why somatics

Soma has its roots in Greek and refers to the living body in its wholeness.

As somatic practitioners we engage clients in practices and processes that give greater access to one’s visceral experience. This deepens one’s level of self-awareness by directly addressing what needs to change as it shows up in the body through the sensing or feeling self, rather than the intellect or narratives alone.

Somatic methods are effective and impactful because their approach is client-centered, nuanced and holistic. They recognizes that our mental, emotional and physical states are not separate, isolated entities but instead are uniquely complex and interrelated, influenced by the social landscape and conditioning in which we live and originated. This includes access to resources, environmental conditions and impacts of systems of oppression. The impact of these factors lives in our tissues and shapes how we experience and further impact life, in a cycle of give and take.

In the body or soma, such blocks might look like constriction, pressure, anxiety, depression, fear, numbing, dissociation, fight or flight, overthinking or misinterpreting situations. Further, when our beliefs or strategies for navigating life don’t align with our longings and values, we can feel lost, disconnected, defeated. Common situations might look like:

• Wanting intimacy but being inauthentic in relationships, and wondering why the quality of your relationships aren’t nourishing

• Wanting to bring a project to fruition, but choosing inaction out of fear, and then shaming yourself

• Sabotaging opportunities by projecting a past trauma onto the present, and then wondering why things don’t work out

• Working hard and never feeling seen, satisfied or enough.

Somatics help to metabolize the ways in which their bodies coped to life stressors. As our listening deepens, so does our ability to attune to situational needs more intentionally and effectively.

We begin to feel more at home in our bodies and in our lives.

For details on the methodologies and disciplines that inform my practice: