How This Work Supports the Nervous System
~ Bottom-Up, Body-Led Approach
Much of what we struggle with ⎯ anxiety, emotional overwhelm, reactivity, shutdown, or feeling disconnected from ourselves - doesn’t live in the thinking mind alone. It lives in the nervous system.
This work takes a bottom-up approach, meaning we begin with the body rather than analysis or storytelling. By working with sensation, breath, emotion, and impulse, we help the nervous system recognize safety in the present moment ⎯ which is what allows real change to happen.
“Your body knows the direction of healing long before the mind understands it.” ~ Eugene Gendlin
~ Pacing the Nervous System
Healing doesn’t happen by pushing harder ⎯ it happens by moving at the pace your system can integrate.
In the beginning of our work together, sessions often move more slowly.
We take time to:
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Notice sensations in the body
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Name what you’re feeling, where you feel it, and how it changes
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Build familiarity with your internal signals
As safety and capacity build, we’re able to gently work with deeper layers - including held survival responses like fight, flight, freeze, or fawn, as well as emotions such as grief, anger, fear, or longing.
Nothing is forced. We follow what your body is ready to reveal.
What a session often looks like:
~ An Integrated rhythm
While each session is unique, many follow a natural rhythm that supports regulation and integration:
1 Arrive & Settle
We begin by slowing down and orienting to the present moment. This may include gentle body awareness, breath, grounding, or resourcing practices. The intention isn’t to “fix” anything ⎯ it’s to help your nervous system land and feel supported.
2 Explore & Process
From a settled place, we may begin to explore what’s holding attention ⎯ sensations, emotions, memories, or patterns. Because your system is already regulated, you’re able to stay present without becoming overwhelmed or shutting down. This is where deeper emotional or survival energy can be safely felt and worked with.
3 Integrate & Close
We always return to regulation at the end of a session. This helps the work “knit” into your system so you leave feeling grounded and integrated rather than raw or overstimulated.
*Sessions are guided and collaborative. Depending on what’s alive in the moment, sessions may include guided meditation, gentle body awareness, inner child or parts work, working with emotion through movement or voice, or supporting the release of held stress and survival energy.
There’s no set formula — each session unfolds based on what your system is ready for.
My Primary Approaches:
How We Work With the Body, the Psyche, and Inner Experience
The body, ⎯ or soma ⎯ holds far more than physical sensation. It carries memory, emotion, impulse, and unspoken stories shaped by our earliest experiences. Often, what lives in the body reveals aspects of our inner world that were once neglected, misunderstood, or left without support.
When these parts of us go unseen, they don’t disappear ⎯ they continue to influence how we relate, protect ourselves, and move through life, often without our conscious awareness. This work gently brings those hidden dynamics into the light, so they no longer have to run the show.
Below are the primary ways we work together:
~ Inner Child Integration
Inner child work isn’t about revisiting the past for its own sake. It’s about recognizing that parts of us formed early in life ⎯ especially during moments of stress, neglect, or emotional overwhelm ⎯ may still be shaping how we feel and respond today.
These younger parts often carry unmet needs, emotions, or beliefs that made sense at the time, but no longer serve us. Through a somatic and compassionate approach, we gently reconnect with these parts, offering them the safety, attunement, and support they didn’t receive before.
As these parts are met and integrated, many people experience:
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Greater self-trust and emotional stability
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Less reactivity in relationships
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A deeper sense of wholeness and self-compassion
~ Parts Work
We are not made up of a single, unified voice ⎯ we are made up of many parts.
Some parts protect, some strive, some shut down, and others carry vulnerability or pain.
When parts remain unintegrated, they can quietly take the wheel ⎯ driving patterns like people-pleasing, self-criticism, avoidance, or emotional overwhelm. Parts work helps bring awareness to these inner dynamics
so they can be understood, supported, and brought back into balance.
Rather than trying to eliminate or “fix” parts, we work to:
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Understand their role and intention
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Help them feel safe enough to soften
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Restore leadership to your deeper, grounded self
This process allows you to respond to life with more choice, clarity, and ease
⎯ rather than reacting from old survival patterns.
~ The Five Channels of Somatic Awareness
In our sessions, we use what are often called the five channels of somatic awareness
⎯ simple ways of tuning into your lived experience in the present moment.
These channels help you learn the language of your body and inner world, without overanalyzing or forcing insight.
You’ll be guided to notice:
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Sensation ⎯ physical feelings such as tightness, warmth, heaviness, or movement
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Emotion ⎯ feelings like sadness, anger, fear, joy, or tenderness
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Thought ⎯ beliefs, memories, images, or inner dialogue
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Impulse / Movement / Posture⎯ urges of the body to move, speak, protect, withdraw, or reach out
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Imagination ⎯ symbols, metaphors, or intuitive images that arise naturally
By learning to track and name these experiences, you build greater capacity to stay present with what’s happening inside ⎯ rather than being overtaken by it.
~ Why This Work Is Transformational
By working with the body and psyche together, this approach supports change that isn’t just intellectual ⎯ it becomes embodied.
As awareness grows and inner parts are integrated, many people feel more empowered, grounded, and aligned with who they truly are. Life begins to feel less like something you’re managing ⎯ and more like something you’re living.
