TRAUMA THERAPY SPIRITUAL COUNSELLING
 

SITTING STILL TOGETHER WITH THE INNER WILDERNESS OF YOUR BODY

SOMATIC THERAPY SESSIONS

Cultivating your capacity for embodied awareness, in a carefully attuned session container that lets you meet great intensity without becoming overwhelmed. To gradually build a sense of grounded, vital agency in the feeling of being deeply present in the body.

The wisdom of our bodies is ancient. It knows what it needs to heal itself and release any imbalances that trouble its peace. All we're asked to do is become quiet in ourselves and listen to the body's communication to us - in the form of sensation, images, energy, silence. This can be overwhelming to do alone - especially if we've been affected by trauma. So we open the conversation with our own depths with another. When our nervous systems recognize attuned connection, they shift states. And this movement from stuckness to flow creates the conditions to shake off what no longer serves and embody a greater wholeness.

We offer a gentle crucible - a place where explosive energy can unclench, release, alchemize into quiet vitality. By deepening your conversation and felt-sense intimacy with your body, we support you in unearthing a version of yourself that draws from the deep currents of somatic and heart-space wisdom.

 
 
“Our bodies are wild. The involuntary quick turn of the head at a shout, the vertigo at looking off a precipice, the heart-in-the-throat in a moment of danger, the catch of the breath, the quiet moments relaxing, staring, reflecting — are universal responses of this mammal body...The body does not require the intercession of some conscious intellect to make it breathe, to keep the heart beating. It is to a great extent self-regulating, it is a life of its own.”
— Gary Snyder

 

 
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Depending on your unique situation, our sessions might involve:

  • building a clear sense of which resources help you feel grounded and calm when faced with difficult sitations. And deepening the value of those resources by building a more direct, nuanced sense of what it feels like in your body when they're available and at hand.
  • learning to notice the nuances of what happens when you feel a sense of safety and connection with others. How that feels in the body. And exploring the possibilities that feeling of safety unlocks.
  • freeing "frozen" survival energy - the trapped, electrical charge of fight, flight, or collapse - that may be left over from traumatic experiences.
  • exploring and challenging beliefs about yourself formed due to traumatic experiences. (How much might early experiences have shaped a sense of being a victim? How much might it be possible to reclaim an understanding of oneself as having autonomy, agency, outward rippling influence...
  • identifying what defence mechanisms feel inevitable and reflexive as ways of dealing with challenging situations. And then - with the understanding that we may have chosen those strategies as toddlers - exploring what other options might be available to us that we might have neglected.
  • supporting a sense of "embodiment" in which you're less pulled back into the refuge of dissociation, more present in the muscle and sinew and nerves that come with being an animal
  • disentangling what elements of stress, anger and anxiety are rooted in trauma, and which are rooted in more everyday concerns like frustration, resentment, striving, fear of rejection, etc.
 
 

FAQ

 

  • Likely! As a registered clinical therapist, my sessions are covered by many third party insurance benefits. To be absolutely sure though, it’s best to confirm this directly with your insurance provider.

  • This work involves upsetting the status quo of your nervous system and defence mechanisms. As you restore and integrate the instincts and survival mechanisms you may have been cut off from for a long time, you may experience uncomfortable emotion and energies. For example, if you’ve lived for years without much access to your instinct for “fight”, you might find yourself feeling more anger as you experience somatic therapy. If you’ve taken refuge in the numbing blankness of “freeze”, you might find yourself feeling more of many emotions. This is part of the work of recovering the full spectrum of being at the physiological and instinctual level.