How do you know you’re choosing what is life-affirming for you?
Many of my clients come to Somatic Attunement coaching to untangle a relationship dynamic or to navigate a difficult situation at work. They’ve already done the thoughtful work. They’ve examined their own behavior, their language, and their part in communicating thoughts, feelings, and ideas.
But what if it’s not enough to change yourself? What if you set boundaries and they don’t stick? What if your mind keeps looping the same distressing thoughts?
In Somatic Attunement sessions, we move beyond what is spoken and into what your body shares.
Three questions for when you feel stuck:
Is this me? Do you hold an unspoken ideal, or are you trying to align with your values? Are there emotions that haven’t been witnessed, by you or by another person?
Is this them? Does the person or place you’re engaging with have barriers to coherence? When you voice a concern, does it land as constructive feedback? Or are you belittled, reminded of your faults, and dismissed as “too much”?
Is this the space between? Do you sense words unspoken and emotions unmet on both sides? Are there choices you could both make to ease the tension?
What lives beneath the looping
Emotions are bodily experiences. You cannot talk yourself into being fine about them. They need space to be felt, and they move on their own timing, like weather and tides.
Our culture praises the stoic, the calm, the neutral. But life is not neutral. Choosing yourself means letting every part of your experience exist. If you’ve been suppressing emotion to keep the peace, or have calmly stated your boundaries and concerns again and again, my sense is that something under the surface of your skin needs to move before the dynamic can shift.
Talking can stir emotion, but conversation alone doesn’t always let it complete. Emotions are expressed and resolved through the body, which is why so many clients come to Somatic Attunement when talk therapy hasn’t eased their stress and anxiety.
It takes skill to allow your emotions, and skills can be learned. Many clients report feeling more capable after a single session yet the real clarity comes over an arc of time.
One client, a psychotherapist, shares:
“As a psychotherapist, I spend a lot of time in ‘brain space’ so I’m pretty well versed in the more traditional cognitive interventions, but I started to become aware that I could only get so far with thinking, and that I continued to experience bodily pain and suffering from the effects of years of chronic stress.
I began a series of somatic coaching sessions with Nicole. Going in, I felt my body was holding secrets that I was finally ready to unearth. I quickly learned there were no secrets, quite the opposite: my body was feeding me clear, loud, powerful information that was ready and waiting for me all along. I just needed the space and stillness to truly listen, notice, and integrate my body’s wisdom.”
Why we can’t do this alone
Knowing ourselves is not solitary work. We need to be witnessed for the fullness of what lies beneath to come forward safely. Human beings are not meant to heal alone.
I learned this personally. When I tried talk therapy for relationship struggles, the visits were covered by my insurance, so it was a practical choice. But talking mostly confirmed what I already knew, and I left feeling that change was all up to me. I was told, in essence, that my intelligence was getting in the way of connection, and that I needed to reconcile my desire for closeness with an ego that thought it could analyze its way out of suffering. What I heard was the old wound: I am too much, and if I tone it down, I’ll finally feel connected. My body stayed unmet, and my mind had plenty to chew on.
Then I saw what I’d been doing. By thinking and talking about my concerns, I had been circling the very real hurt beneath them.
One session with a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner showed me that my looping thoughts and anxiety were the surface of a great sadness and anger. They simply needed to be seen by a caring, uninvolved other, someone practiced at holding a person through difficult emotion, who could buoy me while I rode the waves.
The result was coherence between my mind and body when it came time for an uncomfortable conversation. Because I understood my own emotional state, I could see this is me. I could empathize with this is them. And together we could recognize this is the space between and move toward our shared desire.
That is the beauty of Somatic Attunement.
An invitation
If your emotions feel locked down, or you’ve changed your eating, sleeping, and communication and nothing budges, it may be time to give your body what it’s asking for: a witness to the wholeness of you.
No forcing. No holding back. Just gentle room for what has been stuffed down to expand.
My role isn’t to fix you. It’s to hold the space so your own wisdom can step forward, in its own time.
Book a 1:1 call with me to explore where you are now and decide whether Somatic Attunement could help you choose yourself.
