About Me & Contact | bodyliteracy

About Me

I have always been drawn to the inner world of things - self, groups, societies, nations - and curious about suffering, with a pull towards healing. My journey to working with and from the body emerged during a healing crisis more than a decade ago. After several years working in peacebuilding and women's rights in peace processes in Sudan and South Sudan, my body's ability to heal diminished and I was in a constant state of suffering - chronic insomnia, severe nervous system dis-regulation, heart palpitations, and more. I sensed that my pain was primarily emotional and spiritual, manifesting physically. Not having the knowledge, skills or awareness at that time to tend to my body's messaging, I began to study the neurobiology of trauma and embodied practices. At that time, the word 'somatic' wasn't as popularized as it was today, but learning to listen to my body's invitation to heal, and then learning to tend to what needed tending, turned a health crisis into a liberating healing journey. Being in nature offered the most powerful medicine for my journey. This journey continues today - one of study, practice, learning, and service - and being on and of the earth to heal.

My Practice:

Individual Somatic Sessions

My practice incorporates several years of study and practice, combining yoga therapy, integral somatic psychology, trauma-informed care, interpersonal neurobiology, and learnings from working directly with bodies. My practice often incorporates a systems lens - exploring and honoring that much of our suffering is connected to history, culture, family dynamics and the ways in which we are shaped by outside forces. I offer individual somatic sessions, shepherding and facilitating clients towards more body literacy, based on the unique journey towards healing each of us is on. No session is the same, and I have found it best to work consistently over time with each client to build awareness, skill, and practice for listening, tending, releasing and rebuilding. Individual somatic sessions are best held on a weekly or bi-weekly basis and build upon each other. The body's right timing and a client's level of felt safety determine the pace and depth of each session. Somatic work is first and foremost about holding space for you to begin to listen and befriend your body, and hear it's deep wisdom.

My practice caters to (but is not exclusively for) those that experience high-sensitivity, as Highly Sensitive Persons (HSP), as neurodiverse (ADHD, Autistic, etc), and find the world overwhelming and often non-supportive. I also enjoy supporting women navigating their life journey through the portal that is perimenopause to menopause and elder cronehood.

Somatic support often entails a mixture of the following experiences and supports:

Helping you learn to listen to your own body's wisdom and messaging.
Offering a felt experience of rest and regulation in your body.
Teaching about the nervous system - patterns of fight, flight, or freeze.
Helping develop a practice of tending to your nervous system.
Teaching breath-work, asana and other techniques to support healing.
Building supportive daily routines and practices.
Understanding and differentiating between the internal landscape and the external environment, and making adjustments to both to support a whole-ecosystem approach to well-being.
Offering nonjudgemental space to explore and release held emotions and trauma.

Workplace Coaching & Consulting

I offer individual and group-based coaching to executive and senior leaders, as well as teams. In this professional-based practice, I weave together a praxis of equity, systems change, conflict transformation and somatic awareness to catalyze change at individual, group, and organizational levels. I advise teams and leaders on ways to identify and address dynamics of power and dominance in workplace culture. Coaching is always body-centered, as our bodies hold and express our biases, our pain, our joy, and deep ally-ship to self and other. Email me if this is something you'd like to learn more about.

My Bio

My background weaves together a praxis of healing, equity, systems change, conflict transformation and somatic awareness to catalyze meaningful change at individual, group, and organizational levels. I have a somatic therapy practice working with individuals and groups using a trauma- and systems - sensitive approach to developing body awareness, with an intentional focus on how pain, dominance and marginalization are held in and expressed from the body. For much of the past decade, I've held leadership positions in the non-profit sector, focused primarily on internal organizational effectiveness and workplace culture, while also continuing a consulting practice for organizations and individuals. Prior to returning home to New Mexico in 2017, I directed women’s inclusion efforts in peace negotiations in Sudan and South Sudan for nearly a decade. This part of my journey led me to somatics as I became curious to understand and heal from debilitating burnout. In 2024 I began to experience another burnout after years again of 'overworking,' and this chapter of my journey led me into the depths of healing, again (it is a spiral). My work has evolved to now hold the truth of what I have learned in my most recent experience of healing, including the experience of perimenopause, experiencing workplace trauma and burnout, and understanding more about my own (and that of many of us out there) neurodiversity in the form of being a sensitive-autistic neurotype (coined by Julie Belleland, LMFT: https://www.juliebjelland.com/the-sensitive-autistic-phenotype).

I hold an MA in Conflict Transformation, a BA in Political Science, and have studied yoga therapy, Integral Somatic Psychology, and nutrition science, as well as studied with various teachers and practitioners at the intersection of somatic healing, social justice, and trauma. I often spend time in unpeopled, wild(er) places, learning to listen better, to rest, and to be in right relationship in the world.