Your Body as Wise Protector – What if Your Physical Symptoms & Emotional Reactions Are Learned Body Responses Designed to Keep You Safe? Rewire Old Patterns & Feel Radiantly Alive.

September 10, 2019

What is your body, in its perfect wisdom, responding to right now?

Most people I work with want to feel better – and have tried many interventions to make that happen. I’ve found some important ways of working together that heal and connect us to the truth in us – embodiment, touch work, movement – cultivating somatic resilience and regulation in your nervous system heals trauma – and makes us feel better over time. This is a place where you will find lasting relief and healing from patterns that you may be struggling with.

Go beyond medication and get to the roots of healing chronic and painful emotional and physical responses – allowing you to get in touch with your body’s wisdom and get to the roots of the concerns that your body is showing you. Truly, deeply, honouring what is true in each moment — for yourself first— is one of the most radical acts we can take to reclaim our inner sense of well-being.

The human nervous system is incredibly sensitive to a perceived absence of psychological safety, and we respond in highly non-linear ways to the impacts of developmental trauma, that is often unknown and unseen to us – as adults in the present moment.

Understanding the way that activated nervous systems respond to threats can help us reframe distress as something that happens as a natural response to trauma – your body is a wise protector – and has been defending you and keeping you safe – using painful symptoms and emotional reactions that force you to pay attention to what you may be struggling with.

Our nervous systems are wired for connection and access to freedom to respond to our basic human needs. When we can get in touch with the root of our experience, and acknowledge the ongoing nature of trauma – helping us validate that our bodies are giving us signals, rather than medicating away our important symptoms.

Chronic illness, immune system dysfunction, sleep concerns, anxiety, depression, fear of intimacy, are examples of how our body responds to trauma. Whatever adaptive behavioral strategies your body is manifesting make sense and demonstrate your body’s best efforts to regulate itself.

Get to the roots of chronic and painful physical and emotional responses and reactions – connecting the dots between trauma, developmental trauma and mental and physical health.

Developmental trauma refers to the impact of our childhood experiences on the development of our brain and nervous system. Human beings have a need to be connected with each other. A lack of connection is experienced as a threat to our survival – we need attunement and social connection to feel regulation in our nervous system.

Many people grew up feeling disconnected, abused and neglected. When this happens, we can turn against ourselves – this is a self-protective response – and a way for us to leave emotionally. In the process, we can lose a sense of our own value – and we blame ourselves. We feel that what has happened to us is in some way our fault, maybe if we were different or better in some way – we would be loved and protected – and we can search for someone to give us what we feel we didn’t get, in our relationships as adults.

The truth is that our parents not seeing us, and not protecting us are related to their own trauma and circumstances. Children who are attuned to, develop neural networks for trust and connection. We can also develop these pathways now, as adults.

When we feel safe, we’re able to be open and authentic with others – to be loved and accepted exactly as we are. What are the conditions for feeling safe? We need an absence of threat plus a feeling of being connected.

Our nervous system doesn’t respond favorably to isolation – it can only change with new experiences and new opportunities for relational, somatic, body-focused healing. There is always a way to work with what troubles us and to develop healthier patterns to release past trauma.

Many of us are shut down or numb in our day-to-day lives. Many of us feel like we’re calm, when we’re really in a shut down or freeze state. Some of us use food, alcohol and other drugs to regulate our nervous system responses, and find temporary ways to feel better.

Notice when you are driven by a need to hold back or suppress emotions or feelings or an urgency to not experience feelings in your body – this is a trauma response and it can be shifted.

The antidote for disconnection as an adult, is support – attunement and attention to ourselves now. Allow yourself to take time for yourself and tune in to your whole experience. What do you notice?

During our work together, you will:

  • Understand that you are not your diagnoses – and your body does not need to be managed – you can re-orient your experience with the larger system that tells you that some reactions and emotions are not appropriate or normal.
  • Understand how developmental trauma – currently unknown and unseen to you – could be contributing to struggles in your life now – through no fault of your own.
  • Practice being with discomfort – allowing yourself to slowly feel all of your feelings and be radiantly alive in your body again.
  • Learn about nutritional and herbal interventions to support emotional balance and nervous system resilience.
  • Discover the relationship between adverse childhood experiences, trauma and current emotional patterns – anxiety, depression, anger and panic – and physical symptoms – chronic headaches, sleeplessness, immune system function, pain and illness.
  • Embodiment practices and somatic awareness – get in touch with your body’s communication system and foster trust in your body’s wisdom, so you can uncover what your body is telling you.


A new experience is possible for your body.

You are not your symptoms, chronic patterns or your diagnoses and you don’t have to struggle with what’s troubling you for your entire life. With support, you can create deep understanding of your experience – along with a new practice of being in your body – resting, softening and being with what is happening on the inside of you – while quieting the persistent internal reactions to your thoughts and situations.

Get in touch if you want to cultivate new feelings of safety and understand the science of your well-being – get to the roots of longstanding painful feelings, improve chronic stress patterns, physical symptoms – including pain, anxiety and depression – as well as stubborn digestion and food sensitivities and the emotional stuck places inside of you.

If you can begin by slowing down and practicing simply being with yourself – with support – life can begin to be richer, fuller, and more fulfilling.You don’t have to “do” anything. Just “be.”

If you want to get the roots of what is troubling you – let’s talk about your experience and how I can support you – and 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

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]

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.  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 Trauma Touch 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.

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]

I’m always amazed when I let go of old patterns and let the reality of the moment guide me. There’s immediate heart-opening, gratitude for what’s been given, and an undeniable intimacy with all that is.

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Testimonial 1

When I came to you I felt confused, disconnected and broken. Now, I'm on my way to feeling whole. Thank you.
Kim Cochrane
2016-10-06T10:59:12-04:00
When I came to you I felt confused, disconnected and broken. Now, I'm on my way to feeling whole. Thank you.

Testimonial 2

I’m so glad I’m giving myself space to explore what’s happening in my life and to understand my feelings.
Kim Cochrane
2016-10-06T10:59:51-04:00
I’m so glad I’m giving myself space to explore what’s happening in my life and to understand my feelings.

Testimonial 3

I've wanted to do this for a while and I'm so glad I did - I trust myself more now, I feel more calm and open - working together has changed the course of my life.

Kim Cochrane
2016-10-06T11:00:16-04:00
I've wanted to do this for a while and I'm so glad I did - I trust myself more now, I feel more calm and open - working together has changed the course of my life.
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Kim Cochrane