About Somatic Coaching
Somatic practice is a non-linear process of returning to an embodied way of being that is attuned to, welcomes & honours all that is here: our felt sense, energetic awareness, physical sensations, emotions, thoughts, ancestral wisdom, and everything else that is present... so that we can respond choicefully from our whole knowing.
In somatic coaching, I have the honour of keeping you company in this emergent process of aliveness, spirals, unfurls & magic, and witnessing the ripple effects as you move in the world.
Partnership at the heart
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, remember, and connect.
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, and let that move us into aligned action.
The coaching I offer is rooted in politicised somatics and oriented towards visions of collective healing, so that what we practice in session can be taken out into your relationships... so that you can embody your values, feel in integrity, and co-create positive collective change.
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.
The kind of healing I’m interested in takes it beyond the edges of our own bodies, into our relationships with beings, land, systems, ancestors, descendants, time, cosmos and and and.
Lineage
I'm committed to exploring my relationship to lineage as an embodiment practitioner. You can learn more about the lineages of my work on the About page.
My coaching philosophy
- Each of us is a bodymind, a whole self that weaves together different sources of knowing. Our bodymind includes our sensations, thinking, emotions, felt sense, intuition, ancestral wisdom, and more that we do not have language for. By bringing our curiosity to our holistic bodymind, we can connect to more signals and insight than if we were just focused on our mind alone.
- We are energetically connected as a collective body in ways I do not pretend to understand.
- You are the expert in yourself. I bring my skills as a coach to be alongside you as you are with what is present in the moment. Together, we move at the pace of your sense-making.
- Everything offered is an invitation, not an expectation.
- There are different ways to process and different ways of knowing. We each have different capacities and life experiences. All are equally valuable and precious.
- Healing is not a linear process. We can trust that everything is unfolding at the right time, and does not need to be judged, pushed or strived for.
- Under the right conditions, we can bring loving attention and compassion to the ways that our bodyminds have adapted for our survival.
- Through practice in safe-enough environments, we can explore new or forgotten ways of relating to ourselves, our environment & to others.
- Embodiment practice, while seemingly individual, has a powerful ripple effect when we practice it in the world, and I consider it vital to the work of positive collective transformation.
Who my work centers
I center those of us whose experiences flow outside of the mainstream, holding space for the unique ways we each move in the world, whether in your heritage, your queerness, your neurodivergence, your gender expansiveness, your trauma history, your marginalised experiences... because that's my lived experience, too.
As someone who is physically disabled, 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, and to be a lifelong learner.
What you can bring to a session
Everything is welcome. All topics. All sensations. All emotions.
The beauty of embodiment practice is that there is space for anything that's here for you in the moment. Everything you share will be held with care and confidentiality.
How a session feels
Sessions are all about presence, experimentation, 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's no expectation that just because we tried a certain somatic practice in a previous session, it would also be welcome in this session.
Through professional learning and lived experience of trauma, I understand the need to respect and celebrate our body's edges and limits. My approach is centred around invitations for you to check in with your capacity and make choices based on what you sense you need. We move slowly in partnership together, paying attention to the signals your bodymind is giving you - slowing down, changing route, pausing and stopping as needed.
Sessions follow a general structure:
Opening
- 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
Flow
- 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.
- Examples of somatic processes that I may offer to guide you through include: Resourcing, felt sensing, somatic boundary explorations, Focusing, PIE sensory awareness (Proprioception, Interoception, Exteroception), Constellations, verbal experiments, dance, visualisation, Centering.
Integration & Close
- 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.
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 or with bodyworkers and therapists from different modalities.
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, acupuncture, intuitive energy, and Clinical Somatic Movement.
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.
Co-creating a space of trust
Transparency and openness are really important to me - I want your experience of working with me to be really positive and based on trust and clarity. I follow the International Coaching Federation's (ICF) ethical and professional guidelines for coaching. Before our first session, you'll receive a coaching agreement which explains what you can expect from our time together.
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