Somatic Coaching
Supporting and resourcing individuals to find clarity, heal trauma, confront limiting beliefs, and move out of chronic stress using somatic practices for embodied self-regulation.
Healing In Connection
We are physiologically wired for connection. From the moment of conception, our survival intricately depends on our relationships with other humans and with the Earth. Despite a deep modern conditioning that we should be able to do everything on our own, we are innately designed for connection.
Nervous system healing happens in connection. It is through many experience of safety and co-regulation in connection that we learn to self-regulate. I am here to provide that holding, as you move through things that currently feel too big for your own system to be with in presence.
Through presence and support, I guide my clients to open up to trust that life is always providing learning opportunities that do not need to be controlled or resisted. My role in this work is to be a steady source of support as you lean into discomfort and find more flow and coherence in your nervous system.
As the nervous system comes into greater coherence and order, all systems of the body begin to function in harmony. Building flexibility and resilience in the nervous system decreases the expression of uncomfortable physiologic symptoms and creates more ease throughout all of life.
Working Together
In Person or Virtual
My Somatic Experiencing and Coaching work can happen in person in Denver Colorado, or virtually over zoom. I work with the majority of my clients remotely. In person work may include gentle therapeutic hands-on touch in support of the nervous system renegotiation process.
Frequency
For all new clients, I require a minimum 3-session commitment. In this work, repetition matter. Typically the nervous system patterns and beliefs we’re working with have been very long-standing, and consistency is key to creating change. You will notice changes after each session, but sustained transformation at the level of the nervous system typically happens over a longer duration of time. I will offer practices and resources for between sessions, and we will work with your capacity to notice your own nervous system moment-to-moment so that you can anchor the shifts we’ve made in session.
What To Expect
This work is grounded in a somatic connection to the body and creating a felt sense of safety from within. I will guide you in connecting with body sensations (both pleasant and unpleasant) and support you to build capacity to remain present with anything that is arising. At the start of our work together, we will prioritize resourcing, which is the practice of inviting our mind/body to attune to sensations of safety and goodness, however small they may be. This process of attending to a felt sense of “goodness” begins the process of teaching the nervous system that it can experience stress, and then come back to a state of calm and rest. We cannot address deeply stored trauma or push the edges of transformation without first creating an embodied sense of safety.
Once there is a baseline of safety present, we will dive into confronting painful life experiences and alchemizing the limiting beliefs and patterns that are creating stuckness in your life. The pace of this work is often intentionally slow, working at the pace of the body, meaning there will be plenty of pauses to let the body fully settle and integrate.
This work is dialogue based but very different than traditional talk therapy. I suggest that clients sit in a comfortable chair during sessions. We go at a slow pace and I will guide you to notice the sensations that are present in the body, as well as the thoughts and emotions that are arising. The process is very organic and we allow your body and nervous system to lead the way. In-person work may also include gentle touch work to support the nervous system.
My Style & Who This Work Is For
I am deeply caring and attuned to my client’s experience while also offering loving pressure in the face of discomfort. I will help you see the ways that you are creating the conditions in your life, which can often be uncomfortable to be with. I believe that change can only happen when we can first acknowledge reality as it is now, and from that place of acceptance we can begin to create a new experience. This work is for those who are ready and willing to make bold changes in both their internal experience and how they’re showing up in the world, who can devote themselves to orienting to safety from within, and who are ready and willing to go deep, shining the light of loving presence into the darkest parts of their experience.
If you are interested in working together, please set up a free discovery call!
The Somatic Experiencing Approach
My approach to building nervous system resilience and healing trauma is based on my professional training in Somatic Experiencing (SE). In session, I also weave in my coaching experience with is rooted in a process of self-responsibility.
SE is a body-oriented approach to healing trauma and other stress disorders. It is the life’s work of Peter A. Levine, PhD, resulting from his multidisciplinary study of stress physiology, animal behavior, biology, neuroscience, psychology, and indigenous healing practices, together with over 50 years of successful clinical application. The SE approach releases traumatic shock and restores connection, which is key to transforming PTSD and the wounds of emotional and early developmental attachment trauma. It offers a framework to assess where a person is “stuck” in the fight, flight or freeze responses and provides clinical tools to resolve these fixated physiological states.
SE is based upon the observation that wild prey animals, though threatened routinely, are rarely traumatized. Animals in the wild utilize innate mechanisms to regulate and discharge the high levels of energy arousal associated with defensive survival behaviors. These mechanisms provide animals with a built-in “immunity’’ to trauma that enables them to return to normal in the aftermath of highly ‘’charged’’ life-threatening experiences.
For humans, trauma may begin as acute stress from a perceived life-threat or as the end product of cumulative stress. Both types of stress can seriously impair a person’s ability to function with resilience and ease, and live in the here and now. Trauma may result from a wide variety of stressors such as accidents, invasive medical procedures, sexual or physical assault, emotional abuse, neglect, war, racial discrimination, oppression, natural disasters, loss, birth trauma, or the corrosive stressors of ongoing fear, conflict, and chronic shaming.
SE employs awareness of body sensation to help people renegotiate and heal rather than re-live or re-enact trauma. SE's guidance of the bodily felt sense allows the highly aroused survival energies to be safely experienced and gradually discharged.
Click here to learn more about Somatic Experiencing and Dr. Peter Levine’s work.