Somatic coaching

This work is most valuable for people who:

• Want to build genuine resilience and capacity rather than just manage symptoms

• Are curious about accessing their body's deeper wisdom for life decisions

• Value both practical results and deeper understanding

• Are ready to engage with felt experience and bodily awareness

• Seek lasting transformation rather than quick fixes

• Are drawn to working primarily through breath, awareness, and nervous system regulation

This might not be the best fit if you're:

• Primarily seeking movement-based somatic work (practitioners specialising in dance, postural yoga, or other movement modalities would better serve this focus)

• Looking for hands-on bodywork or manual therapy (while somatic breathwork can incorporate touch, consider working with a Rolfer, structural integration practitioner, or other bodywork specialist)

• Needing physical training or rehabilitation (a movement specialist, physical therapist, or qualified trainer would be more appropriate)

• Looking for quick fixes

• Not ready to engage with felt experience and bodily awareness

• Seeking primarily tactical solutions without deeper exploration

Not sure? Let's talk. The best way to know if we're a good fit is through a conversation about your specific situation and goals.

Somatic coaching and somatic therapy both engage the body’s innate intelligence to support growth and transformation, but they differ in context and intention:

• Somatic coaching is a creative process that nurtures your innate wisdom, wholeness, and emotional intelligence. It helps you metabolise life’s complexities, relational dynamics, and unfinished experiences that may feel “stuck”—without pathologising or framing them as deficits. By building your capacity for presence, resilience, and emotional range, coaching supports you in living with greater authenticity and ease. It’s not about fixing problems but about accessing the natural aliveness, clarity, and resourcefulness already within you.

• Somatic therapy provides a clinical space for healing when trauma or emotional wounds have overwhelmed your system. It supports you in processing unresolved experiences, re-establishing safety, and restoring balance in your nervous system. Therapy is often more appropriate when trauma or mental health challenges require a specialized level of care and support.

A key distinction

Somatic coaching doesn’t treat trauma or diagnose mental health conditions, but it can lead to profound outcomes—such as deeper calm, integration, and embodied trust—as part of unfolding your full potential rather than addressing pathology.

Which approach is right for you?

Coaching may be a good fit if you’re seeking to cultivate resilience, expand your sense of possibility, and deepen your capacity for navigating life’s complexities. Therapy may be more appropriate if you need focused support for trauma or emotional experiences that feel overwhelming.

If you’re unsure, I’m happy to help you find the right support—whether that’s coaching, therapy, or a thoughtful combination of both.

The word comes from the Greek "soma," meaning "the body in its wholeness"—not as an object to be controlled, shaped, improved, or optimized, but as a rich, inner field of lived experience.

This inner landscape is rich with meaning—if we slow down enough to listen. Some describe this as "feeling like I'm inside my life again," or "hearing a deeper voice of intuition." Others describe it as sensing the harmony between mind, heart, and body—an internal coherence that was always there, waiting to be noticed.

How somatic is different from simply "body-based"

Most body-based practices focus on:

• Training the body for better performance

• Correcting posture or alignment

• Improving strength or flexibility

• Managing symptoms or stress

These approaches can be valuable, but somatic work has a different focus. It engages your body as:

• A source of direct knowing and wisdom

• A living intelligence that shapes experience

• An intricate web of meaning and memory

• A natural guide toward wholeness

It’s the difference between treating the body as a machine to be fine-tuned and sensing the body as an active participant in meaning, intuition, and healing. When you engage somatically, you soften external maps—like anatomical diagrams, fitness goals, or ideas of “alignment”—to sense something more immediate: the living texture of your moment-to-moment experience.

What this means for you

When you engage with your body as soma, you:

• Access clearer signals about what’s right for you

• Develop reliable inner guidance for decisions

• Notice subtle cues before they become problems

• Respond to situations with greater nuance and wisdom

• Discover resources you didn’t know you had

At first glance, breathwork and somatic coaching may seem like separate practices—one focused on breathing techniques, the other on cultivating body-based awareness and emotional intelligence. But in a sense, breathwork is the ultimate somatic practice.

Breath is the only function in your body that’s both automatic and consciously accessible—it’s where the unconscious and conscious meet. By working with your breath, you engage directly with your nervous system, your felt experience, and your body’s innate rhythms. It’s an invitation to deepen into your soma—the living experience of your being—and discover a profound sense of presence, coherence, and aliveness.

Breathwork is somatic work

Each breathwork session is essentially a somatic session. You’re engaging with your body’s sensations, emotions, and patterns in real time, noticing what surfaces and how you respond. Whether or not it’s named explicitly as “coaching,” every breath invites you into a process of inquiry, unfolding, and integration—key components of somatic coaching.

The question, then, isn’t whether somatic coaching fits alongside breathwork—it’s whether your breathwork journey includes the guidance and structure needed to navigate and fully metabolise what arises.

What breathwork brings to somatic work

Breathwork introduces something essential to somatic work: charge—a buildup of energy that awakens sensation, emotion, and insight. This charge helps surface experiences that may have been stored in the body, allowing them to be metabolised and integrated.

Why breathwork needs an integrative frame

Without a balanced approach, charge can become overwhelming rather than transformative. Here are some common limitations of breathwork when practiced without an integrative frame:

• Emotional flooding: Uncontrolled charging can overwhelm the system, leading to emotional flooding rather than resolution. When too much surfaces too quickly, protective parts may clamp down or cause dissociation to avoid discomfort.

• Event-based transformation: Breathwork can become a “peak experience” rather than a sustainable process, leaving little room for integration. Without skillful follow-up, insights gained during the session may fade or feel disconnected from daily life.

• Chasing catharsis: Some breathwork approaches focus on achieving dramatic emotional releases, reinforcing the belief that transformation only happens through intensity rather than a balance of breakthrough and integration.

While breathwork can catalyse profound breakthroughs, its full potential is realised when it’s embedded in a practice that also honors gradual unfolding—the slower, quieter changes that anchor transformation in your daily experience.

What somatic coaching adds to breathwork

Somatic coaching transforms breathwork from a series of events into a continuous, embodied process of growth by:

• Navigating charge skillfully: Building your capacity to experience energy, emotion, and sensation without becoming overwhelmed.

• Integrating emotional expression: Supporting the unfolding of deeper insights and embodied wisdom after emotional release.

• Pacing and containment: Allowing for sustainable transformation by balancing moments of peak intensity with rest and reflection.

• Sustaining transformation: Helping you cultivate a way of living that integrates both breakthroughs and gradual shifts.

Somatic coaching also introduces practices that foster rest, regulation, and mindful inquiry—helping your system expand its capacity for both intensity and calm.

A balanced, integrated approach

Breathwork and somatic coaching honour different phases of the same process:

• Breathwork increases your awareness of emotions, sensations, and memories that may have been below the surface.

• Somatic coaching helps you be with and integrate what arises, expanding your capacity to live with coherence and ease.

Some sessions may focus more on breath to invite deeper awareness and self-regulation. Others may involve somatic inquiry or deep rest to metabolise insights and build resilience.

In this approach, transformation isn’t about chasing emotional highs or forcing change—it’s about honouring both the breakthroughs and the slower unfolding that builds long-lasting, embodied growth. Breathwork becomes part of an ongoing dialogue between your mind, body, and heart, supporting you in living with greater presence, clarity, and ease.

Somatic work can feel both subtle and profound. Here are some everyday examples:

In decision-making

You're facing an important choice. Rather than just analyzing pros and cons, you notice how different options feel in your body. One possibility creates subtle tension or constriction, while another brings a sense of opening or relief. This bodily knowing often proves more reliable than pure logic.

In relationships

During a conversation, you sense a slight tightening in your chest before you're consciously aware that something feels off. Instead of pushing this feeling aside, you stay with it and discover important information about your boundaries or needs.

In daily life

You notice your shoulders gradually creeping up during a work meeting. Instead of forcing them down, you get curious about what this tension is telling you about your current situation or needs.

In processing experience

Rather than trying to "figure out" an emotional challenge, you notice where and how it lives in your body. As you stay present with these sensations, they naturally begin to shift and evolve, often bringing unexpected insight or release.

These examples illustrate how somatic work engages your body's natural intelligence and wisdom. Rather than techniques to master, they represent a growing capacity to live from your whole self.