People often ask whether I offer phone or Zoom consultations before scheduling a session. I want to share a bit about why I don’t generally do so, and how I understand this work more broadly.
This doesn’t mean that I never offer consultations. Rather, it explains why they’re less frequent — and why, for many people, they’re not the most helpful place to begin.
This work often doesn’t translate well into conversation alone
Much of what I do can’t be fully understood through explanation. People usually reach out because something hasn’t worked for them before, and understandably they’re trying to make sense of what I offer through frameworks they already know.
The challenge is that this work is intentionally oriented from a different paradigm — one that often can’t be understood conceptually in advance. If it could, the conversation likely wouldn’t be needed in the first place.
For most people, the work begins to make sense after it’s experienced, as new information and understanding emerge through the process itself over time.
Experience comes before explanation
There’s often a meaningful difference between what we think is happening and what’s actually unfolding in the body and nervous system.
Talking about this ahead of time can pull things back into explanation and interpretation, whereas the work itself happens largely outside of those modes — in real time, through direct experience. While reflection can sometimes help point toward what’s occurring, it can also point us away, taking us further from the issue while we believe we are getting closer.
Both reflection and experience have value, but they are not the same thing. In this work, the emphasis is less on what might be happening and more on what is actually present.
Trust forms through how your system responds
Many people hope a consultation will help build trust or clarity before beginning. In my experience, trust in this work doesn’t form primarily through explanation or reassurance, but through how your system responds to being here — to the space, the pace, the interaction, and the work itself.
Prior to interpretation, there is a bodily response.
In that sense, the first session is the consultation — and in some ways, each session continues to be one, as we orient together to what’s present and unfolding in that moment.
Why conversation alone can sometimes miss the mark
Even when something is explained clearly, it’s still received through the particular way a person is currently perceiving. When that perceptual lens has been shaped by what hasn’t worked before, trust can be difficult to establish through conversation alone.
This isn’t a problem with the person or the work — it’s simply how patterns of understanding operate. At times, this can create a loop where reassurance is sought, but can’t quite land, because what’s being listened for isn’t fully aligned with what’s being offered.
Direct experience is often what allows that loop to soften or shift.
So why meet in person?
For these reasons, I’ve found that meeting in person is usually the most honest and informative way to determine whether this work feels supportive and appropriate.
The work reveals itself through experience, not explanation.
A note on flexibility
All of that said, if someone truly feels a consultation would be supportive, I will do my best to meet them where they are. My hope is simply that the context above is read carefully, as often even the wish for a consultation arises from the very dynamics described and doesn’t always land in the way one hopes.
Everyone is different. For some people, a brief conversation can be helpful. I try to hold space for that variability while staying honest about what I’ve most often seen serve the work best.
If you’re unsure
If you decide to schedule a first session, we’ll move at a pace that’s attentive and responsive, orienting together to what’s actually present rather than assuming or forcing anything. And if it doesn’t feel like the right fit, that information is just as meaningful.
I’m always happy to answer practical or logistical questions.
If you’re unsure, that uncertainty itself is welcome.
It often tells us more than certainty does.