a pattern to experiencing something different: a different breath, a different physical response, a different relationship to discomfort, a different choice.

Over time, those small embodied experiences begin to create new possibilities.

You are not simply learning more about yourself.

You are learning how to be with yourself differently.

The Body as a Source of Information

Your body is constantly giving you information.

Tightness. Heaviness. Restlessness. Fatigue. Holding. Heat. Numbness. Ease. Expansion. Breath.

None of these sensations needs to be judged as good or bad.

They are simply information.

Part of our work is learning to notice what the body is communicating without immediately becoming overwhelmed by it or trying to make it disappear.

We develop the ability to ask:

What am I noticing?

Where do I feel it?

What changes when I stay with it?

What might help me feel more supported right now?

With practice, you begin to recognize yourself sooner.

And when you can recognize what is happening, you have more choice in what happens next.

A Practice Tailored to You

No two sessions are exactly the same.

I draw from more than three decades of work with the body, nervous system, mindfulness, movement, and contemplative practice.

Depending on what you need, our sessions may include:

Depending on what you need, our sessions may include restorative yoga, somatic experiencing, breathwork, somatic tracking, mindfulness, iRest® Yoga Nidra, therapeutic touch, and guided inquiry.

Sometimes we move.

Sometimes we rest.

Sometimes we talk.

Sometimes the most important shift happens in the quiet moment when you notice something you had not been able to feel before.

The practice is chosen in response to you, rather than asking you to fit yourself into a predetermined technique.

Learning to Stay Connected

One of the deepest intentions of this work is learning to stay connected to yourself when discomfort is present.

Rather than immediately tightening, judging, disconnecting, or becoming consumed by the experience, we practice something different:

staying.

Feeling your feet.

Sensing the support beneath you.

Noticing your breath.

Recognizing that a part of you is anxious rather than becoming entirely identified with anxiety.

Allowing yourself to feel without immediately needing to solve.

These may seem like small shifts.

They are not.

They change your relationship with your experience.

And that relationship changes everything.

Healing is not the elimination of experience. Healing is the restoration of relationship with experience.

Compassion Is Part of the Practice

For many of us, awareness has been accompanied by criticism.

We notice what we are doing and immediately judge ourselves for it. Compassion offers another possibility. It is the capacity to meet what is difficult with care rather than rejection.

As self-compassion grows, shame can begin to loosen.

As shame softens, there is often more safety.

And with greater safety comes greater capacity to see clearly, make different choices, and stay present.

This is part of what I mean by the courage to be present.

Bringing the Work Into Your Life

The goal is not to become good at feeling calm on the mat.

The real practice is being able to stay connected to yourself when you are overwhelmed, triggered, unable to sleep, or caught in an old reaction.

You may learn to feel one foot on the ground while having a difficult conversation.

To subtly shift your weight and reconnect with your body.

To take a forward bend instead of trying to think yourself into calm.

To recognize when you need movement rather than stillness.

To pause long enough to discover that you have another choice.

Eventually, the work becomes less something you do and more something you carry with you.

Why I Do This Work

I know this work from both sides. I have spent decades studying and teaching it, and I have also needed it in my own recovery.

My recovery following a brain aneurysm profoundly changed my relationship with my body and with healing.

There were times when recovery required much more than understanding what had happened to me.

I had to rebuild trust.

I had to work with my nervous system.

I had to learn patience.

I had to understand the importance of nutrition and the biological environment of the body.

I had to reconnect with movement and, quite literally, with my ability to use and trust my legs again.

Recovery taught me something I now bring into every person I work with:

Insight matters, but the body has to be part of the process.

Healing required participation. I had to listen, experiment, practice, adapt, and develop a different relationship with myself.

I also learned that some of our greatest shifts happen in relationship.

Another person can help us see what we cannot yet see, stay with what we might otherwise avoid, and experience something new.

That relational process is at the heart of how I work today.

A Different Way of Meeting Yourself

This work is not about becoming someone new.

It is about becoming more present, more responsive, and more connected to who you already are.

More aware.

More embodied.

More compassionate.

More able to recognize what you need.

And increasingly able to respond rather than automatically react.

Awareness opens the door.

Embodied action creates change.

Practice makes that change available when you need it.

And little by little, you learn what it means to feel at home in your body again.

READY TO WORK TOGETHER?

If you recognize yourself in this work and want support with stress, pain, overwhelm, or patterns that feel hard to shift, we can begin with a private session.