How Somatic Coaching can help with chronic over-functioning
My clients have big, full lives and multiple, overlapping identities and responsibilities.
The variety is delightful and the common threads are noteworthy.
I tend to work with wildly intelligent and chronically over-functioning women who, at various stages of midlife, are questioning the tacit agreements they made when they were younger, both professionally and personally. Agreements to act a certain way, provide care in certain amounts and stay quiet about certain things for example.
Along with gratitude and awareness of privilege, there's often grief, rage, numbness and often a tremendous amount of anxiety.
About the deadlines coming up.
About the huge pile of responsibilities at home and at work.
About the intense level of uncertainty we're facing as a collective.
I notice my clients often have a potent energy close to the surface. The kind that wants to flip the table and walk out of the room, that longs to call bullshit on the rolodex of absurdities and that sometimes—frighteningly—feels like it could turn into the movie version of a nervous breakdown.
The questioning, lurking dissatisfaction, grief and rage.
Wondering if this is all there is, despite having so much.
These aren't necessarily signs of a midlife crisis. Actually, they're often the beginning of a midlife passage.
They're indicators that—despite everything—you haven't given up.
Breaking through instead of breaking down during rites of passage
To break through instead of breaking down, we all need adequate witnessing and support during rites of passage. Our need for support is healthy and normal, not pathological.
Deep down you know that you matter.
Your needs matter.
Not more than other people's.
But not less, either.
What is Somatic Coaching and how can it help?
I want to share a bit about how it feels to work together.
Imagine future you, significantly more resourced after a season or two of biweekly sessions that offer radical encouragement, practical skills and the kind of relational repair that happens when someone holds reliable space for you.
It's a kind of practical magic I've been on the receiving end of over the years, with my own crew of coaches, teachers, mentors and therapists.
This is slow and steady work.
It's rich and deep work.
Ultimately, it's a life's work.
Our time together…
Our time together won't necessarily make your life easier, but it can help you adjust to the current conditions with more agency. Personalized coaching with me is deep, but it's not onerous.
Our time together won't replace deep friendships and healthy community, but it can help you orient towards these resources more naturally.
Our time together won't replace therapy but it can complement and support that process in deep and meaningful ways.
Our time together won't solve systemic inequity, climate change or political and economic unrest but it can help you stay mobilized and engaged in ways that feel doable and right.
Somatic coaching is a personalized practice ground where you can both slow down and mobilize. Where you can thaw the parts of you that have frozen stuck, and tend to the fiery parts of you that need expression.
Instead of constantly pushing through burnout, we practice a different kind of accountability based on consent and cooperation with your nervous system.
We can absolutely stir the pot, but we don't need to burn down the house.
You know those workouts that seem a little too easy but then, by the end, you're like, "I'm not sure I've ever felt that muscle before?"
My approach to somatic coaching can feel a bit like that.
We don't rush, and it's not particularly dramatic. Sessions often have a stabilizing quality, building coherence rather than chaos, even when big, challenging feelings have come to the surface. It can take weeks, even months, to start feeling the deep, granular change that results from showing up for yourself in this way.
When you commit to a season or two of somatic coaching, we co-create a unique-to-you roadmap towards nourishment, resilience and self-trust— and I'll be there to support you on the path.
