What does somatic health coaching mean?
My somatic health coaching approach recognises that each client and student is already a whole person who does not need to be ‘fixed’ or corrected in any way.
Traditional health coaching, stress and anxiety management programmes tend to only use cognitive based methods, which inadvertently avoid what’s truly going on for us, suppressing our emotions and feelings even further.
Somatic health coaching involves guiding you to connect with the sensations in your body and to attune to and track your own nervous system to learn to experience the full range of emotions, connect to your needs, values and desires, and be present with life in the here and now, grounded from within your body.
Somatic health coaching honours the innate intelligence and wisdom of the body and nervous system as a way to bring you back to yourself and who you truly are and to help you create lasting and sustainable change.
Working with the body sensations allows us to hold space for all emotional experiences with curiosity and compassion, to facilitate the body to process - in gentle ways - any stored overwhelm. This gentle and sequenced way of working with chronic stress and trauma allows your body to reintegrate any survival energy back into your life force, restoring calm aliveness and flow in the nervous system health.
When your emotions get stuck, so does your life.
Emotions are a key to vitality, health and energy and so when they get suppressed, you also suppress your life force (energy), your inner compass and your true potential for authentic success.
When your body is manifesting symptoms of overwhelm and dis-ease, that's not who you really are... that's unresolved stress in the body my friend.
It's time to solve your survival stress cycle so you can find more inner peace, self-trust and true resilience.
The foundations for health and resilience isn’t doing more, it’s releasing blocked emotions and chronic stress stored in the body.
You deserve more than a life of exhaustion, managing your symptoms and surviving. You deserve to be healthy, empowered and fulfilled in your life.
How nervous system regulation is the missing link...
Periods of chronic stress or traumatic stress (especially in early childhood) shape our nervous system so that it quickly activates the fight-flight or freeze response when we’re under pressure.
This leads to emotional and physiological dysregulation, affecting our moods, emotions, thoughts and behaviour, as well as our physical health. Our nervous system state dictates how we feel about our self as a human being, how we perceive everyday events in our life, how we go about our day, how we are at work, at home, and in our relationships.
This nervous system dysregulation can lead to:
Prolonged anxiety, overwhelm, racing thoughts, feeling panicky, and an inability to relax.
It may also leave you feeling flat, dead inside, depressed, numb and disconnected.
You might find yourself shutting down when you need to speak up, saying things that you don’t mean and experiencing relationship struggles.
Physiological dysregulation effects the immune, endocrine (hormonal) and digestive systems leading to chronic health problems like inflammation, gut issues, chronic pain, insomnia, autoimmune and hormonal issues, muscle tension and even weight problems.
The nervous system is the link between your body and brain.
Practices, tools and skills that help to improve the functioning of your nervous system help build stress capacity and resilience, so that when you face challenges or conflict, you don’t move into fight-flight or freeze - the survival responses, but are able to stay present and connected.
The body is able to release old stress, trauma and old emotions out through embodiment (connecting with your body through biological self-awareness - awareness of your body and physiology). So that the nervous system finds new ways of responding to triggers that don’t emotionally hijack you and drain your body of vital energy. This is due to something called neuro-plasticity that allows us to rewire our brain and nervous system at any age. Learning the tools that help you to self-regulate means you can remain calm, energised, balanced and think clearly, and therefore stay healthy and well.
The beauty of the nervous system is that it has the ability to be re-patterned so that your emotional and physical health improves sustainably. Self-regulation and emotional competency are the foundation to this.
Curious to learn more?