Stored Trauma Creates Somatic Symptoms – Work Deeply with Your Stress Organs & Resolve Trauma Held in Your Nervous System – The Roots of Anxiety, Chronic Stress, Pain, Relational and Health Concerns That Keep You Feeling Exhausted, Anxious, Stuck and Unwell.
You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection. ~Buddha
For true emotional and physical healing, I know that we can’t leave our body and how it feels and responds, out of the process. Each person needs something very specific in their healing journey, which is why it is so important to have a customized approach with a combination of emotionally-focused psychotherapy and body-focused Co-Regulating Touch Bodywork – with sessions tailored specifically for you.
Your body doesn’t have energy – it is energy. When we allow traumatic stress that is contained in our nervous system to begin to move through our system – flow begins to happen in our body and we feel more energetic, grounded, healthy and alive.
Turning towards what you notice in your body in the here and now, changes everything. When we slow down and begin to notice and practice this kind of awareness for what is happening in your body and mind. When feelings are difficult to be with, it is important to slow down that process too – in order to process long-held trauma.
Together, we inquire into what would expand your felt sense of what is safe to feel. We use powerful practices to release the intensity from memories of the past. We stay present with ourselves in this moment, noticing our breath and space within our body, grounded through our feet and seat.
Trauma is stored in our body until we feel strong enough to feel and process it. It shows up as a chronically tight neck and shoulders, clenched teeth and gut, or nervous energy from adrenaline pumping through our system.
Our stress organs – kidneys, adrenal glands, brain stem and gut – hold the energy that doesn’t get expressed through us. When trauma happens to us, we are not able to express our energy at the time of the event and this energy can and does adversely effect us. Our stress organs are where we store our trauma response – and our somatic work together allows you and your body to slowly release what you may have been holding on to since the trauma happened or before you can remember.
Move from a state of anxiety and overwhelm to one of health and empowerment. You can heal when you pay attention to what you notice deep within.
Learn how to tap into a field of aliveness and wholeness in your body, which we commonly call health. Your health is dynamic and alive: a living presence within us always. This aliveness is not just Intelligent but also capable of dialogue, timing and relationship.
Repeated chronic stress makes our nervous system go in to a defensive mode – we become shut down and cut off from feeling sensation in our body – we do this to survive. Over time, we may begin to experience symptoms in the body – we go in to a fight/flight/freeze defensive mode – with our bodies’ expressing to us what is happening in the only way they can do this – through symptoms, pain or illness. Together, we will renegotiate trauma held in the body and I will support your whole self to create the conditions that allow for health to flourish.
Your body is always trying to move itself into healthy energetic balance. Our bodies express our energetic reality through the medium of emotional of physical symptoms. There are three main ways that we experience inner messages from our body – we experience nervous tension, physical or emotional trauma, or physical or psychological illness.
You may be experiencing digestive concerns, back pain, shoulder and neck pain or hip or knee pain – these are all examples of the ways that our unconscious expresses an imbalance within us and gives us an opportunity to pay attention to body sensations – and not simply cover up the symptoms with over the counter medication.
Trauma and illness that happen in the body is the body’s attempt to release energy blockages that are happening in different areas of your body. Your body is always searching for balance and healing – the more chronic or painful you feel in your body or within your emotional self – the more you need to know that this is an unconscious attempt to release energy and change things. The body offers important signals and symptoms that we will pay attention to and decipher during our work together. Everything is welcome.
What if you felt free and radiantly alive to be and live the way you want to be?
Free to be yourself. Free from fear and shame. Free from pain and chronic stress. Someone who doesn’t second guess themselves. Someone who isn’t afraid to be authentic. Our primitive brain doesn’t care about freedom, it cares about safety and keeping us alive. Many of us aren’t able to assess their current levels of threat – somatic work helps to change that.
During Somatic Experiencing (SE) and Somatic Healing Bodywork sessions, and I’m supporting clients track their physiology and psyche activity, noticing the interplay of the many parts of you.
When our body is perceiving threat outside of us, it’s always in a defensive holding pattern. Over time we develop painful stress conditions and can feel chronically exhausted, drained and unwell.
Unwind chronic, defensive holding patterns in the body and reset your nervous system for more ease. Breath, movement and sound.
You will learn to reconnect to your body wisdom and start to feel. Your body will slowly release the resistance, bracing and tension that may have been building up in the body over time – along with the deep emotional pain that may also have accumulated. Gradually, painful feelings and body sensations begin to dissipate and trauma resolves itself.
At the time of a traumatic event, the body prepares to protect itself through fight, flight, or freeze responses. If we are not able to complete one of these responses it stays with us in our bodies as an incomplete self protection response.
We may find ourselves avoiding, being hypervigilant in some situations, losing focus, feeling numb, or feeling tense or lacking mobility without knowing why. The wonderful thing about our nervous systems is that we are wired towards self regulation. Our bodies know what to do to complete the action we had intended to do at the time of the traumatic event.
In somatic therapy, we can develop an awareness of what our bodies already know about how to heal ourselves. By discovering the sensations, feelings, images, actions, and thoughts present while working through old trauma, we can reintegrate these parts of your experience and allow for your body to complete the action it attempted in the past. Through this work you may discover new perspectives, more ease and spontaneity as your body no longer needs to defend itself against the threat that was present in your life in the past.
Just as trauma has a range of symptoms, I offer a range of somatic approaches that have been obtained through extensive training and experience – and customized for each person.
Some of my offerings include:
Somatic Experiencing (SE)
As the name suggests, trauma comes from a traumatic experience. Trauma body-focused therapy, investigates the root cause of that trauma—in a safe environment and without causing additional stress. By unlocking the root cause, trauma body-focused therapy works to heal and resolve past issues that contribute to current triggers, without needing to retell the story to heal from it.
Somatic Experiencing (SE) is aimed at relieving the chronic emotional and physical symptoms of trauma including: anxiety, depression, relational struggles, fatigue, chronic illness, chronic pain and sleeplessness. This body-focused work focused on the client’s perceived body sensations (or somatic experiences), and attempts to promote awareness and release physical tension that remains in the aftermath of trauma.
Sessions involve a client tracking their own experience. Somatic Experiencing is used for shock trauma in the short-term and for developmental trauma that may last months or years.
Co-Regulating Touch Bodywork for Trauma
Co-Regulating Touch Bodywork for Trauma is a gentle, hands-on approach that allows for tension to be released deep within the body to relieve pain and dysfunction and improve whole-body health and performance.
This work is very powerful. We follow what is asked for in the tissues – allowing the body to guide where it needs the most support. Turning towards and paying attention to the body, we allow the body to begin to re-map feelings of safety in the body and begin to let go of the holding patterns in the body that are no longer wanted or needed – allowing your body to return to its’ natural flow.
Co-Regulating Touch Bodywork for Trauma for Therapy releases restrictions deep within the body to relieve pain and dysfunction and improve whole body health and performance.
By complementing the body’s natural healing processes, Co-Regulating Touch Bodywork for Trauma is also a preventive health measure for its ability to bolster your immune system and is effective for a wide range of medical problems associated with pain and dysfunction, including:
-Chronic Pain
-Migraine Headaches
-Motor-Coordination Impairments
-Concussions and Traumatic Brain Injuries
-Chronic Emotional Concerns such as: Anxiety, Depression and Panic
-Chronic Stress and Tension
-Fibromyalgia and other Connective-Tissue Disorders
-Digestive Concerns and Disorders
-Neurovascular or Immune Disorders
-Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
-Post-Surgical Dysfunction
-Chronic Fatigue and Sleeplessness
-Relationship Struggles
Every day your body endures stresses and strains and your body absorbs them. Unfortunately, these changes often cause body tissues to tighten and distort our system. These distortions can then cause tension to form around the brain and spinal cord resulting in restrictions. This can create a barrier to the healthy performance of the autonomic nervous system, and potentially every other system it interacts with.
The Revolution is in the body NOW. ~Gabrielle Roth.In our work together, growth and change are possible through awareness of your feelings, body sensations and your ways of relating right now. The therapeutic relationship and your courage to feel the feelings you have in the present create the possibility to heal from traumas of the past and rediscover your light, creativity and spontaneity in the present. I offer individual therapy to adults and teens who seek support around such issues as anxiety, depression, grief, addiction, anger, chronic pain and illness – challenges related to ADHD, PTSD, motor vehicle accidents, eating disorders, life changes, relationship challenges, and sense of self/self confidence.
It can sometimes feel hard to know where and how to begin. If you want to feel better and are considering whether integrative somatic therapy and co-regulating touch bodywork for trauma might be helpful for you.
Show up for yourself in a new way.
Get in touch – and let’s talk about your experience and how I can support you – and I will answer any questions you may have about working together.
with love from my heart, Kim xoxoxo
[email protected] / www.s3p.d51.myftpupload.com
Whole Body 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. Get in touch to learn more about working with me – [email protected]
What to Expect During a Session
For true emotional and physical healing, I know that we can’t leave our body and how it feels and responds, out of the process. Each person needs something very specific in their healing journey, which is why it is so important to have a customized approach with sessions that are specifically tailored for you – a combination of emotionally-focused psychotherapy and body-focused Co-Regulating Touch work for trauma.
Your body doesn’t have energy – it is energy. When we allow traumatic stress that is contained in our nervous system to begin to move through our system – flow begins to happen in our body and we feel more energetic, grounded, healthy and alive.
For those who would like to focus on a body-focused, somatic approach, we begin by talking about your background, symptoms and history. We do this by sitting in chairs across from each other or you lie on your back on a table. When you are sitting in a chair, we can do some talk therapy, and you may also be asked if you are open to closing your eyes and noticing your feelings, emotions and body sensations that are happening for you in each moment.
For those who would like to do Co-Regulating Touch Bodywork – sessions consist of lying on a table with eyes closed – and I offer touch on several areas of the body: the head, stress organs, the belly, and joints in the body. 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.
Co-Regulating Touch Bodywork sessions allow you to befriend the sensations of your body, and to find a place of ease within you. Each session builds upon itself – you develop a sacred container for emotions to arise and build resilience in the nervous system, which in turn affects how you feel about yourself and how your energy flows.
This body-based method helps you heal physical, emotional and psychological shock states, early developmental states, chronic stress and long-held trauma. It works directly with the autonomic nervous system to discharge stress and trauma and balance and restore equilibrium.
Co-Regulating Touch Bodywork alters restrictions causing pain and discomfort in your body. A sophisticated light touch is used to bring the system back to its natural alignment both structurally, as well as physiologically and neurologically. The emphasis of the treatment is to encourage the body’s self-regulating abilities and to restore its primary balance and radiant health.
Prior to coming to your first session, you will need to fill in some paperwork and bring it with you to your first session to give me a sense of what is happening for you right now in your body, mind and heart.
Get in touch to learn more or book a session – [email protected]
3-Month Online Offering – Cultivate Your Somatic Aliveness – access deeply held emotional, physical and relational concerns and focus deeply on you during this program. Starting with a one-hour introductory session, then a 1.5 hour family systems trauma session – A total of 6 one-hour sessions, on Skype or Zoom, one 1.5 hour family trauma healing session, and homework to help access internal transformation from anxiety, depression, panic, trauma, stress, eating disorders, relational struggles, chronic illness or health concerns – get in touch to learn more – [email protected]
Other Offerings – Family Systems Imprint – 90-minute Session – an in-person or virtual online Zoom session – an opportunity to get to the roots of intergenerational trauma patterns & begin a path towards relational & relationship healing. Uncover your family dynamics and trauma history – this is an opportunity to strengthen your internal relationship with your mother, father and extended family – in ways that contribute to healing – get in touch to schedule an online or in-person session – [email protected] / www.s3p.d51.myftpupload.com
Sessions for Individuals & Couples – an invitation for you – to feel present in your body, to unwind patterns of anxiety, depression, anger, hopelessness, chronic stress & pain, trauma, regulate your nervous system, to cultivate trust in your moment-to-moment experience, your naturally wise heart, and your capacity to connect to yourself, those you love and the love that surrounds us.
Somatic Body Learning & Practice and Somatic Experiencing Co-Regulating Touch Bodywork sessions are available for you now. Waking you up to Somatic Resilience & Regulation – the innate wisdom of your body, healing inherited trauma patterns, feeling yourself below the level of thought, and accessing your full beingness in flowing, fluid motion.
Get in touch to learn more about Co-Regulating Touch Bodywork for Trauma, Family Systems Imprint Sessions & Individual Body-Focused Therapy Sessions – The Anxiety, Stress & Trauma Restorative Clinic – in-person, online or a mix of one or more of these sessions – and to set up a time to work together: [email protected]
The Anxiety, Stress & Trauma Restorative Clinic:
Creating Well-Being Through Nervous System Regulation.
Heal Relational Trauma – Break the Cycle of Inherited Family Trauma.
Nurturing Connection, Restoration & Building Resilience.
Easing the Body ~ Calming the Mind ~ Opening the Heart.
Somatic Experiencing ~ Somatic Practices ~ Trauma Touch ~ Movement Practices ~ Whole Body Systems Approach for Healing Inflammation.
Virtual, online sessions are available for those who travel regularly, have a busy schedule, live far away from the office, or prefer to work from your own home – [email protected]
Working together enables everyone who is willing to do the work an opportunity to decrease feelings of anxiety, pain, depression, chronic stress, pain or illness – as well decrease the chatter in the mind, and ground your mind and body with the depth of the intelligence found in the body. Experience lasting somatic transformation and feelings of calm, peace and wholeness – within your own body and within your relationships.
www.s3p.d51.myftpupload.com / [email protected]
Working deeply at the roots in the body – within the nervous system and stress organs – to cultivate and sustain embodied health and well-being for everyone who chooses to take part.
Talk. Touch. Move.
