What are “Somatics”?

Somatics are body-based practices that use movement, gesture, awareness, and felt sensation to release the wisdom stored in your body and transform how you are in the world.

From the Greek root Soma (n.): The living body in its wholeness.

To view the body as the whole self is a distinct break from the Western attitude that views the brain as the self and the body as an object.

Indigenous and non-Western cultures have accessed the Self through the Body for thousands of years – and no matter your lineage, at some point in the past your ancestors probably did too.

Since being introduced to the United States in the 1960s, somatic practices such as yoga, meditation, and breathwork have continued to shape our culture. More and more, our society is re-awakening to the fact that our experiences, energy, emotions, and ability to connect and take action all live in our body. 

By contacting the Self directly through the body, you can unwind years of habitual reactions, tension, and unconscious beliefs. Although they did a good job of protecting you in the past, these embodied patterns might be preventing you from experiencing your full self in the present.

~ soma ~

the living body in its wholeness

~ soma ~ the living body in its wholeness

Windytree Somatics Lineage

I trained as a Somatic Coach at the Strozzi Institute for Somatics

  • Founded by Richard Strozzi Heckler to teach somatics as a path “to further one’s vision and values, and take action in one’s life, leadership, and in the world”

  • Strozzi Heckler was deeply influenced by his master-level studies of Aikido, a Japanese martial art created by Morihei Ueshiba O-Sensei

  • Strozzi somatics also includes influence from Wilheim Reich’s concepts of body armoring, Tibetan Buddhist meditation, Gestalt Therapy, and modern bodywork methodologies such as Polarity Therapy, Rolfing, and Feldenkrais

  • Staci Haines, a core Strozzi Institute teacher, greatly influenced the methodology in terms of how trauma and historic/political oppression impact the body and its healing

My own healing journey informs my work, combining Strozzi somatics with my experience in

  • Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy 

  • Trauma-Informed Yoga

  • Virginia Satir’s work on coping stances 

  • Reconnecting with lineage and ancestors as a white-bodied settler-colonial American

  • Intuitive land-based spirituality with roots in pre-Christian northern Europe

  • Healing from intergenerational trauma, sexual trauma, and emotional abuse

Begin Your Journey