Somatic Therapy in Brea & Online Across CA + AZ
A body-centered approach to SHIFTING anxiety, chronic stress, and the patterns that keep you feeling stuck.
You’ve spent a lot of time trying to feel better, but something still feels stuck.
Maybe you've tried talk therapy, read the self-help books, practiced self-care, or spent years trying to understand why you feel the way you do. You may have gained insight into your experiences and the patterns that keep showing up in your life, yet still find yourself feeling anxious, overwhelmed, or unable to slow down.
You might notice that your mind keeps going even when you're exhausted, that your body feels tense when there's nothing urgent to do, or that you continue pushing yourself even when you know you need a break.
Over time, these ways of responding can become so familiar that you may not even notice them happening. You know how to keep going, but slowing down and paying attention to what you feel or need may be much less familiar.
Somatic therapy offers a way to explore these patterns by including your body in the process. Together, we'll pay attention to how stress, emotions, and past experiences show up in your body and nervous system, while getting curious about what happens when you begin to slow down.
As you develop a greater awareness of your internal experience, you can begin to recognize familiar patterns as they arise and explore new ways of responding to yourself and the world around you.
Over time, this can create more room to feel grounded, trust what you feel and need, and move through life with greater ease and choice.
What Is Somatic Therapy?
Somatic therapy is a body-based approach to healing that helps you better understand the connection between your thoughts, emotions, and physical experiences. It recognizes that stress, anxiety, and trauma can affect how your nervous system responds to the world around you.
In somatic therapy, we make space to explore what's happening in your body alongside your thoughts and emotions. This might include noticing changes in your breathing, areas of tension, or the urge to push through discomfort, even when you're exhausted. As you become more aware of these responses, we can begin to explore the patterns behind them and what your body may need to shift them.
Over time, somatic work can help you recognize when you're becoming overwhelmed, respond to stress with greater awareness, and develop a more trusting relationship with yourself. Additionally, it can support you in:
Recognizing the signs of stress and overwhelm before they become harder to manage.
Feeling more comfortable slowing down and allowing yourself to rest.
Becoming more aware of your emotions, internal experience, and personal needs.
Developing a greater sense of trust in yourself and your body's responses.
Building your capacity to navigate stress and difficult emotions with greater ease.
Feeling more present and connected to yourself in your daily life.
How Somatic Therapy Helps You Move Beyond Survival Mode
When you've spent years managing stress, caring for others, or pushing through difficult experiences, your body can become used to staying on alert. You might notice that you're always thinking ahead, preparing for what could go wrong, or feeling tense even when there's nothing urgent to take care of.
Over time, these patterns can make it harder to slow down, recognize your needs, or feel at ease in your daily life. You may understand why you respond the way you do, yet still find yourself caught in the same cycle of anxiety, pressure, and exhaustion.
For some people, these responses are connected to past experiences of trauma or relationships where they learned to stay alert, put their needs aside, or take responsibility for the feelings of others. What once helped them manage difficult experiences may continue to shape how they respond to stress, relationships, and their own emotions today.
Somatic therapy helps us explore how these patterns show up in your body and nervous system. Together, we'll pay attention to what happens when you feel overwhelmed, notice how your body responds to stress, and explore what helps you feel more settled and present.
As you become more familiar with these responses, you may start to recognize when you're pushing past your limits, notice what you need, and find new ways of responding to difficult experiences.
Our work moves at a pace that allows you to build awareness without feeling pressured to push through more than you can manage. You won't have to relive painful memories or share details of past experiences before you're ready. Instead, we'll work with what comes up in the present, making room for your thoughts, emotions, and physical experiences as you develop a greater sense of choice in how you respond to life.
Who Can Benefit From Somatic Therapy?
Somatic therapy can be helpful if you're living with chronic stress, anxiety, or the effects of difficult past experiences. You may feel like you're always on the go, struggle to slow down, or have trouble recognizing what you need after spending so much time caring for others.
If you recognize yourself in any of the experiences below, somatic therapy may offer a different way to understand what's happening and begin making room for change.
Wired, Tense & Always “On”
You may feel like your mind and body are always going, even when you're exhausted. Your thoughts keep racing, your muscles stay tense, and relaxing can feel harder than it should. You might find yourself thinking ahead, preparing for what could go wrong, or feeling restless when there's nothing left to do.
Somatic therapy helps you become more aware of these responses and explore what helps your body settle, so you can begin to experience more rest and ease in your daily life.
Shutdown, Numb, or Disconnected
Sometimes, stress can leave you feeling distant from yourself or the world around you. You may find yourself going through the motions of daily life, feeling emotionally numb, or having trouble knowing what you feel or need. Even things you once enjoyed may feel harder to connect with.
Somatic therapy offers a way to gently explore these experiences, become more aware of what happens in your body, and begin reconnecting with your emotions and the things that matter to you.
Always Doing, Striving & Caring for Others
You're used to being the one who keeps things going, takes care of others, and figures things out. Even when you're tired, you may find yourself pushing through, putting pressure on yourself to get things right, or feeling guilty when you take time for yourself. Over time, it can become harder to recognize what you need or feel comfortable putting yourself first.
Somatic therapy helps you explore the patterns that keep you pushing through, become more aware of your own needs, and begin finding new ways to respond to yourself and others.
My philosophy on somatic healing:
Healing begins when we slow down, listen to our bodies, and make room for the parts of ourselves we've learned to set aside.
Two Somatic Approaches That Guide Our Work Together
Somatic Experiencing® (SE)
Somatic Experiencing® is a body-oriented approach that helps us understand how stress and overwhelming experiences can shape the way your nervous system responds to everyday life.
You might notice that your body stays tense even when there's nothing immediate to worry about, that you have difficulty slowing down, or that you sometimes feel disconnected from yourself.
Through gentle, paced awareness of your body's sensations and responses, SE helps you develop a greater capacity to navigate stress and respond to your experiences with more flexibility.
Through our work together, you may begin to:
Recognize your body's signals and respond to your needs with greater awareness.
Experience more ease when slowing down or allowing yourself to rest.
Navigate difficult emotions and sensations without becoming as overwhelmed.
Develop a greater sense of steadiness, presence, and trust in your body.
NeuroAffective Relational Model (NARM)
NARM is a present-focused approach that explores how our early relationships and experiences shape the way we relate to ourselves and others.
Over time, you may have learned to put your needs aside, take responsibility for others, or hold yourself to high expectations as ways of maintaining connection, belonging, or a sense of safety.
These patterns can become so familiar that you may not recognize how much they're shaping your life today.
Through NARM-informed work, we'll explore how these adaptations continue to show up in your relationships, emotions, and sense of self, while making room for new ways of relating to yourself and others.
Through our work together, you may begin to:
Recognize patterns of people-pleasing, overfunctioning, and self-pressure with greater understanding.
Develop a clearer sense of your needs, feelings, and personal boundaries.
Experience more choice in how you respond to yourself and the people around you.
What a Somatic Therapy Session Feels Like
Somatic therapy sessions move at a pace that allows us to explore your experiences without pushing you beyond what feels manageable.
While we talk about your experiences, we'll also pay attention to how your body responds in the moment. This might include noticing changes in your breath, posture, muscle tension, or subtle impulses, such as the urge to pull away, shut down, or move toward something.
Rather than staying only at the level of insight, we'll slow things down enough to notice what's happening in real time and explore how your body responds as we make sense of your experiences together.
At times, this might look like:
Orienting to the room and noticing your surroundings.
Paying attention to small changes in your body.
Following a sensation as it shifts.
Allowing gentle movement to help your body settle or release tension.
As we work together, we'll also explore how familiar relational patterns, especially around connection, boundaries, self-worth, and agency, continue to shape your experience today. This might include noticing how your body responds when you consider setting a boundary, expressing a need, or allowing yourself to slow down.
There's no right or wrong way to experience somatic therapy. We'll approach your experiences with curiosity, allowing room for your needs, preferences, and boundaries while remaining attentive to what feels manageable for you.
Over time, you may begin to notice that you feel less on edge, less shut down, and more able to stay present with yourself and your life. As you develop a greater understanding of your patterns and how they show up in your body, you may also find more room to respond to your experiences with greater choice, self-trust, and ease.
FAQs About Somatic Therapy
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Somatic therapy is a body-based approach to psychotherapy that explores the connection between your thoughts, emotions, physical sensations, and nervous system. It recognizes that stress and difficult experiences can affect how you feel in your body, how you respond to everyday situations, and how you relate to yourself and others.
In somatic therapy, we pay attention to what's happening in your body alongside what you're thinking and feeling. This can help you better understand your patterns, develop a greater capacity to navigate stress, and begin responding to yourself and your experiences with more awareness and choice.
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Yes. Anxiety and chronic stress can affect your body in ways that make it difficult to slow down, relax, or feel settled, even when there isn't an immediate reason to feel overwhelmed.
Somatic therapy helps you recognize how your nervous system responds to stress and become more aware of the patterns that keep you feeling tense, restless, or constantly on the go. Through gentle, body-based awareness and practices, we work toward increasing your capacity to navigate stress, experience greater ease in your body, and respond to life's demands without feeling like you always have to push through.
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You don't have to share every detail of your past or revisit painful experiences before you're ready. Somatic therapy allows us to explore how past experiences may be affecting you in the present while paying attention to what feels manageable for your nervous system.
We may explore how certain memories, emotions, or relational patterns show up in your body, but the process is guided by your capacity, comfort, and choice. Together, we can work toward helping you feel more grounded and connected to yourself without requiring you to relive everything you've experienced.
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That's completely okay, and it's something we can explore together. If you've spent years pushing through stress, focusing on other people's needs, or relying on your thoughts to make sense of your experiences, noticing what's happening in your body may feel unfamiliar.
Somatic therapy doesn't require you to arrive with a strong connection to your body or the ability to identify every sensation or emotion. We begin with what you can notice, whether that's tension in your shoulders, the feeling of your feet on the ground, or simply recognizing that you're having difficulty connecting with your body.
Over time, we can gradually build your capacity to notice and understand your internal experience in ways that feel manageable and meaningful to you.
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Somatic therapy may be a good fit if you experience anxiety, chronic stress, burnout, or a sense of disconnection from yourself. It can also be helpful if you tend to overthink, people-please, push through exhaustion, or find yourself repeating familiar patterns even when you understand why they're happening.
You may have spent a long time managing your responsibilities and showing up for others while struggling to recognize what you need or how you actually feel.
Somatic therapy offers an opportunity to explore these experiences through both the mind and body, helping you develop greater self-awareness, emotional flexibility, and the capacity to make choices that feel more aligned with your needs.
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Yes! Somatic therapy can be offered virtually, and you don't need to be in the same physical space as your therapist to engage in body-based work.
During online sessions, we can explore your internal experience through conversation, noticing physical sensations, gentle movement, and other practices that support nervous system regulation. Sessions are adapted to your needs and what feels comfortable and accessible in your own environment.
I offer online somatic therapy to adults located in California and Arizona, as well as in-person sessions in Brea, California. Both options allow us to work together at a pace that respects your nervous system's capacity and your individual therapeutic goals.
Ready to Feel More Connected and At Ease in Your Body?
Schedule a free consultation to explore how somatic therapy can help you navigate anxiety, chronic stress, and the patterns that keep you feeling overwhelmed or disconnected from yourself. Together, we can explore what you're hoping to change and whether my approach feels like a good fit for you.
SUPPORT AWAITS YOU
SUPPORT AWAITS YOU
Somatic Therapy in Brea, CA
I offer in-person somatic therapy in Brea, California, as well as online therapy for adults throughout California and Arizona. Whether we meet in person or virtually, our work integrates body-based awareness, nervous system regulation, and relational exploration to help you navigate anxiety, chronic stress, and the patterns that may be keeping you feeling overwhelmed or disconnected from yourself.
265 S Randolph Ave, Brea, CA 92821
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