When I get asked by people what I do for a living I used to sheepishly say “ummm I’m a life coach” and avoid eye contact because I was so fearful of judgement. Life coaches are everywhere. Some are GREAT, some are awful but there are absolutely no regulations in place for them so, for good reason, a lot of people roll their eyes and are hesitant to even be curious about what it is they really do.

 

When asked now I proudly profess “I am a somatic therapist” which can often get confused looks about what the actual fuck is that? So if you are one of those folks here you go.

 

Somatic simply put, means body. For anyone who has done traditional talk therapy (me!) This is something much different where you essentially get the hell out of your head and all the stories up there and into your body, where the truth lies.

 

Why would you want to get out of your head? Well, you know that hamster wheel feeling of never being able to make any long term strides forward? The familiar feeling that you are stuck and reliving the same shit on a different day over and over? This is because we are stuck repeating, usually unbeknownst to the person, patterns from our childhood. It is also because of our nervous system being stuck in a survival response without most people having any idea except that they feel like they constantly need to be on high alert, for example.

 

The goal of Somatic Therapy is to help a person to notice their physical sensations stemming from their mental health concerns (recurring negative thoughts) and use that awareness to work through painful feelings and emotions in a safe relational container(our sessions). 

 

The long term goal is to help the person improve their body awareness and learn strategies to help them release that pent up tension. This in turn helps the person to develop new thinking patterns and behaviours to better respond to experiences and emotions as they come up.

 

Some of the tools used can range from grounding, to boundary development, sequencing, to self regulation using nervous system regulation techniques.

The gift of our bodies is that it is longing for you to know the truth. It will do the most amazing things like hunch forward, reach out, fidget, shake, get sweaty, to name a few, all in response to how you REALLY felt as a child, NOT the story you have convinced yourself of.

 

This is where you can start to unpack the truth of why you do what you do in the present. Why are you triggered by certain things? Why do you struggle to accept help, yet, are so resentful for no one helping? Why do you feel like you can’t have a healthy relationship? Why do you struggle to let happiness in?

 

We can’t change history but we can greatly change how we experience our history.

 

The way to do this is by meeting unmet needs as a child. 

 

First step is figuring out what those unmet needs are. The truth of that is within the body. Using different mind-body techniques we will work together to move beyond the cognitive process of understanding our trauma to find the truth that is deeply embedded within the cells of our bodies.

 

Doing this in a safe, non judgemental relationship will aid in healing those childhood wounds from earlier relationships that you may not even realize are there.

 

Once you recount the old experience with the proper support and a sense of clarity it is infused with empowerment. This empowerment gives you the ability to start to discharge the negative energy and tension that has been weighing on your emotional, mental and physical well being.

 

This will result in you seeing things from a different, more empowered, perspective which will change how you feel and react moving forward in your day to day life.

 

Every single person on this planet has the ability to do this work. To release the pain. The tension. The secrets from within.

 

The biggest thing that can hold people back is FEAR.

 

However, while we fear facing the darkness and the truth we are also holding ourselves back from the gift of joy, peace, creativity, carefreeness and child-like wonder in the process.

 

To feel joy we have to embrace the more challenging emotions like sadness, grief, shame and anger and understand they aren’t split into bad and good, they are all equally necessary and important to feel.

 

The more we release what is pent up inside us just dying to come out, the more space we make available to add in the things that we want to.

 

And this my friends is the gift of working with me.

 

If you still aren't sure and want to chat more about if this is the right step for you, click the link below to sign up for your free, no obligation intro call with me so you can experience what it is like to work with me, before ever working with me ;)