Connect to the language of your body to
feel more alive while...
Increasing your capacity to meet life's challenges.
"The body always leads us home...if we can simply learn to trust sensation and stay with it long enough for it to reveal appropriate action, movement, insight, or feeling."
- Pat Ogden
About Somatic Experiencing®
Somatic Experiencing (SE™) was developed by Peter Levine, Ph.D., in response to his observations of wild prey animals. He observed gazelles innately regulating or "calming" their nervous systems by naturally discharging high levels of energy designed to fuel automatic flight, fight, and freeze behaviors. Fleeing, fighting, or freezing can be characterized as instinctual survival behavior in both wild animals and humans. SE grows awareness of body sensations to help people gently"renegotiate" and heal symptoms rather than re-live or re-enact trauma. This can be done without talking about difficult trauma details. SE guides a gentle connection with the body's "felt sense." Any thwarted movement and past survival energies are safely and gradually experienced and discharged. SE may employ touch in support of the renegotiation process. SE “titrates” experience (breaks down into small, incremental steps), rather than evoking catharsis - which can overwhelm the nervous system. (Dave Berger, 2022, https://daveberger.net/clinical-practice) “The Somatic Experiencing approach facilitates the completion of self-protective motor responses and the release of thwarted survival energy bound in the body, thus addressing the root cause of trauma symptoms. This is approached by gently guiding clients to develop increasing tolerance for difficult bodily sensations and suppressed emotions.” (Somatic Experiencing International, https://traumahealing.org/se-101/) SOMATIC EXPERIENCING REFERENCES: Levine, P., 2010, In an Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness. North Atlantic Press. Levine, P. and Frederick, A., 1997, Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma: The Innate Capacity to Transform Overwhelming Experiences. Berkeley, CA: N. Atlantic Books. Kline, M. and Levine, P., 2007, Trauma Through A Child’s Eyes: Awakening the Ordinary Miracle of Healing. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books. For further references and information online about SE go to http://www.traumahealing.com
"Before there are words, there is the wordless communication of the body."
-Michael Changaris
"Once you start approaching your body with curiosity rather than fear,
everything shifts."
-Bessel van der Kolk
My Story
I had the good fortune of growing up near woods, fields, and streams. Abundant access to these natural spaces as a child helped me feel safe, settled, and alive when I needed it most. The same is true today.
I have spent my life fascinated by wildlife, wildlife behavior, and ecosystems. I am equally fascinated by human behavior, brain science, local communities, and the intersection of each.
Guided by the idea that nature connection is every child’s birthright and nature offers an ideal classroom and play space for young children, I was honored to work in collaboration and co-create the licensed Forest Preschool at North Branch Nature Center.
As an educator, I began to notice students' trauma coming into the classroom. Having experienced trauma in my own life, I became especially curious and began to seek out information related to the impact of high levels of stress and trauma on the human nervous systems and consequently, behavior and learning. What I discovered changed the course of my professional and personal life and inspired me to go back to school to learn more.
To better serve our community, I earned a master’s degree in Special Education with a focus on and a certificate in Resiliency-Based and Trauma-Informed Practices at the University of Vermont. I also completed the three year certification training in the Somatic Experiencing at the Somatic Experiencing Trauma Institute.
Today I work with individuals and groups, providing a safe and settled presence while offering guidance using gentle somatic practices and techniques. This approach helps clients connect with their body's innate intelligence to renegotiate and resolve stress and trauma stored in the body, all the while growing resilience and nervous system capacity to meet life's challenges. Oftentimes, gentle nature connection is used to settle the nervous system and enhance resilience.
This work is collaborative, empowering, and uses consent-based practices. It capitalizes on aspects of the body and life that are working well and moves at a pace that does not overwhelm the nervous system.
In many ways, Somatic Experiencing is akin to wildlife tracking of bodily sensations and movements, images, emotions, and meaning, using gentle curiosity while offering a pathway to resolution and healing.
Positionality
I am a white, assigned female at birth (AFAB), able-bodied descendant of Central and Western European immigrants humbly living on the Western Abenaki homeland of Ndakinna. My pronouns are she/they.
My Commitments
I am committed to healing, community collaboration, equity, social and environmental justice, as well as lifelong growth and learning.
The study of somatics and brain science, especially around racialized and historical trauma, deepened for me after the murder of George Floyd. This tragic event led me to understand that somatic work is an integral part of social and environmental justice work and culture change. Therefore, part of my practice is to work at the intersection of these movements.
*Landscape photos by Mary Zentara
Photo by Carrie Riker