Somatic Coaching
Somatic coaching is a body-based process of healing and transformation that supports us in understanding and shifting embodied patterns to access a felt-sense of choice, self-trust, and grounded power from the inside out.
My practice uses a politicized somatics framework, which understands that our nervous systems, habits, and survival strategies are shaped not only by personal history, but also by our place within family systems, communities, institutions, and structures of power and oppression. In our work together, we explore how these forces interact to shape your ways of being and seeing in the world, including your habitual responses under stress, and how they continue to show up in your relationships, choices, and capacity to take action.
This work is deeply relational, and we hold that processes of healing and change take place in dynamic relationship with the greater web of life. In our sessions together, this means that we will not only work with our individual somas, but also draw on our felt sense of connection with community, land, plant & animal kin, ancestors, and spirit.
Through a process of embodied transformation, we move towards aligning your ways of being and taking action in the world with your values and vision.
Embodied transformation integrates three main components:
somatic awareness
we get back in touch with the body’s language of sensation (temperature, pressure, movement, etc.), and expand our capacity to be with more aliveness and energy in the body
somatic practice
we explore different postures and movements through standing or seated practices to develop embodied relational competencies in alignment with your longings for your life and the world
somatic opening
we support the gradual softening and transformation of conditioned patterns held in contractions in the body. This may include somatic bodywork, which involves gentle hands-on tissue work, breath patterns and light stretches
Holding these components within a social and environmental context, somatic coaching can provide more choice, presence and responsiveness in how you move through life, even in the face of ongoing pressures.
Somatic Bodywork
Our conditioned habits and survival strategies do not just live in the mind — they are woven into our the fabric of our core selves through long-held contractions in the body.
Somatic bodywork gives us an opportunity to explore how these patterns express in the body, and how they may both support our survival and limit our thriving.
Integrating gentle hands-on tissue work, breath and movement patterns, somatic bodywork allows us to access held patterns, trauma responses, and emotions that conversation alone cannot reach. It also supports somatic opening, making space for new possibilities and longings to take root.
Somatic bodywork is a fully clothed, consent-based method that typically takes place on a yoga mat or massage table. Bodywork may be integrated into somatic coaching or offered as it’s own modality.
Online only? All good! We can integrate somatic bodywork into online coaching through guided self-contact and breath patterns.
Interested in coaching, but not bodywork? Not a problem. Bodywork is not a mandatory aspect of coaching, and there are other practices we can use to support somatic opening.
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You are the expert of your own body and experience. All practices are invitations rooted in consent, and any aspects can be adjusted according to your needs.
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We get to normalize all of the “untamed” and messy ways of being in our beautiful bodies. Neurodivergent expressions, including stimming, limited or no eye contact are encouraged and welcomed. Please share any additional access needs and I will do my best to accommodate them.
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I will orient towards your habitual responses as strategies of adaptation and survival that make sense in their social context. I will not diagnose or pathologize your experience, and together we can explore language and identities that you choose and feel empowered by.
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Binary thinking often rids us of nuance and complexity, and can channel us to be more judgmental towards our emotions and bodily experience. Together, we will deconstruct binary notions of good/bad, healthy/unhealthy, regulated/ dysregulated, etc. and explore more liberatory ways of being that affirm our innate wholeness and dignity, even in contradiction.
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We practice being in care-centered, reciprocal relationships with one another, our communities, the land, animals and plant friends. My spiritual orientation is animist, which honors intelligence and spirit in all life, and I welcome you to bring in your own spiritual and ancestral practice into our work together.
My Approach
“I have had the absolute honor and privilege of working with Clare. They truly care so deeply for my well-being and take the time to understand my needs. At first, I didn't know what to expect, but as I attended my first session, I saw the almost immediate positive impact that somatic coaching had on my life. I leave every session feeling relieved, cared for, and with a new energy in my entire spirit. Few practices have had such a transformative effect on me. They are always super accommodating to my neurodivergent needs and make sure I am comfortable and understand the meaning and purpose behind every practice. I feel their patience and groundedness allow me to feel safe enough to open up and heal.”