Your nervous system regulates everything in your body. Our nervous system has 3 different states: ventral vagal, dorsal vagal and sympathetic fight/flight. In order to have your nervous system working fluidly between these states, it is important to understand how each of these states shows up in your daily life.

In order to bring balance to the system, you want to become aware of how your system responds to daily challenges. Only then can we learn to be with different states and help our system to move from activation into rest or from procrastination into action. This is what we practise in somatic therapy.

If your nervous system has the tendency to upregulate easily, you might experience stress, exhaustion, hyperactivity, anxiety, difficulty slowing down and relaxing, sleep challenges or digestive problems.

If your nervous system is more at home in a downregulated state, you may experience lethargy, procrastination, difficulty starting things, whole body fatigue or a dissociation.

Each of these states is important and ideally the nervous system is flexibly moving from one state to the other. However we often may get stuck in one state for too long or only oscillate between activation and collapse without ever really getting into a ventral resting state.

Many things can affect your nervous system and how it moves between these states; prolonged stress, accidents or trauma can all affect the normal functioning of the nervous system. Trauma is any single event or prolonged period of time that is too overwhelming for your system at the time of the event to cope with e.g. accidents, mental or physical abuse, unexpected changes or loss.

Coaching sessions allow you to pause and observe where in your life you would like to see change. Only by becoming present with yourself, you are able to see the patterns, relationships, jobs and habits that are no longer serving you. Coaching helps you to improve your self awareness so that you can see what is currently holding you back. By tapping into your inner wisdom, you can start to recognise the next necessary steps for you.

Coaching increases your emotional awareness. By pausing to pay attention to your feelings, you will learn how every emotion is there to tell you something about your choices, values and needs.

In the end of every session we will make few action steps together to ensure that these observations don't only stay within the sessions but also become new patterns in your daily life.

Embodiment means your current state of being and it changes in interaction with your surroundings and experiences. Our embodied shape consists of our current beliefs, resilience, survival strategies, habits and actions. Up to 90% of our behaviour is unconscious. This means that we react, behave, feel and live our lives without really mindfully choosing all those actions and reactions.

Embodied presence means that we can hold space for all parts of ourselves and allow them to show us which behaviour patterns are not serving us anymore. Being embodied means that you are able to stay with your present experience (sensations, emotions, feelings and nervous system state).

Trauma can prevent us from being fully in our bodies. It can cause us to live through survival strategies and it often limits our capacity to experience life fully. When we are stuck in survival mode, we often ruminate about the past or worry about the future which makes it challenging to be in the present moment. By learning to bring ourselves into the present moment and having the resources to support our journey, we can grow our capacity to be with the challenging experiences. Growing your capacity to hold all parts of your experience means that you get to choose which part of you is in the drivers seat - the one who plays it small or the one who sees opportunities and moves forward accordingly.

I combine solution focused coaching into a somatic body based somatic approach. Instead of just concentrating on the rational mind and the facts of the situation, we use sensations, emotions and internal stories as a gateway into the unconscious mind that resides in your body.

In my somatic approach I use the body as a portal into your innate wisdom. All of our experiences and emotions are stored into the body and being in the body allows us to process and release them. In a session this may show up for example as guided somatic grounding practice that helps you to learn how to recognise sensations in the body.

We will spend time with each sensation and with practice you can learn to listen to them with compassion and curiosity. This opens up a dialogue between you and all the different parts of your being.

Somatic approach is also a very good way to process trauma, get to know your nervous system and change behaviour patterns that are no longer serving you.