Somatic Sessions
Nervous System and Embodiment Coaching
Learning to listen to your body
Most of us grew up in environments where we taught that our body and mind are two separate things. We might have also learned that distressing emotions were bad and to be ignored or pushed away. We learned to push through pain and keep on going. Many of us have unresolved trauma or habits or patterns of how we show up in the world that we have worked on for years and not been able to change. This often leaves us feeling stuck or having the same scenarios pop up in our life time and again and we wonder why does this happen? Often talk therapy falls shot when it comes to addressing any type of chronic stress or trauma because trauma is not stored in the part of the brain that is responsible for conscious logic and rational thinking. It is stored in the body and it is your autonomic nervous system (ANS) run by the primal brain, that governs a lot of these responses.
Your body’s ANS responses are not controllable because the ANS is our threat detection and threat response system; for survival purposes it must be faster than our conscious mind and neocortex. By going into the body and working with the nervous system we are able to work with instinctive responses, patterns of unhelpful behaviour, feeling of overwhelm and out of control and instinctive responses.
Unresolved stress and trauma shows up in our bodies in many ways. Sometimes we have a big event like a car accident that we keep having flashbacks of. But often it is not in the memories but our behaviour, actions and the sensations we feel.
Do you wake up in the middle of the night filled with anger or fear? Or maybe you are having racing thoughts and panic attacks? Maybe you find you are over reacting to what might seem like small triggers? You might be feeling completely overwhelmed at work and being too quick to react? Or are you having difficulty in relationships?
Conversely you might find you are feeling numb and disconnected from your body, or you may experience chronic pain, like pelvic pain? Maybe you are having trouble getting motivated to do anything and find you procrastinate a lot.
These are classic signs of unresolved stress and trauma showing up in your body, your feelings, your behaviour and your relationships.
When trauma is experienced early in life our body becomes wired for danger and this strong imprint stays within our body deep in our ANS. This shows up as a body that has never experienced the feeling of being fully relaxed. As a result the body can experience a range of health issues later in life, unless the imprint in the nervous system has been worked with somatically. Some of those health issues include chronic fatigue, migraines, fibromyalgia, asthma, skin conditions, gut issues, autoimmune disease. The list is long and extensive.
Somatic Experiencing (SE ™) aims to resolve symptoms of stress, trauma and shock that are stored in the body. When we are stuck in patterns of fight, flight and freeze, or are chronic fawners/people pleasers, SE helps us to release and recover these patterns and brings us back to our blueprint of health, aliveness, wellness and resiliency in our bodymind. SE was created and founded by Dr Peter Levine PhD, and is backed by 45 years of successful clinical application. It is a body oriented therapy that can be applied across multiple professions including coaching, psychotherapy, teaching, medicine and physical therapy, for healing trauma and stress disorders. SE is the result of the multidisciplinary study of stress physiology, psychology, ethology, biology, neuroscience, indigenous healing practices and medical biophysics.
In somatic sessions I use approaches from somatic experiencing, breathwork, embodiment practices, lymphatic practices and coaching to help you connect with your body and befriend it, and work through any stress or trauma that is stored in there. I think of it as nervous system coaching and it is a much slower and gentler in nature to the other coaching modalities I work with. We work with the natural physiology of the body to unwind and resolve any stress and trauma that is stored in there and educate you to give you strategies to better resource yourself in the day to day of your life. We are building your capacity to listen to your body and connect with the natural impulses it has so you can better deal with the challenges that life throws your way.
My special focus areas are on:
Chronic Stress, Burnout, Anxiety,
Medical Trauma or helping you prepare for surgery,
Sexual and Gynaecological Trauma, Pelvic Pain and Trauma,
Working with clients pre, during and post Cancer treatment,
Working with clients who are really disconnected from their emotions and its causing challenges in your relationships or in your physical health,
Working with grief,
Working with highly sensitive people who get overwhelmed easily by feelings and emotions,
Healing ancestral trauma that has been passed down through family systems and,
Trauma and stress that arises during major life transitions such as becoming a parent, post partum, menopause and midlife and big transition occurrences like divorce.
I aim to create a safe environment where we can work to the pace of your nervous system.
You can book a 60 minute or 90 minutes, whatever you prefer, and we work online via zoom OR if you are in Melbourne, you may like to book an in person session at The Tree of Life Integral Centre, 3 Denmark Street, Kew (In person from January 2025).
If we work online you will be sent the zoom link with the calendar invite when you book and pay. The cost per session is AU$140 for 60 minutes, AU$190 for 90 minutes.
Ninety minutes is recommended for most sessions in order to deepen your therapeutic process.
If you are a new client who I haven’t worked with before, we have an initial consultation so that we can can meet and talk about what you would like to work on and talk through the process. This meeting is 30 minutes long and will be online via zoom. When you book and pay, you will automatically be sent a calendar appointment with a zoom link in it. Upon receiving your booking, I will send you an intake form to complete. Please submit this prior to our initial consultation time.
Booking instructions:
Click on a button below to book and pay for you appointment. Select your timezone and then you can see the schedule in your timezone to book a time that suits you and then will be guided to pay the full fee through either credit/debit card or via paypal.
Refunds and Cancellation: Please read the Refunds and Cancellation policy below in the footer on this page. You need to give 24 hours notice to reschedule a session. Failure to do so results in forfeiture of payment. If you are unable to attend and decide you don’t want to go ahead with a session or reschedule, the payment amount will be refunded if notice is given more than 24 hours in advance.