spirit-centered and body-led coaching
Do you find yourself "getting stuck" when you try to stay present in your body?
Have you heard about "somatics" and want to learn more?
Are you a UU religious professional experiencing more fatigue or feeling "disembodied"?
Do you serve a congregation and wish to help those you serve feel more grounded?
Do you wish you felt more resilient? More courageous?
I work with individual Unitarian Universalists interested in beginning embodied healing or somatic practice. Individual appointments are available by Zoom or phone. Similar to spiritual direction or pastoral counseling, I provide a supportive space to explore specific issues and stresses you're facing. Our work together is not prescriptive; instead, together we listen to your body, access the stories that have taken shape there, and then, connect to new practices. I will help create a container in which the resources you carry within you find expression and connection to what you care about or what you need most.
The body is not the focus of our attention, but a partner in the coaching relationship. Together we will invite your purpose, who you are at your core and how your actions enact those intentions; we will explore your spiritual coping or wellness, what helps you be in touch with your aliveness and the resources in your body for survival; and your social self, how your connection to communities, cultures, and systems of oppression are experienced in embodied ways.
If you are interested in or have questions about somatic accompaniment, make an appointment for a 20-minute phone consult (contact form at bottom of page).
Have you heard about "somatics" and want to learn more?
Are you a UU religious professional experiencing more fatigue or feeling "disembodied"?
Do you serve a congregation and wish to help those you serve feel more grounded?
Do you wish you felt more resilient? More courageous?
I work with individual Unitarian Universalists interested in beginning embodied healing or somatic practice. Individual appointments are available by Zoom or phone. Similar to spiritual direction or pastoral counseling, I provide a supportive space to explore specific issues and stresses you're facing. Our work together is not prescriptive; instead, together we listen to your body, access the stories that have taken shape there, and then, connect to new practices. I will help create a container in which the resources you carry within you find expression and connection to what you care about or what you need most.
The body is not the focus of our attention, but a partner in the coaching relationship. Together we will invite your purpose, who you are at your core and how your actions enact those intentions; we will explore your spiritual coping or wellness, what helps you be in touch with your aliveness and the resources in your body for survival; and your social self, how your connection to communities, cultures, and systems of oppression are experienced in embodied ways.
If you are interested in or have questions about somatic accompaniment, make an appointment for a 20-minute phone consult (contact form at bottom of page).
Areas of special focus
give yourself the gift of a good ending
If you are completing a life transition, grieving a death, or closing a chapter in your life, consider giving yourself a gift of a good ending with a Conscious Completion practice session. Intentionally closing an experience helps us clear out the mental, emotional and physical space you need for the next part of your life to begin. This 75-minute practice session can help you consciously complete an ending in your life. Whether the ending took place 5 days or 5 years ago, I will support you in locating memories and details of an experience that are held within your body. Bringing something to conscious completion honors the past and helps to gather yourself in the present. It can also be a supportive practice to combine with other ways of saying goodbye.
Offered in individual coaching as well as for groups and organizations.
Offered in individual coaching as well as for groups and organizations.
- Closing a chapter in your career?
- Leaving a complicated job or relationship?
- Grieving the loss of a loved one?
- Preparing for a big transition or change?
- Is old loss or a lack of closure holding you back from the life you want?
How shall we respond to trauma?
If your usual tools for dealing with challenging life circumstances are not providing the support you need, let's talk about whether somatic practice might help bolster your care for yourself, unwind trauma, or relieve stress.
Traumatic experiences betray our sense of trust, safety and openness in our lives and in the world around us. Whether these traumas are ones we experience alone or as a part of a community, or they are historical events experienced by our ancestors, we deserve support in understanding and healing the after-effects that can hold us in the past. As survivors, we can collaborate with the resilience and aliveness contained in our bodies that are tools for our healing. Trauma can alienate us from what we care about -- we might have difficulty feeling open, belonging or capable. Somatic practices can help us map the ways we have survived a trauma and the way back to ourselves.
The COVID-19 pandemic is a collective experiences of trauma that is continuing in our world, even as some of us in the United States may be returning to some of the activities we did on a daily basis before 2020. We might hear the message that we're supposed to "feel normal again" and yet, have experiences in which we don't feel like ourselves. We might feel quick to agitate, more anxious and depressed, judgmental of ourselves or others we care about, or, perhaps, we're hyper in one moment but lethargic in the next. While there's overwhelming collective sadness and grief over who and what has been lost during the major phases of the pandemic, maybe what sets you off is not what you expected or you are feeling more tension or unsettled in your muscles or stomach.
Traumatic experiences betray our sense of trust, safety and openness in our lives and in the world around us. Whether these traumas are ones we experience alone or as a part of a community, or they are historical events experienced by our ancestors, we deserve support in understanding and healing the after-effects that can hold us in the past. As survivors, we can collaborate with the resilience and aliveness contained in our bodies that are tools for our healing. Trauma can alienate us from what we care about -- we might have difficulty feeling open, belonging or capable. Somatic practices can help us map the ways we have survived a trauma and the way back to ourselves.
The COVID-19 pandemic is a collective experiences of trauma that is continuing in our world, even as some of us in the United States may be returning to some of the activities we did on a daily basis before 2020. We might hear the message that we're supposed to "feel normal again" and yet, have experiences in which we don't feel like ourselves. We might feel quick to agitate, more anxious and depressed, judgmental of ourselves or others we care about, or, perhaps, we're hyper in one moment but lethargic in the next. While there's overwhelming collective sadness and grief over who and what has been lost during the major phases of the pandemic, maybe what sets you off is not what you expected or you are feeling more tension or unsettled in your muscles or stomach.
somatic work with white Unitarian Universalists in the struggle for racial justice
If you are socialized as white and a Unitarian Universalist, perhaps one of the following questions comes close to the heart:
White accountability in the struggle for racial justice is more than just building an antiracist analysis or participating in direct action. Listening is a huge part of the process of dismantling white supremacy --this includes becoming present to our body's felt experiences. Somatic coaching or group practice can help white people stay grounded in their purpose in supporting BIPOC-led community organizing, fighting discrimination or micro-aggression and in general, changing other white peoples' hearts and bring other white people along. Many of us who are white and involved in antiracism hold other historically marginalized identities, holding our embodied complexity and healing from trauma is our work to do as we counter white supremacy.
Somatic accompaniment work can support and sustain personal transformation for social justice. As we deepen in relationship with our bodies so we can become more deeply grounded, connected and responsive in our relationships to the world around us. If they do not have a relationship with community organizing already, clients in this area will be asked to make a substantial commitment (financial, time, support) to BIPOC-led organizing.
To support you or your group, I build upon my long-term somatic practice and more than two decades of activism and teaching in antiracism work, mostly in predominantly white communities within queer/left movements and Unitarian Universalism.
- Do you get flustered or feel defensive when the topic of "white privilege" or "white supremacy" comes up?
- Do you want embodied support in your commitment to shift from ally to accomplice?
- Do you feel agitated or stuck when you try to intervene in a (micro)aggressions?
- Are you juggling core relationships with people who hold racist or oppressive beliefs?
- Would you like support unwinding internalized racial superiority?
- Would you like to feel more resilient and less bowled over in your antiracist work and journey?
White accountability in the struggle for racial justice is more than just building an antiracist analysis or participating in direct action. Listening is a huge part of the process of dismantling white supremacy --this includes becoming present to our body's felt experiences. Somatic coaching or group practice can help white people stay grounded in their purpose in supporting BIPOC-led community organizing, fighting discrimination or micro-aggression and in general, changing other white peoples' hearts and bring other white people along. Many of us who are white and involved in antiracism hold other historically marginalized identities, holding our embodied complexity and healing from trauma is our work to do as we counter white supremacy.
Somatic accompaniment work can support and sustain personal transformation for social justice. As we deepen in relationship with our bodies so we can become more deeply grounded, connected and responsive in our relationships to the world around us. If they do not have a relationship with community organizing already, clients in this area will be asked to make a substantial commitment (financial, time, support) to BIPOC-led organizing.
To support you or your group, I build upon my long-term somatic practice and more than two decades of activism and teaching in antiracism work, mostly in predominantly white communities within queer/left movements and Unitarian Universalism.
somatic work with people coping with long-term chronic conditions
Tired of people suggesting you try this new kind of yoga or medicine to help you cope?
Finding yourself feeling disconnected from your body as you manage your illness?
Would you like to improve your partnership with your body?
Our bodies experience illness in ways that affect our sense of dignity, social selves and connection to the world around us. When we are coping with a health condition that is long-term or chronic, our relationships to our bodies and spirit may be impacted. Our interactions with the biomedical system may have ups and downs, challenges and pain. We may search for meaning within lives as people with chronic illness and disabilities. Our bodies contain wisdom and important information for our own healing process. In somatic accompaniment with me, we will partner with your body to co-design physically-supported embodied practices.
I draw upon my experience as a person with an indivisible chronic illness, a personal in-home health/care assistant, and as a medical sociologist.
Finding yourself feeling disconnected from your body as you manage your illness?
Would you like to improve your partnership with your body?
Our bodies experience illness in ways that affect our sense of dignity, social selves and connection to the world around us. When we are coping with a health condition that is long-term or chronic, our relationships to our bodies and spirit may be impacted. Our interactions with the biomedical system may have ups and downs, challenges and pain. We may search for meaning within lives as people with chronic illness and disabilities. Our bodies contain wisdom and important information for our own healing process. In somatic accompaniment with me, we will partner with your body to co-design physically-supported embodied practices.
I draw upon my experience as a person with an indivisible chronic illness, a personal in-home health/care assistant, and as a medical sociologist.
