Somatic Coaching
For helpers, healers, and caregivers who are ready to start clarifying personal needs and establishing compassionate boundaries so they can finally be on the receiving end of quality care.
Self abandonment looks different for everyone.
Preferring to tend to your loved ones, but turning down the same sweet treatment when offered to you
Familiarity with a frequent experience of sensory overwhelm that leaves you unable to engage in necessary confrontation
Freezing up when you know you need support, but really aren’t sure what that looks like at this point in your life
Are you spending your day providing care for your community, and returning home only to endlessly scroll on your phone with the little energy you have left?
Perhaps you’re a fantastic team player, but the last one to eat at the potluck, and the first one to sign up for a shift at work even though you desperately need that day off (and you know very well that it’s someone else’s turn to pick up a shift).
Maybe you desire deeper loving relationships, but at the end of the day you far are more comfortable advocating for others, single handedly facilitating emotional conflict, and excluding yourself from much needed bonding (note: the game takes *at least, two).
The wild thing is, I know you understand what we as humans need for health and well-being, but you aren’t practicing what you preach, rather building an archive of information that sits on a shelf in your brain.
It’s time to take a sip of your own sweet medicine and start replenishing your well of resources, so you can FEEL a sense of belonging in body and community.
It’s time to give your-self a chance.
Over thinking is under feeling.
For most of us, the act of people pleasing or fawning is a skill that developed in response to traumatic event(s) we experienced in our lives, in order to keep us safe.
Unfortunately, much of the trauma resolution process is focused on recovering mental health through talk therapies.
Traditional care rarely brings attention to our physical body, unless pain is present.
Additionally, many modalities are focused on re-hashing trauma stories and which likely leave us spinning around a narrative that suggests we can “fix” our problems with dialogue.
While speaking our truth is valuable, under feeling, is avoiding to touch on the root of the trauma response cycle.
This is where somatic work comes in.
Together we can fill in the gaps left by modern health care practices, develop a deeper connection to body, and build a stronger foundation that allows you to move through the world in a more centered and connected way.
As someone who has been a helper for my entire life, this is the care I take.
In addition to receiving medical care attention when appropriate, I work with somatic practitioners who witness my behaviors, reflect my experience and provide compassionate practices centered in choice.
“Rachel is an expert listener, space holder, and guide into the wonderful world of somatics. Her patience, guidance and support is second to none.”
-Drew D.
Somatic Coaching
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Grounded Support
I provide down to earth guidance rooted in Somatic Experiencing methods, throughout all of my offerings, which is especially helpful when it comes to dipping into experiences that haven’t been felt in a while.
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Mirrored Experience
As someone who might share your experiences and values, I offer a compassionate mirror up to you, reflecting patterns and cycles you may not have noticed in your experience.
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Personal Practice
I prioritize helping you develop a routine that will carry you long after our work together with many tools, techniques, and resources including bodywork, therapeutic movement, and personalized rituals.
This offering is intended for people who are ready to commit to 6 months of sessions which includes:
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Before we even get started with the coaching program, our work begins with a 60 minute intake session that reviews your goals and establishes a plan for our sessions ahead.
This appointment is valued at $140+.
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Two 60 minute video calls each month.
Valued at $280+
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Weekly text support and accountability for personal practice.
Valued at $180 a month.
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As we work through the foundations of somatic coaching, we will co-create a care plan that can be utilized as a map in your every day life.
This value is priceless.
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I will provide as many tools, techniques, sources of information and care providers as I am aware of throughout our time together.
My hopes are that you receive as much care as possible now and after our time together.
This is an investment that only gains more and more value over time.
Bonus Additions
Access to the 5 Day Resource Workshop that gives you a head start on our work together
Access to the weekly 90 minute Earth Body Care community class
Myo-Fascial Tools mailed right to your front door to support your personal bodywork practice
Payment Options
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Standard Rate
Pay $360 a month or $180 twice a month, if you can pay the middle way, but not more.
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Supported Rate
Pay $300 a month or $150 twice a month, if you need a bit of financial support to access this offering.
Additional sliding scale is available upon request for LGBTQ+ community members who need more support to access sessions.
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Supporting Rate
Pay $420 a month or $210 twice a month, if you can pay for more without without worry.
Appointments available in the new year!
Foundations of Somatic Coaching
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We begin our work together with:
꩜ Resource building and naming the good stuff in life
꩜ Learning the ways to describe a vast experience of sensation
꩜ Noticing what feelings come up when joy is explored
꩜ Developing the felt sense surrounding the concept of choice and agency
꩜ Naming personal preferences and asking for needs (and wants) to be met
꩜ Building a connection to center and establishing personal boundaries
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Once we have a sense of stability, our sessions continue with:
꩜ Applied practices using all of the insight, tools, and techniques learned in earlier sessions - only now we start to invite the bigger feelings to the table
꩜ Processing the more challenging experiences and patterns that are still held in your body through posture and movement
꩜ Creating personalized practices that are created to fit your experience and goals - this can be as simple as drawing exercises to something a bit more complex as a movement routine
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Moving on we can integrate everything that came before with:
꩜ Uncoupling practices intended to explore the fine-tune details of nervous system safety responses
꩜ Physiological resolution of past events - this looks like inviting the body to find shapes and movements that were wanted, but not accessed in a time of threat
꩜ Tracking the subtle moments of response to perceived threat in order to map patterns, which will inform your care plan that can be carried forward into daily living
This offering serves those who:
were told they were asking for too much very early in life
want to find relief for anxiety and physical tension
are exhausted by the experience of being assessed and not held with integrity
want to learn how to be cared for by loved ones
believe they aren’t a thing to simply “fix”, rather a being deserving nourishment
want to build capacity for necessary conflict that fosters connection
want to feel a full range of emotions without stuffing the big ones down
FAQs
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While somatic coaching is a great compliment to traditional psychotherapy, it does not replace clinical attention. Licensed mental health providers treat and diagnose individuals based on their assessment of a person’s history, behavior, and symptoms.
Additionally, clinical treatment is highly valuable for those experiencing mental illness and seeking diagnosis, and/or medicinal therapies.
In contrast, somatic coaching does not aim to analyze the cognitive process rather discuss lived experience and educate the individual on helpful methods of intervention.
With somatic coaching, body-based practices and methodologies are centered, with the implementation of tools and resources to support your goals.
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The root of the word “somatic” is “soma”, which translates to “body”. So, one could say that a somatic experience is of the body, or a bodily experience.
When someone is describing their work as “somatic” like myself, they are describing the orientation of their approach. For example, somatic work is not a top down, or mind centered approach.
Somatic work focuses on current experience of sensation, feeling, emotion, visualization, and meaning.
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I can not, and I do not believe trauma is something to release, rather resolve.
I feel it is important to note that there is a vast amount of misinformation swirling the internet about what trauma is and how to “release” it. What I know from my training and experience is that this is not possible. There is no tool, button, or hip opener that can cure any one, let alone everyone. Otherwise we would have a better sense of what world peace might look like.
What I am hoping to offer you is support through feeling the hard things, guidance through integration, and practices that help you keep connection to sensation in this world.
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Short answer: yes and no.
I believe the words “regulate” and “release” to be pretty attractive outcomes when it comes to wanting to rid oneself of uncomfortable feelings. Of course I want this for myself and others, but I just don’t think it’s that simple.
The work “regulate” reminds me of the social narrative that expects us to control ourselves and “get it together” in order to get back to work.
While most of us need such resources in order to function, and work to survive, I like to reframe emotional regulation, as emotional relationship.
This describes the act of being able to sit with the difficult and notice choice. This means that your anger, sadness, resent, disgust and all of those other bigger feelings are welcome and valid.
With a somatic practice, we might better hold ourselves with compassion, recognize our emotions, patterns, and activations.
Whereas before, they possibly ran the show and brought shame along.
Emotions will always be here with us on this ride of the human experience, but acceptance of that might be a good first step to noticing them.
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Unlike mental health professionals, I am not bound to working remotely within the state of my license (which is in massage therapy).
As Somatic Coaching is not a hands on modality, and meets virtually, I am able to work with anyone who can join a session based in the central time zone.
Private clients have shared experiencing an increased sense of belonging & grounding along with the ability to find peace during anxious moments.
