somatic experiencing®

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Welcome. This page will orient you to Somatic Experiencing and how I use it in my practice.

Somatic Experiencing® is a body-oriented therapeutic model for resolving trauma. “Soma” simply means “body.” 

As a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (SEP) and Trauma-Informed yoga teacher, my specialty is in bridging embodied education with trauma resolution. 

This kind of approach doubles the efficacy of a session by empowering folks to support their innate resilience and healing every day, not just during our sessions. It is a joy to support humans who want to support themselves.

My approach to trauma resolution is guided by my embodied understanding of the science of human healing and connection as elucidated by The Somatic Experiencing Trauma Institute, The Polyvagal Theory, and Somatic Science®. It is my direct experience that blending these modalities with the ancient wisdom found in the traditions of Advaita Vedanta and Zhineng Qi Gong is a direct path to healing and happiness.

To begin, there can be a lot of misunderstanding about what trauma is and is not.

Trauma is not what happens to us. It is the way our autonomic nervous system responds to what happens to us. When we are overwhelmed with too much, too fast or experience lack from too little, too long, our nervous systems intelligently and instinctively choose the most protective response to help us survive. 

(Thank you, Body!)

These responses (flight, fight, freeze) are meant to be time-limited. In humans these responses often become stuck, creating chronic states of hypervigilance, hypertonicity (tension patterns in the body), or hypotonicity (numbness or disconnection from the body), and constant exhaustion.

In our sessions I will teach you how to settle and release physiological activation from your body.  

You will learn the simplest and most effective way to update your nervous system to the here and now, where trauma actually becomes a thing of the past. 

If you have been using yoga to regulate your system or ease muscle tension that continues to return, this approach can help untangle and reorganize the nervous system from the bottom up. This is because muscle tension created as a result of emotional suppression cannot be “stretched” out. It needs a different kind of organic movement that Somatic Experiencing allows for. Very often this process helps people to reduce stress and return to a sense of regulation and mastery in their lives. 

Specifically, this work can be a powerful support for grief, allowing the body’s story of grief to be heard and supported while processing any traumatic impacts of loss so that the grief can rise and settle with more ease.

This embodied learning has allowed me to be at peace without having to constantly move my body or distract my mind. I look forward to sharing it with you!

CREDENTIALS: I am a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner® (SEP) and Trauma-Informed Yoga teacher. I am not a therapist and this work is not a substitute for mental health care. Our work together is body-oriented and non-clinical. I suggest you have a trauma therapist you can reach out to for any cognitive therapy needs.

SESSIONS: Our sessions are 50 minutes, $150. Sliding scale available upon request. Currently only online sessions are available.

SCHEDULE: Schedule a free consult or session here.