Many of us are walking around each day feeling anxious, overwhelmed, stuck and confused. We search for solutions outside of ourselves to make us feel better – if only for a little while. Ultimately, we can lose touch with our own body’s signals – and what is possible if we allow ourselves to slow down, notice what we feel and learn to just be as we are. This process of unwinding past trauma and being with what you notice inside of yourself – is the first step on an important journey towards calm and peace inside of yourself.
Together, we will work with your stress physiology – working deep in the nervous system – to improve symptoms like anxiety, depression, eating disorders, grief, stuckness, chronic pain, fatigue, chronic illness and chronic physical symptoms.
You can’t think your way out of trauma – you must feel to heal.
It’s never too late to begin again.
Uncover your flowing energy and aliveness.
What if you were no longer plagued by the traumatic stress, fear and pain held in your body’s physiology?
What if you felt safe and supported deep down in your being – bones, organs and nervous system?
What if you knew the ways you are overriding your body’s systems?
Release trauma, trapped survival stress physiology and accumulated stress symptoms safely with Somatic Experiencing®, Co-Regulating Touch Bodywork for Trauma, Somatic Movement Therapy and Somatic Resilience and Regulation.
Trauma and stress gets stored in the body very quickly, a stress reaction, an accident, a sudden shock – environmental or manmade, a paralyzing thought or fear. Or more slowly, over time, we become numb to an ongoing situation in our lives – experiencing misattunement, neglect and abuse – both emotional and/or physical – in early childhood.
She allowed herself to stay with her emotions – feeling and expressing them, while she noticed what was happening in her body. She was able to be present to the sensations she was experiencing, if just for a moment or two.
Not knowing how to respond or being unable to respond to a threat or danger – real or imagined – we freeze in our emotional tracks, as Dr. Peter Levine, the founder of Somatic Experiencing® says, with the frozen look of “deer in the headlights.” Deer, however, will typically run or shake off the energy and while humans can, we often can’t.
By applying this gentle, yet powerful body-focused process of Somatic Experiencing®, releasing frozen energy is your key to freedom from physical pain or self-defeating emotions and patterns of behavior that have consciously or unconsciously controlled your life.
Somatic Experiencing® is a method of releasing stress and trauma that gets “stuck” in the body. SE™ utilizes the latest research on the connection between the brain and the body. When we become stressed by an overwhelming life event, a traumatic incident, or a mentally tough situation, our brains tell our bodies to either run, fight, or freeze – otherwise known as flight / fight / freeze.
We are not biologically designed to live in today’s stress-filled society. When you add in the stress that is happening due to the pandemic, it is too much for our bodies to handle. In many ways, our brains have not evolved since prehistoric times, so our nervous systems react to overwhelming situations as if we were being chased by a tiger. During the stress of a traumatic event such as a car accident or physical or mental abuse, our brains tell our bodies to run, fight, or freeze.
The stress of a big test, sleeplessness, or even hearing mean comments from those close to us, our bodies go through a stress response similar to being chased in the wild. When the brain sends a message to run or fight, all the blood rushes from our brains to our extremities so we can escape danger. But since running or fighting doesn’t make logical sense to us, we stifle all of that energy, and it gets trapped inside the body. We know that trauma is physiological energy, a sort of cloud of trapped energy inside of us, that can cause all kinds of symptoms.
What if you could be with what you notice in your body – sensations, thoughts, images, behaviours and emotions- and rather than get caught up and bogged down with what you notice, use it as information to inform your life?
Safe connection with yourself and others is possible.
What does safety feel like inside of your body? More settled, more grounded, less in your head, more in your body. Feeling warm and connected to yourself is a part of this healing process.
Together, we will consider some very important questions about your experience of moving, sitting, sleeping, feeling, relating, breathing and being – here are some considerations for you now:
- How do you know where your body contacts the world?
- What happens when you notice your body?
- What does your tension tell you about how you are moving in the world?
- How do you know you are breathing?
- How do you know you feel safe?
- What does your body tell you about the space you inhabit?
- How do you inhabit space and interact and move in the world?
Our patterns of behaviour arise from our life’s experiences and emerge through the filters of our perceptions and our conceived reality.
From the beginning of our lives, we construct scenarios and strategies to engage with the circumstances and relationships surrounding us. This shapes our awareness of ourselves, others and the environment and lays a foundation for our movement, expression and communication in the world.
As we embody our cellular patterns of expectations and responses, we gain understanding of their relevance and importance in past experiences. We also gain awareness of and insight into releasing those aspects that are no longer necessary for our realization of self in this moment. We become freer to make different choices. As we release our stress-induced behaviors, we discover deeper compassion, wisdom, and ease.
Nervous system dysregulation arises from developmental trauma, medical procedures, accidents, assaults, institutional, interpersonal and systemic violence, abuse and neglect. Overwhelming experiences can be processed in a gentle way where the focus is on the body’s emotional and sensory data, rather than on the details of the actual event. This work helps with the settling of nervous system so that the body’s ability to self-regulate is restored – much like resetting a thermostat. The work focuses on bringing you to a state of relaxed alertness.
My work draws on the wisdom and biology of the body/mind to help resolve trauma and bring people to a greater sense of groundedness and stability. I believe that ancestral histories that remain unintegrated are held in subsequent generations – together, we can break the patterns of early developmental and intergenerational family trauma – so that you can discover and cultivate your inner mother.
Chronic stress can take its toll on our bodies and minds. Working with individuals from a body-centred framework, connects and integrates our experience – our sense of meaning, emotions, thoughts or the “felt sense” in the body. I facilitate your process of accessing the “felt” sense in your own body and support the here-and-now shift that wants to happen. I work with early developmental trauma, birth, sexual, intergenerational and prenatal trauma.
If you’re feeling anxious, stuck, or overwhelmed by life it’s time to begin again. Start with finding a therapist who takes a whole body health approach to your wellbeing – someone you feel comfortable with, who listens and understands you, who supports your growth, and honours your strengths. Together, we will uncover hidden trauma and chronic stress reactions, so it can be resolved and healed.
With a somatic approach to whole body/mind health – helping to ease emotions and stress, reducing feelings of overwhelm and overthinking. I will help you resolve anxiety, trauma, addiction, pain and eating disorders with an integrated approach rooted in somatic psychotherapy – helping you feel better.
A gentle, somatic practice, compassionately and safely treats trauma and stored stress reactions, fight/flight/freeze patterns, self-defeating behaviours – restoring a sense of joy, freedom, ease, balance, happiness.
Somatic Experiencing and Co-Regulating Touch Bodywork for Trauma have changed everything about the way I work – and how I live my own life. This new awareness of how trauma and stress physiology affects every part of our lives is life changing. I see what happens for those I work with – and I know that you too, can experience lightness, aliveness and joy.
My approach is relational, experiential, deep and embodied – helping you increase your capacity to be present with difficult feelings and emotions, and getting to the roots of what is troubling you.
I will share whole body health-focused processes designed to help you notice your thoughts, constriction and expansion in the body, energetic vibration, and what’s being reflected in the outer world that may be mirroring the inner world.
What Happens in a Whole Body Health Somatic Practice session?
During a one-on-one session, you can choose to lie on a bodywork table, sit on the couch in front of me, lie on the couch in front of me with pillows supporting you or on Zoom call, from your own home, we join together and listen to what is happening in your autonomic nervous system, your thoughts, as well as other systems in your body, including: your fluid body, connective tissue, breath, bones and skin.
We take time to notice moment to moment – what your body and mind are telling us. Then we make adjustments to enhance emotional and physical somatic wellness. The autonomic nervous system communicates in sensation, emotion, images, and thoughts, as well as through subtle movements and gestures. It is through the vehicle of your nervous system that we find the tools we need to create balance and healing. This is a process of noticing threat and ease in your nervous system – along with witnessing and pausing for sensing what is happening in the here and now.
Whole Body Health Somatic Practice generates a body–wide experience of easing out of rigidity, tension or defensive body holding patterns (excess sympathetic or dorsal tone) and into the flowing ease of the ventral parasympathetic nervous system.
We are setting the conditions for flow to happen again in your nervous system. We have to encourage it with placing our attention into the present moment. There is a rhythm to the timing of the session, so I may ask you to pause and notice what is happening in the here and now, even when you are telling a story. This doesn’t mean I don’t want to hear what you have to say – I am listening to the language of your nervous system, and sometimes that means we need to pause to return to the present.
Developmental trauma interrupts our self-regulation, attachment and physiology. Together, we will work to repair attachment, bonding and the traumatic stress physiology held in the nervous system. We will get to the roots of the concerns that have been plaguing you – at the level of the nervous system – the interplay between your social engagement system, physiology and attachment dynamics – and receive somatic techniques for supporting resilience, nervous system regulation and repair.
This is a deeply rooted approach towards embodiment, attachment, how trauma imprints the body, trauma resolution and recovery through the body, and discovering your inner mother. Within a safe container, engage in a grounded, safe approach to healing trauma patterns.
I am now offering in-person Co-Regulating Touch Bodywork for Trauma sessions in-person, as well as online.
Let’s talk about your experience and how I can support you – so you can begin to feel better in your body – I will answer any questions you may have about working together.
I look forward to being with you.
with love from my heart, Kim xoxoxo
[email protected] / www.s3p.d51.myftpupload.com I
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] / www.s3p.d51.myftpupload.com
What to Expect During a Whole Body Health Somatic Practice Co-Regulating Touch 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 Bodywork for Trauma.
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 – to access and heal the roots of inherited family trauma that you are carrying with you and how it affects your health, relationships and work in the present day – then an additional 6 online sessions to help you access deeply held body holding patterns, somatic trauma and emotional patterns and integrating unconscious blocks to help you access your internal, somatic freedom. 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.
Discover Your Inner Mother – Healing the Mother Wound – 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 slow down and feel the strength of a supportive resource, move beyond blame and notice how our nervous system states inform our interactions with our partner, 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 Trauma Co-Regulating Touch Bodywork for Trauma 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 Family Systems Imprint Sessions & Individual Body-Focused Therapy Sessions, and Somatic Trauma Touch Work in The Somatic Sanctuary – The Anxiety, Stress & Trauma Restorative Clinic – in-person, online or a mix of the two – 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.
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.
