About Somatic Coaching
Coaching in a nutshell
Coaching is a partnership, co-created by the coach (me) and the client (you). It's rooted in the belief that each of us is already resourceful, creative and whole. It's a process of bringing loving presence by listening, sensing and feeling without judgement (within and between each other and ourselves). Reflecting, asking curious questions, and holding space to unearth and connect to the possibilities that already lie within you, so that you can notice insight and embody transformation.
Coaching is not advice-giving or therapy. Though it can support individual and collective healing, coaching is not the same as therapy, and would not be suitable for you if you're looking to access therapeutic services or counselling.
It's rooted in what is present and emerging in the moment, with a forward focus towards integrating these new learnings for your future.
What's different about Somatic Coaching?
Somatic / embodiment coaching focuses on being with our whole bodymind's noticings, rather than just our mind's. Being with what is here now, allowing ourselves to feel it, and acting from there. Our bodies have so much to tell us, through physical sensations, images, sensory experiences, thoughts, emotions...
With courage and practice, we can learn to notice all that is here.
Lineage
I'm committed to exploring my relationship to lineage as a somatics practitioner. My holding of space is sustained by my personal lineage that includes: ancestral guidance & practices, the Nile, Coniston Water, generative somatics, Disability Justice, intersectional and Black feminism, Lama Rod Owens, Prentis Hemphill and The Embodiment Institute, Staci K Haines, Kai Cheng Thom, James Baldwin, George Michael, Tracy Chapman, the real Blancas and Pray Tells whose names I don't know, Derek Jarman, Bayo Akomolafe, Rowen White, Camille Sapara Barton, seed-planting, my English-Sudanese-Syrian-Scottish heritage, our Earth, and more music and books than I can name.
The lineage of somatic coaching I'm qualified in holds complex relationships with appropriation and commodification of indigenous practices and wisdom traditions, that are being taught outside of their original cultural and place-based contexts. Staci K Haines has co-created a Living Lineage deck, that seeks to explore the complex collective story of the lineage of what we call "somatics". You can find it here.
The coaching I'm trained in is informed by the knowledge and lineages of:
Healing Justice and Transformative Justice, Buddhist traditions of non-dualism, Strozzi Institute, humanistic psychology, indigenous collective grief rituals, Gestalt theory, civil rights and social justice movements, martial arts traditions, Family Constellations, Internal Family Systems, Hakomi, and more.
What's my approach?
I specialise in one-to-one embodied transformation coaching for individuals whose experiences sit outside of the mainstream, holding space for the unique ways we each move in the world, whether in your neurodivergence, your queerness, your ethnicity, your experiences, your trauma history, your disability... because that's my life experience, too.
As someone who lives with a dynamic physical disability, I seek to offer invitations that feel accessible to all bodyminds.
I don't make assumptions and will always seek to validate and celebrate your lived experience.
I am trained as a somatic (body-oriented) coach, having initially trained as a transformational life coach. I bring skills in both conceptual self-awareness (processing logically through our thoughts, and making meaning with words) and embodied self-awareness (using our senses to feel from within our bodies and connect to felt sense signals, and allow insight and shifts to emerge) to my practice.
What to expect during a session
Sessions are all about presence, play & invitation.
Each session will be unique, arising from whatever is alive for you within our space during that time. Together, we trust that, when we seek to stay in partnership and presence in the moment, what wants to emerge will emerge.
My approach is non-directive. We will always move at the pace of your embodied yes or no or maybe, with spaciousness to sense into that. There is no expectation that just because we tried a somatic practice in a previous session, it would also be welcome in this session.
Each session is unique.
Everything is always an invitation.
Sessions follow a general structure:
- You may arrive with an issue that you want to explore. Or, you may have nothing specific and just want to feel into what's calling your attention
- In somatic coaching, we "dance" between conceptual self awareness (processing logically through our thoughts, and making meaning with words) and embodied self awareness (using our senses to feel from within our bodies, connect to felt sense signals, and allow insight and shifts to emerge).
- Much of the time, we will talk or be in silence, as in any conversation. Throughout a session, I will reflect your words back to you, pull out certain phrases, and ask curious questions. Some sessions may be spent completely in this way, and may stay within conceptual self awareness.
- When it is welcome, you may want to explore sensations within your body. Any invitations from me for you to explore through embodied self awareness will be exactly that: invitations or offerings of practice or processes that you can choose to say yes or no to within each session.
- We spend time at the end of each session integrating and making sense of what has emerged, and partner together to ensure that you leave feeling resourced.
Some of the somatic processes that may be invited during a session:
Resourcing and orienting, Focusing, PIE sensory awareness (Proprioception, Interoception, Exteroception), Constellations, somatic boundary explorations, verbal experiments, dance, Centering.
Coaching, Therapy and other Complementary Approaches
Coaching and therapy offer something different for your life. Many of my clients coach with me and also work with a psychotherapist.
In my own life, I find that therapy supports me to dive deep into the past to understand how experience and trauma affect my present behaviours. I also receive regular coaching with a generative somatics practitioner, which supports me to attune to what is here now, and what is wanting to emerge. I also spend time with other somatic approaches that are complementary to coaching, such as dance, grief rituals, Emotional Freedom Technique, and Clinical Somatics.
If you are working with a therapist or have somatic, spiritual or therapeutic practices that are part of your life, we can explore these in our Connection Call. I will partner with you to seek that our coaching sessions are complementary to those approaches and that the different practices are mutually enhancing.
What are the roles, expectations, and responsibilities of the coach and the person being coached?
Transparency and openness is really important to me - I want your experience of working with me to be really positive and based on trust and clarity. Before our first session, you'll receive a coaching agreement which explains what you can expect from our time together. Here's a little of what it says:
"The client is solely responsible for creating and implementing their own physical, mental and emotional well-being, decisions, choices, actions and results arising from the coaching relationship and their coaching calls and interactions with the coach. The role of the coach is to support you on this journey towards the positive change you want to create."
During our first session together, we'll spend a few minutes creating our "Alliance", which will be an agreement between us for our time together about how you want to be, how you want me to be, and how we want us to be as a partnership. If it feels supportive, we may create an Alliance at the start of each session, to check in with your needs that day.
Confidentiality and ethics are an important part of my role as a coach. You can read more about this here:
https://everydaywrites.com/pages/confidentiality-ethics
Can I read some testimonials from people who've been coached by you?
Check out my homepage - near the bottom you'll find some testimonials written by people who've experienced Everyday Writes coaching, which should give you an idea of what to expect. I can also answer any questions you might have by email - just check out the Contact page.
Professional Qualifications
ICF-Accredited Diploma in Body-oriented Coaching, The Somatic School
Currently training towards ICF Level 2 (Professional Certified Coach) accreditation
Qualified Transformational Coach, Dr Sarah Madigan's Spectacular School
Trauma-Informed Coaching, Susana Rinderle
Self-Guided Embodiment Basics, The Embodiment Institute
MSc Creative Writing
BSc International Development
Current Community Memberships
The Practice Ground by The Embodiment Institute