Working with the body as something we experience, not simply something we have.
Somatic work begins with a fairly simple idea: our experience of ourselves is embodied.
How we move, what we feel, what we notice, where our attention goes, how we orient to the world around us, and how much choice we experience in a particular moment are all part of that. In a session, this might involve movement, sensation, touch, attention, conversation, or simply becoming curious about something that is already happening. There isn’t one particular exercise or technique that makes the work somatic.
More than breathwork.
Somatics has increasingly become associated with breathing exercises, nervous-system regulation, shaking, grounding techniques, and other practices intended to help people settle or feel safe.
Those things can sometimes be useful. But they aren’t what defines somatic work for me.
The important part isn’t the exercise.
It’s the opportunity to notice what is actually happening and discover whether something else becomes possible.
Awareness is only the beginning.
Becoming aware of a pattern can be valuable. But awareness by itself doesn’t necessarily change it.
You might know that you clench your jaw, hold your breath, tighten your shoulders, brace your abdomen, or disappear from sensation when something becomes overwhelming. Knowing that can help, but it doesn’t automatically give you another option.
Somatic work can provide a place to explore what happens around those patterns—not simply why they exist, but what they feel like, what changes them, what makes them stronger or quieter, and whether another response becomes available.
Sometimes that exploration happens through movement. Sometimes through touch. Sometimes through attention or conversation.
And sometimes the most useful thing is now being able to notice something you hadn’t previously realized you were doing.
Safety, agency, and choice.
I don’t think a body changes simply because someone tells it that it should relax.
Trying harder to calm down, let go, breathe correctly, or “regulate your nervous system” can sometimes become one more thing to succeed or fail at.
I’m more interested in creating conditions in which there is room for choice.
That may mean slowing something down enough to notice it. It may mean experimenting with a movement rather than performing it correctly. It may mean changing position, saying no, asking for more or less pressure, opening your eyes, getting off the table, walking around the room, or deciding that we don’t need to pursue something at all.
The aim isn’t simply to help you feel different, but to create more room for choice in how you respond.
What people may find through somatic work.
People come to somatic work for many different reasons.
Some are dealing with persistent tension or pain that seems connected with stress, habit, or patterns of bracing. Some feel chronically activated, overwhelmed, shut down, or disconnected from their bodies. Others notice that they understand themselves intellectually but still find themselves returning to familiar physical or emotional responses.
People may also come because of experiences of anxiety, trauma, chronic stress, major life changes, or simply a desire to feel more present and at home in their bodies.
There isn’t a particular state we’re trying to achieve.
Being calm isn’t always the goal.
Touch is one possibility, not a requirement.
Because much of my background is in bodywork, people sometimes assume that working with me means lying on a table while I do something with my hands.
Sometimes it does.
But somatic work can happen seated, standing, walking, moving, talking, or experimenting with very small changes in position and attention. A session may involve substantial touch, very little touch, or no touch at all.
Touch itself isn’t automatically somatic.
What matters more is how we are using it: whether you can feel what is happening, participate in the experience, respond to it, and have some choice about where we go next.
When experience isn’t neatly physical or emotional.
Bodies don’t always respect the categories we use to describe them.
Anxiety can have a posture. Pain can affect attention. A memory can change breathing. An injury can change someone’s sense of safety. A movement can bring up an emotion without anyone needing to decide what that emotion “means.”
I’m interested in those intersections.
That doesn’t require assuming that every physical symptom is psychological, that trauma is “stored” in a particular muscle, or that we need to uncover a hidden emotional cause for pain.
We can simply become curious about what is happening now and work with what is actually available.
Somatic therapy as I practice it.
My approach to somatic work has developed through many years of studying movement, Rolfing®, Rolf Movement®, yoga therapy, Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy, meditation, pain science, trauma, and other approaches to embodied experience.
Those traditions don’t give me a single formula for how a person should move, feel, or regulate themselves.
They give me different ways of paying attention.
Sometimes the work is quite physical. Sometimes it is subtle. Sometimes we move. Sometimes we talk. Sometimes something becomes clearer simply because there is enough time to notice it.
The question isn’t necessarily how to get rid of an experience. It may be: What happens when we can meet it with a little more information, support, and choice?
You don’t need to know how to “do” somatics.
You don’t need to be good at sensing your body, know how to meditate, understand your nervous system, or arrive already knowing what you need. We can begin with whatever is here—a pain, a movement, a sensation, a feeling, a question, or even the sense that you’re not quite sure what you’re noticing.