Because I know what happens within your body, heart and mind when you begin to heal your younger parts, feel better from the inside, move beyond patterns in your relationships and your life that make you feel stuck and are holding you back.
When you free yourself from deeply held early developmental, hidden trauma and limiting beliefs, we can feel better and truly thrive in life. Chronic illness improves, relationships deepen and confidence and fulfillment skyrockets. A new way of living and thriving begins.
Without realizing it, we have buried our earliest trauma – and this unprocessed pain lives on within us, like an unexploded charge, disrupting our physical, mental, and emotional health. When we treat trauma as the enemy, avoiding it or pushing it away, we inadvertently give it more power.
Trauma, simply put, is any experience that overwhelms our nervous system, leaving us stuck in a cycle of stress. In response, our body releases adrenaline, cortisol, and other survival hormones to mobilize us for fight, flight, or freeze. But when this stress cycle is never completed, those hormones remain trapped, creating a toxic, chronic state that impacts our well-being.
Healing invites us to complete the stress response cycle—to allow our bodies and minds to process, in the present, what once felt too overwhelming. Instead of turning away from sorrow, fear, or anger, we gently lean in, permitting our bodies to experience, express, and release what’s been keeping us stuck in survival mode.
Healing isn’t about fighting the trauma within us; it’s about allowing ourselves to feel, process, and expel it, making room to enjoy life to the fullest.
No longer lost in analyzing others’ behaviour or dissecting every feeling, there’s space for something else. And that “something else” is the expression of the naturally generous heart.
What does that look like? Here’s what can happen:
You show up present and available rather than distracted and in your head.
You listen deeply and with care, without your own agenda in the way.
You stop blaming and feel compassion for yourself and others’ suffering instead.
You want to help—not to get anything back or have an impact—but simply as a natural movement in response to others’ needs. You’re not attached to the outcomes.
And you’re lovingly open to your partner, children, loved ones, and everyone you come into contact with.
I encourage you to be on the lookout for the expressions of your naturally generous heart. Because these are reflections of the essence of who you are.
You don’t become more generous and open. You don’t evolve into being something different than who you are right now. It’s much simpler than that.
You realize that, behind the fog of your personal fears and needs, you’re just here, present, not stuck in thoughts about yourself and fully available to life.
You discover your boundless nature that is and always has been who you are—you were just too distracted to know it.
Your heart may sometimes feel bruised and vulnerable, and that’s okay. Fully love the parts of you that need your kind attention.
Because when the time is right and there’s enough space and silence, love begins to express itself effortlessly.
And your natural generosity will flow everywhere.
We feel most satisfied in our relationships when our needs are met. And yet…
Many of our relational needs come from childhood trauma. The issue with this is that we use the other person for soothing – and this leads to codependency.
The greatest clue regarding where your need comes from is the energy you feel behind it.
If it is one of neediness and desperation (a very intense feeling in your body of constriction, anxiety, heaviness), take the time for healing and soothing yourself. Because otherwise, the person on the other side will become your new parent.
They will become the ones to soothe you, instead of a partner in your life journey to encourage your growth.
And you might find yourself staying in these relationships just to get soothed, while in reality you feel unfulfilled and many of your other very important needs are not getting met.
It is always a tradeoff – we will never get ALL of our needs met in our relationships, and we want to really understand our current relational needs and how we are getting them met.
Maybe more so, do we leap when it is offered to us even if that leap is hard?
When BIG change is needed in our lives, why do so many accept it only when it is easy?
The universe has our back, BUT it also will test our will, wherever you have the old program that says “this is why my life is stuck” it will challenge you there – so if it is time, then time will be your obstacle, if it is a relationship in your life, then that relationship will become your obstacle, same for beliefs, food issues, money, support…the list goes on.
You know what the universe is waiting for?
It wants to see how badly you want out of whatever you are experiencing, and how willing you are to stretch for it. That stretch is key, are you willing to do whatever it takes? To leave comfort, to do the unexpected and maybe even what is to others illogical to get there?
When I look at my life and the lives of those I have had the good fortune to support, I am amazed at what my clients will do for their mental and physical wellness, and when they did, the universe responded by thrusting what they needed into their path.
Remember, the Universe has been waiting for us to recognize our power, to decide that enough is enough, and take action, and get so committed, that NOTHING can stand in our way.
What would happen to your life if you accepted this challenge?
Who benefits from Somatic Experiencing® & Somatic Healing Bodywork Touch Practice?
SE® is designed to be effective for people who have experienced the following types of traumatic events:
-
Medical trauma including anesthesia
-
Physical injuries, including sports injuries
-
Relational injury (and attachment trauma)
-
Emotional abuse, including narcissistic abuse
-
Physical abuse
-
Sexual abuse
-
PTSD
-
CPTSD (early developmental trauma – hidden trauma from childhood)
- Auto accidents
“Startle” and “Protect” physiological patterns
When someone has experienced a traumatic event, or ongoing relational events as in childhood, a person’s physiology can stay in a “startle” pattern which includes bracing throughout the system or a “protect” pattern which includes contractions throughout the system.
A person might be aware that they, for example, clench their teeth or hands, or hold their breath. Or they might round their shoulders forwards and they may feel constriction in their throat or chest and tightness in their belly. Sometimes they have chronic digestive issues—either constipation or extremely loose bowels. Or they have back, neck or shoulder pain. These muscular habits of hypervigilance show up throughout their entire physiology— but they may just feel it as “normal” for them. But all of this can be part of the same nervous system pattern.
Seemingly normal habits like nail biting or constant foot swinging or tapping is the nervous system’s attempt to self soothe and self regulate. Usually there is deeper physical “holding” on the musculoskeletal level throughout the person’s system.
This method works with people who experience musculoskeletal patterns of anxiety and hypervigilance, or bracing and contracting.
Being with the Body to Release Trauma
If someone has had an auto accident, they likely hold muscle tension patterns from the experience. In such an experience we often have powerful energy build up. Our nervous system naturally gathers all it’s power and looks for ways to flee or engage in fighting against impact. That powerful energy surge is thwarted and becomes stuck in the joints or muscles. This is a common cause for neck pain or things like frozen shoulder, on top of any physical injury that occurred.
In SE® we begin a slow process to revisit the experience from within the sensations of the physical body — beginning with resourcing each person until it’s clear they have the capacity to touch into the different pieces of the event. We work with nervous system regulation techniques so that they aren’t re-traumatized as we approach significant moments that make up the event.
The nervous system processes at a very…very… slow… pace. We go at a pace that the sensory part of the brain can accommodate, and so that the brain can re-experience small pieces of the event. And this time, re-experiencing it in resourced, manageable way, the body is successful in finally moving that stuck, thwarted energy, either through physical movement or doing something differently and in a more resourced conscious way in the imagination.
Because our brain doesn’t know the difference between what actually happened in the past and our imagination in the present, it can reprocess this information sensorily and muscles can finally relax and let go permanently.
Discharge of Energy
Often clients will have the discharge that their body’s didn’t get the chance to have the first time around. Discharge can include crying for no apparent reason, shaking, shivering, trembling, yawning, or deep sighs. This discharge is what animals are able to experience naturally in the wild after a big chase. They move this powerful fight-flight energy through their bodies vs storing it as anxiety. You rarely hear about a stressed out tiger!
Do you feel your inner light has dimmed? Do you feel less vibrant than before? That you’ve lost some of your feminine power?
Perhaps you feel the weight of past traumas that never seem to release their hold over you.
If you are in search of powerful healing, and you want to restore your feminine power, Somatic Healing will show you how.
Therapeutic Co-Regulating Touch Bodywork for Trauma is a gentle, backed-by-science method that enables qualified practitioners to work safely and ethically with the emotions stored in the tissues and organs of the body. It works to unlock and release emotional pain buried in the body, sometimes since before we born, in-utero, our early childhood and all way up to present day adult experience.
Using touch, we reset complex physiological systems and help harmonize energy flow in a person’s body. Often, we restore what was missing in the early years. Touch can give you a greater awareness of your body’s sensations and the ability to get to know yourself better from the inside out.
Bringing a compassionate presence to the body is another essential part of healing. It helps address the neural numbing, muscular bracing, and autonomic disorganization that are physiological by-products of grief, shame, anger, and fear.
Therapeutic touch works to heal the nervous system by providing an avenue for the body to process deep-rooted trauma and facilitate self-actualization. Through gentle, attuned touch, we can help to rebuild an underdeveloped nervous system that has been negatively impacted by early trauma.
Sessions are done fully clothed. Each session is one-hour, unless we are doing an extended session – and is unique depending on what you are experiencing on that day and would like to focus on during a session – we want to tune in and understand what’s really going on in your body – beyond pathology and diagnoses – to allow your body to move into a flow state, rather than to remain stuck in a stress response state – during the session and in the hours and days afterwards.
This work is support for you to feel more ease through deep embodiment, the immense gifts of slowing way down, how to lovingly hold and transform your story and become a master of our nervous system.
As you heal, you begin to feel your core as goodness; to deeply know that you belong, to feel a oneness with life. You can feel an unshakeable love in your heart that becomes a stable background in your life. The greater empathy and compassion you feel for yourself extends to all beings and the earth itself.
I will hold you with kindness, deep respect and space to be with you as you are. This deep presence will shift our felt sense experience of whole body mental and physical health care. My approach is open, spacious and flexible. I look forward to inviting you in to my space.
There is a great longing in each of us to uncover the secrets and mysteries of our individual lives, to relate more deeply and to uncover what is unique and truthful within ourselves and related to others in our lives. I look forward to seeing you in the depths of soul nourishment, vulnerability and courage.
When we begin to unravel the layers of emotions and patterns and re-route neural pathways, we have to connect back to our physical selves. Trauma forces us out of our bodies. This is why the somatic approach works so well.
When we approach the human system in a holistic, regenerative, systemic way, we build a foundation that is solid and has more capacity to experience difficulty. Yes, we will experience stress, pain, and loss like all humans do, and we will bounce back.
Ready to take the next steps in your healing?
Who would you be if you felt nourished and loving towards yourself every day? Say ‘yes’ to what feels nourishing, joyful and expansive. Be ever so gentle with your heart.
Working together is a deeply nourishing, supportive and intensive collaboration between us. My intention is to allow you to bring your whole self, to explore all the areas that feel hidden or stuck and to celebrate all the deep pleasure that can come from living in our bodies. I am here to listen to the wisdom of your magical body together.
Together, we will work with body-based approaches, parts work, inner child healing, co-dependent patterns, shadow work and self compassion to support you in experiencing joyful aliveness – in your body, mind and heart.
Whole Body Mental Health & Well-Being from the Inside Out.
Deep healing at the level of the nervous system enables you to explore and expand your inner landscape where self – confidence and inner agency reside. When you heal your nervous system, you can more readily access deeper ways of knowing and being that include intuition, imagination, sensuality, and the subtle body of emotions.
The POLYVAGAL THEORY – SAFE & SOUND PROTOCOL OFFERING – The Safe & Sound Protocol (SSP) is an auditory listening intervention for adults and children – using headphones – that is intended to accelerate the effectiveness of other modalities by preparing each person’s emotional and physiological state. Dr. Stephen Porges (developer of The Safe & Sound Protocol & of The Polyvagal Theory) explains that we need a calm autonomic/physiological state for health, growth and restoration, and achieving this becomes the foundation of an effective therapy.
The SAFE & SOUND PROTOCOL is a way to support a change in your physiological state; opening the system to further neural change and improvement for other therapies that follow. The process is designed to reduce stress and auditory sensitivity while enhancing social engagement and resilience. The intervention uses prosodic vocal music that has been filtered to train the middle ear muscles to focus in on the frequency envelope of human speech. You’ll find you are better able to feel calm – less chronically stressed and/or anxious. Clients who have experienced long-held trauma and are healing from PTSD, troubling chronic health concerns, chronic pain and troubling chronic emotional responses, can experience an increased sense of safety in their physiological state. The Safe & Sound Protocol (SSP)+ Co-Regulating Touch Trauma Resolution Bodywork = Somatic Healing
FEMININE EMBODIMENT – get in touch with your feminine energetic dynamics, internal felt sense, your deepest heart, masculine and feminine energies, layers of dissociation, practice pleasure practices that can help you unravel pleasure and sensuality, heal the survival responses and defensive accommodations that keep us out of connection. Explore somatic blocks to expansion, heal chronic anxiety, illness and pain patterns, and have an open space to explore the deepest parts of yourself in relation to yourself, your work, your life and your relationships with others. This work happens on the table, in-person and online via Zoom.
HEALING FAMILY TRAUMA IMPRINT – 90-minute – in-person or online Zoom session – an opportunity to get to the roots of intergenerational trauma patterns & begin a path towards relational & relationship healing.
DISCOVER YOUR INNER MOTHER– Healing the Mother Wound – uncover your hidden family dynamics and trauma history – this is an opportunity to strengthen your internal relationship with your inner your self – as well as your mother, father and extended family – in ways that contribute to healing – get in touch to schedule an online or in-person session – www.kimcochrane.ca
HEART HEALING SOMATIC INTENSIVE SESSIONS – Heart Healing Somatic Intensive sessions are all about you, your path and healing. These can be monthly sessions or several sessions scheduled over a period of days to support you along your healing path.
My clients love this work, it is nourishing and gentle. It is wonderful for healing early developmental trauma, attachment repair and shifting to a more regulated place where the heart can freely open into abundance.
You may want to schedule these sessions as a focused time for letting go of all that you healing. Heart Healing sessions consist of combining several sessions over a short period of time. They are a great way to get out of your daily routine and be immersed in healing. We may meet for multiple sessions per day over a period of days. Since you will be out of your typical routine, this will give plenty of time for integration of the work and healing.
The Heart Healing Sessions are held in my office in Markham. You can schedule between several sessions over a period of days. Since this work is done away from your typical day to day life, integration of the work is deep and truly transformative.
I am sending softness, gentleness and love from my heart to yours. May you slow down and receive the wisdom your body is seeking to share with you breath by breath.
NERVOUS SYSTEM HEALING for COUPLES – (6 Session Package) Awaken in Relationship – Being Present to the Relational Wounding and the Pain We Carry – Ongoing Online Sessions for Couples – Learn to Process Deeply Held Emotion, check-in with each other regularly and learn to communicate from the heart and to connect deeply with one another again or for the first time.
Meet for a series of focused, online sessions to help uncover, understand and practice noticing ongoing nervous system triggers that keep you locked in a negative cycle of conflict / avoidance that is very difficult to resolve. Your early developmental trauma and co-dependent patterns are very much at play in your closest relationships and we can understand and work towards healing:
1) Your individual early developmental trauma patterns – what got missed or neglected and why.
2) Your individual nervous system patterns, responses and reactions – and how you can do your own healing work to soothe and ease your responses and pain.
3) How your family of origin plays a very significant role in your relationships now, how they do, and to work towards a healing program for your relationship, and for each person in the relationship.
4) Be with Relational Wounding & Defensive Accommodations when it shows up in your relationship – and how this effects emotional & physical intimacy.
5) Be with and Face Hot Button issues when they arise and cause conflict.
6) Take 100% responsibility for yourself in your relationship.
Our feelings, bodily sensations and relational patterns are clues to what is being held in the unconscious – so we must be present to them. Conflict can give us the opportunity to awaken out of the conditioning that we are a separate, disconnected self. Get in touch to learn more and work together – www.kimcochrane.ca
HEALING CODEPENDENT PATTERNS IN RELATIONSHIPS – healing through the body for codependent patterns in relationships – healing from resentment, blame, shame and addictive patterns – nurturing your inner child – learning your needs in relationships – and finding ease in the body, mind and heart for longstanding conditioned patterns.
Get in touch to learn more about The Safe & Sound Protocol (SSP), Embodied Recovery, Nurture Surround & Family Systems Imprint Sessions & Individual Body-Focused Therapy Sessions, and Co-Regulating Touch Bodywork for Trauma, NeuroAffective Touch – The Anxiety, Stress & Trauma Restorative Clinic – in-person and/or online – and to set up a time to work together: www.kimcochrane.ca
“This work has helped me see what a blessing it is to be a woman! I feel alive, powerful, and embodied in a way I never have before.”
“This work has helped me to accept myself layer by layer, become curious about myself and life, and learn to feel joy again.”
