Embodied Heart Somatics

Hakomi offers a unique doorway into accessing the unconscious and implicit memories stored in the body—things we can’t simply think our way through or reach through talking alone.

Instead of pushing or analyzing, we create a mindful, attuned space where the nervous system feels safe enough to reveal and shift long-held patterns.

In a Hakomi session, we work experientially with old, protective patterns the body holds in the present moment so that they can be witnessed and reorganized in real time.

This leads to more meaningful, longer-lasting transformation.

Go to my bye-oh!

A continuation of reflections for my 40th birthday...

Belonging is the bridge between our inner world and the outer world.

When we truly belong, it’s safer to compassionately be receptive to others, because we have a taproot of belonging that fosters a deep sense of support greater than our individual capacity.

It is also easier to share our medicine, hearts, and gifts to others when we know that we will be received, valued, and encouraged.

Friendships are balm for the Heart - especially for those of us who have not experienced a sense of belonging easily in our upbringing or in this world.

My heart is overflowing with gratitude for the caring, loving hearts of my friends. I don't know where I would be without them.

As I have done a lot of inner work and deep healing, I have come to realize that the most important thing is community, family (including our chosen family), and friendships rooted in trust and love.

I celebrated my 40th birthday in several ways over the course of two weeks with amazing friends. This is one post of a few that I will share to capture the magic.

My birthday was on June 20th, right before the Summer Solstice, and I had the amazing opportunity to facilitate a ceremonial gathering with a small group of close friends.

The community of friends here in Portland, Maine is cultivating a sense of belonging for me. This ceremony and celebration was so special.

We gathered wild roses from the Maine coast, and brought them in as a centerpiece for an altar, and built the altar together.

Then, we went outside, walked to a nearby river together, and honored the land and the water.

We had an opening sharing circle, sat in silence, and then we shared songs together throughout the evening.

We had a closing circle, ate some soup, and went to bed as the sun rising on the day of the Summer Solstice. It was profoundly nourishing and tender!

Ritual is powerful - as ancient as humankind, yet something we have collectively forgotten.

Spending the evening with the medicine of Rose, and the medicine of community opened my Heart in ways that I didn’t expect.

There were beautiful moments of emotional opening for a couple of people that likely would not have occurred without a container of intention, community, and loving presence.

This experience leaves me with the realization that we are not meant to move through this world alone trying to heal our own individual wounds.

Nor are we meant to continuously strive for wellness.

Rather, we are meant to witness and hold each other as we move through the inevitable waves of intensity of being human.

It was wonderful to honor this threshold of turning 40 in such a meaningful way, and I hope to continue cultivating spaces of love, care, and presence for healing, holding, and witnessing.

I'm grateful for the medicine of Rose to support this process. 🌹

I have learned so many tools in this world of therapy. And yet, I am simultaneously unlearning all of the cultural conditioning in overriding presence for productivity and improvement.

In this unlearning, simply contacting and being with another person is indeed so humbling.

As the therapist, to not know what's going to happen next in a therapy session - and to let that be okay - requires a kind of reciprocity and mutual human-to-human connection that can’t come from a place of doing, or of immediately having the right answer.

I have had enough practice that I can trust that what’s wanting to happen next will come with presence and genuine connection.

In order to allow for this organic unfolding, I find I truly have to be connected to my heart - the place in which a deeper truth is embodied.

Connecting to my clients from this place offers relational safety so that there is more capacity for them to be present with what is here.

The more I walk this path of continuously learning what it is to be a somatic therapist, a space holder, a container for one's heart - the more I come to feel the wider holding container of this beautiful Earth, and all of the life forms she holds.

And perhaps this is something you can remember, too: you were never meant to carry it all by yourself.

Just as the Earth holds the roots of the trees and the waters of the oceans, there are larger rhythms, relationships, and forces of life that can hold you, too.

Sometimes healing begins with remembering that you can lean into this much larger resource - something that we forget how to do when we have experienced trauma.

In my experience, there is a deeper truth that resides in the intelligence of all living beings. A truth that's deeper than what the ego or mind can muster to understand.

This is a place that's hard to name, but a knowing I deeply trust.

For me, this deeper truth is where genuine compassion resides, where humility is remembered, and where grief finds ground to be held.

As I walk this path as a therapist, my intention is to drop into this larger, wider container of holding—for myself and my clients—and to embody loving presence and respect for the intelligence of the body.

I'm standing with all of the women and femmes who are mothers to humans, mothers to others, and/or mother's for the world with the wisdom we bring.

In this culture that praises youth, fun, playfulness, and sexiness as the ideal - the wise woman/femme who palpates a deeper truth within deserves to have a landing place where her wisdom and sacredness matter.

I'm grateful for all women, Mother Earth, and the feminine power that this patriarchal world tries to diminish.

And for all of the people mothering other humans, I am in awe of you. Thank you. Happy Mother's Day! 🔥🌹

Complex trauma and chronic illness can create strong, automatic associations that certain sensations & emotions mean something about you.

It's a powerful, strong threshold to cross in our healing journey when we start to disentangle this.

It sounds simple—but for many of us, it’s anything but.

It can be quite an “inconvenience” for the patriarchal world we live in to shake up the status quo by refusing to stay small and appease.

I’ve seen, both in my own life and in my work, how easy it is to lose touch with our inner knowing. Not because it isn’t there, but because we’ve been shaped—over time—to question it. To soften it. To override it in the name of being kind, accommodating, or “easy to be with.”

Many of us have had the experience of knowing something wasn’t right… and feeling our body go along with it anyway – usually to stay safe in the collective patriarchal waters we are swimming in.

As I am actively doing this work with myself in my own interpersonal arena, it’s interesting to notice that it’s translating into my somatic therapy practice. I now am working with many female-identified clients to find their voice, express their anger, and clarify their boundaries. This is the medicine the world needs right now, in my opinion.

That moment—where something in you says no, and something else takes over—that’s not a personal failure. It’s conditioning. It’s adaptation.

We learn to carry more than what belongs to us.
To stay open when something in us wants to close.
To say “yes” when our system is signaling “no.”

And anger—especially for women and femmes—often gets pushed to the edges. Misunderstood. Pathologized. Labeled as “too much,” or turned inward until it becomes something else entirely.

But what if anger isn’t the problem?

What if it’s a signal—an intelligent, protective force that helps you recognize when something isn’t aligned? That something you value is being intruded upon?

If you are a woman or femme, it is not your job to always be the emotional container for others. Nor should you then be labeled as a “b****” when you set a boundary after someone has prescribed that role to you without your consent.

In my practice, I work with women and femmes who are done abandoning themselves in these subtle ways—even if they’re not yet sure how to do it differently.

I have walked far to get here, yet the path has just begun.

I meet this work with humility.

Every client, every session—I begin with not knowing,
honoring the mystery that allows something true to emerge.

I’ve come to feel that this is how healing unfolds, too.

After all the effort it takes to move through trauma,
the moments where we remember our wholeness
are often the most humbling of all.

As a Certified Hakomi Practitioner—and soon-to-be therapist—I am deeply honored to walk alongside others
in this work of somatic psychotherapy.

In Hakomi Somatic Therapy sessions, we use mindfulness to gently study these patterns as they are happening in real time.

Small experiments. Subtle shifts. Micro-movements. New sensory input.

Space to notice what has been automatic for years.

We don't force catharsis, override defenses, or push for insight too soon.

Instead, we listen to and follow the body at a pace that is tolerable and sustainable for your nervous system.

And we trust the organic timing of your steady, sure unfurling.