Somatics comes from the Greek word “soma”, which refers to the body in its wholeness. Somatics has emerged primarily in Western contexts as a practice of reclaiming the relationship to body, land and spirit that has been severed through colonization, white supremacy and capitalism. While we all come from people and cultures who once held body-based practices, it has primarily been Black, Indigenous, and People of the Global Majority who have maintained embodiment practices and rituals intact in land and culture, despite the forces of domination that have sought to eradicate them. As somatics has entered into the mainstream of wellness and Western Psychology, these histories are often erased, while the practices and tools continue to be appropriated, decontextualized and extracted for profit and spiritual bypassing. 

On my own somatic path, I have been trained through the Strozzi Institute, and by teachers and practitioners from generative somatics, including Jennifer Ianniello, Tyler Grillo and others. The methodology of this lineage has vast influences, including the Japanese martial arts practice, Aikido, Theravada traditions, Traditional Chinese Medicine, feminist psychoanalysts, and many more unnamed traditions across Africa & Asia. I am deeply grateful to the learnings and wisdom I have received from Black, Indigenous and Global Majority leaders from various lineages of embodiment & politicized healing, including Prentis Hemphill, Erika Lyla, adrienne marie brown, Resmaa Menakem, Dr. Ruby Gibson, Kai Chang Thom, denim chang, and many more.

As a white practitioner with European colonial ancestry, I am committed to holding the contradictions and complexity of my own healing lineage by illuminating histories of erasure and extraction and redistributing a percentage of my earnings to Black & Indigenous- led organizations working with somatics for collective liberation. I am also in an ongoing process of healing the impacts of colonial shaping & severance in my own soma, as well as exploring my own ancestral European and pagan practices of embodiment. It is important that to me to continue working towards a somatic and spiritual practice that is rooted in integrity and right relationship. Ultimately, my hope is to forward the work of politicized somatics with great humility towards more liberatory and relational futures for all life.