What My Approach Entails.
I really can’t say whether everything happens for a reason. I can say that everything is connected - your body and your mind, your physical symptoms and current life events, pain, illness, or dysfunction and your lived experiences. I can help you find and explore those connections and help you grow new ones that should have been there all along.
It is my privilege to work with the entirety of you.
When you have a somatic session with me, you are benefitting from my years of experience working with the body, mind, and nervous system.
I use my training and experience as a SPRE Practitioner, as well as completed hours of study with Dr. Stephen Porges (Polyvagal theory); Somatic experts Dr. Scott Lyons, Nkem Ndefo, Dr. Arielle Schwartz, and Dr. Albert Wong; Fran Booth, Integrated Somatic Parts Work.
I also incorporate:
Attachment theory and cutting-edge neuroscience.
Dr. Gabor Mate’s work on stress-related disease, attachment and ADHD-related disorders.
Stanley Keleman’s Emotional Anatomy.
Marshall B. Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication.
Dr. Candace Pert’s work on psychoneuroimmunology.
Deb Dana’s work with the vagus system and regulating the self.
Dr. Richard Schwartz’s work with Integrated Family Systems.
Kathrin Stauffer’s work on emotional neglect and the adult.
“The body, not the thinking brain, is where we experience most of our pain, pleasure, and joy, and where we process most of what happens to us. It is also where we do most of our healing, including our emotional and psychological healing.”
Physical and emotional wellness, ease, and transformation begins with the bodymind. Pain, unnecessary tension, or illness are signals from the body that something isn’t right, that the nervous system is under stress and may be struggling.
We are all a beautiful, complex configuration of our lived experiences: our belief systems and meanings we’ve created; the care and regard we either experienced - or didn’t experience - as children; childhood and developmental traumas, including abuse and neglect; illnesses, accidents, and physical and mental dysfunction; and relationships.
Our anatomy - body and mind - were created and informed by those lived experiences, including our caregivers and families. Dr. Pert discovered that feelings are actual chemicals in the body; neuropeptides doing their work, carrying messages from cell to tissue. Current neuroscience dictates that our very brain tissue has developed in specific ways according to the environments in which we were little people. Dr. Stephen Porges’ research indicates that our nervous systems have been patterned into fight/flight/freeze, with a vagus nerve that cycles between vagal, ventral vagal and dorsal vagal states. Dr. Richard Schwartz’s Internal Family System’s model regards us as containing multitudes within our bodyminds: how often have you said to somebody that one part of you wanted to do one thing, and another part wanted to do the complete opposite!
At the very simplest and most basic level, your body, brain and nervous system are trying to keep you safe and keep you alive. Unfortunately, if you don’t understand that’s what is going on, symptoms and sensations can run the gamut from confusing to alarming to uncontrollable. Together, you and I can work to gently inquire into what you are experiencing, communicate with your systems to help you reach safety, find and investigate your Window of Tolerance, and even change the narrative your body and mind are stuck in.
Using all of these approaches, as well as my own lived experiences, compassion, and desire to attune, I can help you explore what isn’t working in your body and life, in order to help you live more comfortably.
I’ve had great success working with clients who are navigating an array of challenges, ranging from stubborn and chronic pain, ADHD-like symptoms and difficulty focusing, to chronic anxiety or illness.
What is SPRE?
SPRE® is the acronym for Somatic Personal Resonance Education.
We use the word, SOMATIC, because it means from the body, without being separate from the mind. PERSONAL reflects that the information is already yours and unique to you. RESONANCE refers to the quality of being alive, vibrational, and relational.
SPRE has its roots in Structural Integration, DFA, Hakomi, and Dr. Candace Pert’s research.
SPRE is two processes happening simultaneously:
Listening to and responding to the somatic language of your body through structurally informed bodywork techniques,
Exploring your cognitive and emotional awareness and encouraging discovery through our attuned conversation.
You and I working together to restore balance and movement; both in your body, and in your life.
“The chemicals that are running our body and our brain are the same chemicals that are involved in emotion, and that says to me that we’d better pay more attention to emotions with respect to health.”
Our work together focuses on helping you feel more comfortable within your body, mind, and nervous system. I don’t just do it to you, I include you in the discovery of your unnecessary tension patterns, belief systems, and nervous system '“settings.”
You can get relief from your symptoms and identify the underlying causes so you can feel better!
SPRE holds that the body is an embodied record of a person's life and experiences, healthy and unhealthy, traumatic and otherwise. We all hold a certain amount of tension in our bodies; tension patterns that are healthy are how we remain upright, move around and function.
Architect Buckminster Fuller coined the term, “tensegrity” to describe how the integrity of a system depends on this balance of tension.
Find a great description of tensegrity here: https://vimeo.com/49052724
My focus is not to “release tension.” After all, what if you’re relying on that tension to get up, or to go to work, or to take care of your kids of parents? Like the taut ropes that hold up a tent, or the perfectly balanced cables that support a bridge, the right kind of tension supports and moves your body. Unnecessary tension is what is read as neck or back pain, compensation, muscle tightness, and “stress.”
I see you as a complete structure that shows the ease and struggle of being in a human form. Just “taking things out” can lead to an unstable situation. I discern what healthy tension is and where unnecessary tension is no longer wanted.
https://www.elephantjournal.com/2017/12/our-obsession-with-releasing-letting-go-is-hurting-us/
It is empowering to recognize how your tension patterns shift with activities or life experiences, and then identify how to restore more organic movement.
“One can make choices when one becomes aware and awake, not before.”
Once we’ve discovered that the way we were doing things in our bodies (or our lives) isn’t the only way we have to do things, we can change those ways - we can potentially have more freedom and less pain. The path to change lies in having options; having different experiences to compare!
For more detailed information about SPRE, please visit the SPRE website, www.sprebodywork.com
“There is deep wisdom within our very flesh, if we can only come to our senses and feel it.”