Balance. Reclaim. Revere.
Trauma Therapist
certified in Somatic Experiencing®
in-person therapy in Lafayette and Walnut Creek, CA.
virtual in San Francisco Bay Area and across CA & PA.
Is your body a ruin of past hurts and adversities?
Is your body in a fog about future ones?
“Trauma is the debilitating symptoms that many people suffer from in the aftermaths of perceived life threatening or overwhelming experiences.”
-Peter Levine, developer of Somatic Experiencing®
Life threatening events or overwhelming experiences can be from:
A single incident - an acute trauma. Perhaps a single car accident or a physical assault, a serious injury or a natural disaster, an unexpected death or loss of a loved one.
Repeated and prolonged - a chronic trauma. Perhaps an abusive relationship or a chronic illness, a war or a repeated witnessing of violence.
Or, complex trauma. A series of events over long periods of time and through lifespans, often with events in childhood. Childhood abuse or neglect, prolonged exposure to domestic violence, parentification, or living in a warzone.
Furthermore, many folks from marginalized groups experience generational traumas that are perpetuated by discriminatory systems and lack of resources and communities.
Trauma affects everyone differently.
You may feel overwhelmed and anxious, unable to relax. Or you check-out and feel perpetually depleted.
Perhaps…
Self-doubt and being on your own dominate, making daily tasks exhausting or irritating.
You are mired in shame and guilt, despite your good work and kind heart.
Even though your life is better, you feel like that shoe is going to drop and you are never secure or safe.
You still experience flashbacks or intrusive memories, nightmares or challenges with sleep.
Despite knowing yourself, you can feel under attack or that you’re not good enough.
The stability you previously felt is lost. Or, you may not have ever known what safety and security feels like to you, your family, and your ancestors.
“Trauma replaces patterns of connection with patterns of protection.”
-Stephen Porges, psychologist and neuroscientist of trauma.
You may not even feel like you have gone through significant trauma, or know what they were. Sometimes, trauma symptoms can emerge after gradual or chronic exposure to stress, when our well of resources and resilience has been emptied. Other times, being gas lit and stuck in a relationship or an oppressive system long enough activates patterns habituated by exposure in past challenging relationships and toxic systems. You end up shutting down, fighting back, breaking down, freezing up, or appeasing others in ways that no longer sustain or nurture you.
“Trauma is what happened that shouldn’t have happened.
Trauma is also what didn’t happen that should have.”
- Linda Thai, intergenerational & developmental trauma educator
It may feel impossible, but you can heal from trauma, whether it was once or throughout your life, whether it happened last week or decades ago. Healing and reclamation can start, move and grow here with support.
You can feel better.
You can achieve embodied and sustained change and healing.
We can give your body new imprints of support, resource, and nurturance that it didn’t get to experience.
somatic therapy can help you do 3 things:
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This is nourished through practical skills to soothe and settle moments of distress and activation; this probably became habituated with past traumas. We settle and re-balance your nervous system to move through overwhelming emotions.
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We do this in a pace and in chunks where your body can pause and breath. We notice new resources and what is arising here and now. In turn and in this flow, the emotional charge locked into your body at the time of the trauma is drained away and is moved through and out of your body.
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Out of the therapy room, you regain curiosity, confidence, and competence within yourself, in your relationships, and with the world. You access positivity and unconditional tenderness that transforms your self-esteem, how you relate with people now and in the future. You radiates greater trust, belonging, and worthiness.
Experience shifts…
from
“I must do this on my own. YOU must be there for me.”
“What do you want from me?”
Lid it tight. Suck it up. Put up with it. And dig in.
Loop in inescapable past hurts and mire in ineffective action.
Body armor - aches, tensions, and constrictions.
Fear and scarcity.
to
“I can do things in the world with support.”
“I can receive support. I can even enjoy it!”
Practices of unwinding, relating, limit setting.
Worthiness and belonging in your body.
Tenderness and flexibility in body, mind, and action.
Growth into settledness, delight, and reverence for you & life.
Get in touch
Growth is possible.
FAQs
Frequently asked questions
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A: Emotional
Developmental
Vicarious & secondary
Organizational & systematic
Intergenerational & ancestral
Motor vehicle accidents
Falls & injuries
Pre-natal or birth
Surgeries & anesthesia
Sexaul assaults
Natural disasters & wars
And others. Reach out today for a free phone consultation to discuss.
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A: Urgency is a hallmark of body response to traumatic experiences. The urge to be “fixed” and “done with it” or to “keep it at bay” can be strong. Many clients want to tell it all at once, which often floods one’s nervous system. Therefore, the following steps are fundamental in trauma work:
1) Building a therapeutic space of safety and trust. You seeking support is a major act of care to yourself! We build a space of safety and trust, so that you can feel and explore what comes up for you. This is fundamental for your body, mind, and nervous system to take on regulating from past hurts and traumas. Feeling that you can safely explore, to build upon your current stability, resiliency, and organization.
2) Trauma reprocessing, and most importantly, expanding your tool box of healing coping mechanisms now. We prioritize present stressors, activations, and hurts in the beginning of our working relationship. As we deepen in trust and I get to know your body and nervous system’s present capacity to process, re-organize, and integrate activation states as well as your history, we can then take on digestible chunks of past threats and hurts. In trauma, folks can get stuck in survival-based high activation known as hyperarousal or in survival-based state known as hypo-arousal, which can manifest as collapse and helplessness. We take on bite-size chunks for your body as well as uncoupling some of the complex immobile states, feelings, and sensations.
3) Integration and regulation. The survival energy from past traumas are gently redistributed and out of the body, as you move out of hyperarousal and experience more equilibrium, relaxed alertness, and embodiment of your own body. We return to the here and now, make contact with your environment and connect socially. These simple, mundane reconnections with the present are corrective and further facilitate healing from stuckness in past trauma arousal or shutdown states.
All three steps are fundamental to each session. And we prioritize the 1st and 3rd as the focal points depending on your body and nervous system’s present capacity and current life stressors.