How might you feel more alive through embodiment?

Somatics

...is a field of study and embodied practices for growth and healing that understands and includes the body in ways that other fields often do not. 

...recognizes that our body is not just a vessel for our brain. Our bodies are relational processes that comprise our experience, including our minds. 

...is about the entire experience of being in one's body:  

• how we carry ourselves, 
• how we understand ourselves as bodies, 
• how we relate or don't relate to our physicality and sensations,
• how we self-regulate,
• and our embodied patterns of hiding, fear, protection, and masking - all crucial aspects of our existence. 

It's more like companioning than coaching. 

I support you with your goals, rather than solve your 'problems.'  

I can't know what you need to do or achieve to have the life you desire. 

You are the expert on your life. And you can't be wrong. You just can't.  

You might be learning something, just like I am and we all are, always. 

If we choose to work together, I will whole-heartedly be on your team, 

listening and supporting you in dreaming and attaining your vision.

I hold compassionate, nonjudgmental space for you, offer wildly curious listening, ask heart-provoking questions, companion you, co-create somatic practices with you to support your goals, and provide the kind of accountability you desire for you to be  accountable to yourself.

Knowing doesn't create change.

We have to enact change.  

When we want to grow we usually have to do something differently.  If we ignore our current embodied habits they can get in the way of our progress. We tend to overlook this when we want to grow and instead focus on gaining insight. 

In somatic coaching we welcome all facets of ourselves to support and inform our learning and growth. We embody what we need to create change. With repetition and practice, we expand and augment neural connections and embodied habits in sustainable ways that can hold under pressure.

Change how you inhabit your body, change your life. 

Spirituality is about listening deeply to this larger life + our embodied experiences, for the sake of being in our aliveness and inhabiting aliveness freely, honorably, and consciously. It's about RSVPing yes to the party of life's belonging.

When they want to take action and embody change, more intentionally live in their body, reach their goals, and or align with their values.   

We attend to our bodies through noticing sensations and the ‘felt sense’ of our body. Coined by Eugene Gendlin, a professor at the University of Chicago, the 'felt sense' refers to our internal bodily awareness. (Gendlin, Eugene. Focusing. Bantam Books, 1978) 

In the 1950's and 1960's, Gendlin and a group of researchers sought to understand why therapy worked for some people and not for others. They found that those who could connect with their internal bodily awareness, or ‘felt sense’ of the situation, had better outcomes in therapy. Over time, these clients experienced what they called a ‘body shift’ in how they felt about the situations that had initially brought them into therapy. They responded differently and experienced growth. 

Gendlin describes the 'felt sense' as a physical, not mental, experience, noting it is our bodily awareness of a situation, person or event. Peter Levine, renowned for Somatic Experiencing and author of Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma, further describes the 'felt sense' as akin to hearing a whole song versus one note. Rather than sensing one physical sensation, the felt sense is about experiencing the body as a whole.  (Levine, Peter, and Ann Frederick. Waking the Tiger Healing Trauma: The Innate Capacity to Transform Overwhelming Experiences. North Atlantic Books, 1997)

There are many, many resources for learning. I highly recommend the following by Dr. Amanda Blake, master somatic coach who writes for lay people about the neuroscience and physiology of change. You can read an excerpt from her work below.

• Your Body is Your Brain- Leverage your somatic intelligence to find purpose, build resilience, deepen relationships, and lead more powerfully; available on her website and Amazon.

• The ABCs of Embodied Transformation. Free booklet on her website, excerpted below. 

"...Violinists have more brain space devoted to the left hand, particularly if they started playing violin when they were quite young. People who grow up in the city have a slightly more sensitive amygdala than do people who grow up in the country. This capacity for the brain to take shape in response to its environment is one of nature's most brilliant designs. But it’s also the very process by which we develop embodied patterns that later trip us up. 

This process relies on memory to work — but perhaps not the kind of memory you’re familiar with. If I asked what you had for lunch yesterday, and you thought about it for a minute, you’d probably feel like you were remembering something. “Hmmm, let me think about it… I believe I had a sandwich. It was delicious.” That kind of event-recall is known as explicit memory, and it’s just one among many categories of memory we have. 

We have several different kinds of memory: working memory, procedural memory, explicit memory, implicit memory, and more. Implicit memory is how you “remember” to ride a bike or play the piano when you haven’t done so in a long time. Your body-brain learns a patterned way of doing something, and then makes that skill easily accessible by memorizing it so you can call it up quickly for later use. 

Our behavioral patterns — both our strengths and our stuck spots — are stored in implicit memory. And one of the hallmarks of implicit memory is that you “remember” by enacting the thing you remember how to do. It’s not the same as calling up a thought about yesterday. It’s an action. You ride the bike. You play the piano. You pick up the phone even though it’s not a good time, and you don’t tell your mom you’ve got to go." (23)

"To embody new, more resourceful behaviors that give you more options and choices, you simply must engage in an embodied approach to learning and change. Because that’s how every behavioral pattern we have is learned." (27)

We meet on Zoom. We center in the body to feel more and access the body's felt sense, not necessarily to feel calm. We clarify what you want out of the session and how we'll know we've achieved it. 

You talk and dream, imagine fulfillment. We listen to the whole body. I ask powerful questions. We track the aliveness and follow it. Dreaming, wondering what you’d need to embody for you to live into your dream. We practice embodying it. Find easy ways to integrate practice into your day.

You leave with what you need, which may be actions steps, embodiment practices, ways of being steps, and or inquiries to ponder.

When we meet again we evaluate, integrate, iterate, and or create, we dream again, grow, embody and celebrate. 

• Sample session: to see if we have chemistry and if working together might meet your needs
• Contract: sign our coaching agreement;  sample
• Discovery session: get to know you and your goals, dreams, context, hear about prior coaching experience, what supports work for you, etc
• Alliance: clarify your goals, how we will know if they've been met, and how we can best work together 
• Sessions: scheduled over the next 3-6 months

There are many ways to begin. 

• You could  start with mindful body awareness exercises or yoga, which abound online. I offer some free resources here. 

• For an in-person option, you could check out a mindful dance practice called Ecstatic Dance (or conscious dance). Find a dance near you here - https://ecstaticdance.org/

• I also offer experiential learning for groups or individuals about the felt sense, how we store behaviors, how trauma impacts the body, and somatic practices to grow new embodied habits. However, I started grad school for somatic psychotherapy in the fall of 2024 at Naropa University and my offerings are more limited these days.

However you engage, I hope you find a method that resonates with you and allows you to connect with your embodied aliveness!