Embodied Heart Somatics

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Embodied Heart Somatics

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Certified Hakomi Practitioner, Advanced Certification in Pain Reprocessing Therapy, Licensed Massage Therapist

Somatic Therapy for trauma healing and chronic pain recovery.

03/19/2026

Thank you, Tennessee, for holding me again.

Thank you family, home, roots, friends, spring ephemerals, forests, rivers, and warm air.

I got to spend time backpacking on the Cumberland plateau with my brother and niece, binge-watch Downton Abbey with my Mom, and spend quality healing time with friends who I hold dearly.

Tennessee home is in my heart. ❤️

03/16/2026

We don’t force catharsis. We don’t override defenses. We don’t push for insight too soon.

Instead, we slow down.

We listen. We follow the body. And we trust the organic timing of your unfurling.

03/13/2026

It is work born from walking through the fire of my own trauma and chronic illness — and learning how to stay (slowly and steadily).

What I’m leaning into now is honesty. Letting myself be exactly as I am without hiding — and without over-identifying.

Hakomi Somatic Therapy is an approach in which the therapist cannot hide behind a linear method or a clear set of instructions, but must instead be willing to step into the unknown terrain of a person’s inner world, remaining open and curious about what may be discovered together.

In my experience, this dismantles some of the inherent hierarchy that shows up in the therapeutic relationship.

The practitioner must be willing to be fully present, which requires vulnerability.

This is why it’s nearly impossible to be a Hakomi Practitioner without having done a substantial amount of self-reflection and willingness to work with one’s own conditioning and protective patterns.

With the support of my mentors and teachers, I have learned to recognize and work through my own barriers to being fully present with my clients. I understand this to be humbling work—an ongoing practice that never truly ends.

03/09/2026

A willingness to step into the unknown..

Hakomi Somatic Therapy is an approach in which the therapist cannot hide behind a linear method or a clear set of instructions, but must instead be willing to step into the unknown terrain of a person’s inner world, remaining open and curious about what may be discovered together.

In my experience, this dismantles some of the inherent hierarchy that shows up in the therapeutic relationship.

The practitioner must be willing to be fully present, which requires vulnerability.

This is why it’s nearly impossible to be a Hakomi Practitioner without having done a substantial amount of self-reflection and willingness to work with one’s own conditioning and protective patterns.

With the support of my mentors and teachers, I have learned to recognize and work through my own barriers to being fully present with my clients. I understand this to be humbling work—an ongoing practice that never truly ends.

03/06/2026

When we are constantly striving, we forget that we are already whole.

Until we remember again.

I was planning to post something about my Hakomi Somatic Therapy practice.

Instead I decided to pause, and enjoy my breath and this body.

There is so much beauty to take in. There's so much vitality that's right here, already.

I have been working hard. Building a new career. Graduate school. New city. It's been…a lot.

I feel my vitality returning when I remember that I am enough. There is enough. Wholeness is already here.

It feels so nourishing to be here in Tennessee, with the blooming daffodils, and my feet on the warm ground.

Childhood home, roots, family, and friends.

I'm grateful.

03/04/2026

I am officially a Certified Hakomi Practitioner after 5 years of learning, training, and ongoing supervision!

This feels like a threshold moment of stepping more deeply into this work.

Becoming certified is not about earning a credential – it’s a deepening.

I am humbled. I am honored. I am grateful. ❤️

Hakomi Somatic Therapy is an approach in which the therapist cannot hide behind a linear method or a clear set of instructions, but must instead be willing to step into the unknown terrain of a person’s inner world, remaining open and curious about what may be discovered together.

In my experience, this dismantles some of the inherent hierarchy that shows up in the therapeutic relationship.

The practitioner must be willing to be fully present, which requires vulnerability.

This is why it’s nearly impossible to be a Hakomi Practitioner without having done a substantial amount of self-reflection and willingness to work with one’s own conditioning and protective patterns.

With the support of my mentors and teachers, I have learned to recognize and work through my own barriers to being fully present with my clients.

I understand this to be humbling work—an ongoing practice that never truly ends.

This training asked a lot of me — not just intellectually, but personally.

It has required slowing down, studying my own patterns, and learning how to truly trust the intelligence of the body.

I have learned how to bring my heart forward and more fully present for myself and for others while learning the intricate, complex skills required to be an effective Hakomi Practitioner.

02/26/2026

There are so many ways that this could be applied personally and collectively right now.

What brings us into deeper truth and compassion?

That's the inquiry I'm holding.

Are we spinning around in hate, blaming the other?

Or are we staying present to the heartbreak, the rage, the grief, and the unanswered needs of so many? Are we turning a blind eye?

At the end of the day, can we recognize that we all have the same basic needs - safety, belonging, and dignity.

Only in this place of honest presence and acknowledgement of what's here can we have clarity, and take effective action.

On the level of the personal, internal realms:
When internal protections are honored—met with neutrality, respect, and non-doing—they often soften on their own.

They become gateways to deeper emotions, clearer truth, and a quieter internal landscape.

This is the heart’s intelligence.
This is where authenticity grows.

If you need support - reach out.

02/23/2026

“Bring more of your body into the room.”

My good friend and wise teacher, Devorah Bry said this during a recent trauma-informed facilitation training.

“We want more of you here. Shake it up a little bit. Let yourself play!”

That landed.

I stand with anyone who has struggled with an invisible illness — physical, mental, or emotional.

As a woman who has lived with chronic illness and complex trauma, it’s been easy to hide. To override. To pretend everything is fine. To look like I have it all together — especially as a soon-to-be therapist. And especially in a world that grossly ignores women's health issues.

When sensations in the body feel overwhelming — from chronic pain, from trauma, from survival responses wired into the nervous system — it’s natural not to want to feel. Dissociation makes sense. Flight makes sense. Numbing makes sense.

When the body hasn’t felt safe, why would we want to inhabit it?

And yet, when we continually leave the body, those old loops can get reinforced.

The body becomes more foreign. More threatening. More shame-filled. This is how chronic illness and/or trauma becomes more entrenched over time.

There is often a subtle, pervasive shame that surrounds invisible illness — especially when no one can see what you are carrying.

As a somatic practitioner and bodyworker, I’ve noticed a quiet pressure inside myself:
I must be fully healed to serve others.
I must be perfect.

I’m learning to let that go.

I’m learning that what matters is not perfection — but presence. Not getting it right — but having my heart fully online. Letting myself be honest and real. Letting all of me be here.

My experience holds a full spectrum: I know how to deeply resource myself through the body. I know how to find nourishment. And this body has also been a hard place to live.

Both are true.

Lately, I’ve been allowing the medicine of pleasure and play to guide me.

Letting joy interrupt hypervigilance.

A person can struggle with anxiety, depression, or chronic pain, and still be deeply in love with life.

02/17/2026

I am excited/honored/humbled to share that I have accepted an internship with the Center for Grieving Children here in Portland, Maine.

I will be co-facilitating peer led support groups for children, youth, and/or adults who have either experienced loss, or have been diagnosed with a life-threatening illness.

I'm grateful to be part of this awesome organization that offers this kind of care and support to the community, as a threshold onto this path of becoming a Mental Health Counselor.

The realm of grief is a place where being witnessed and held in groups and in community is vital. And I'm honored to step in with my skills, experience, and education - and most importantly, my heart. ❤️

02/12/2026

This kind of presence requires safety.

And most of us need support to stay with what’s uncomfortable without becoming overwhelmed.

Healing doesn’t happen alone.

Staying busy, overworking, addictions, people-pleasing, self-reliance, dissociating, OCD, chronic pain and illness, fawning, avoidance—whatever your own unique flavor of default protection is—it has served as an intelligent response to overwhelm.

In fact, when we try to let go of our protections too soon, they often tighten their grip. These strategies—whether emotional, behavioral, or physical—are often the very reason we’ve survived with the level of functionality we have.

02/02/2026

There are emotions under emotions—layers shaped by culture, identity, and lived experience.

Many women and femmes, for example, have learned that sadness is acceptable, while anger is not. Others may feel anger readily, while fear or grief remain buried.

For a long time, I had easy access to grief and empathy. What I didn’t have access to was anger. When that shifted—slowly and with support—I found clarity and power.

I found a stronger sense of what was true. I found my voice. And I found myself letting go of a few relationships that were not healthy.

You may find grief beneath the anger. Fear beneath the clarity. This is how the body works—not in straight lines, but in layers.

Whether your inner protectors show up as staying busy, dissociating, an addiction, cycling through familiar emotional states that don't shift the needle, or chronic pain - they are not failures, they are intelligent responses to overwhelm.

12/02/2025

“I support people living with trauma and chronic pain by using Hakomi-based somatic therapy and Pain Reprocessing Therapy to help shift the unconscious patterns that keep the nervous system stuck in protection mode.

Hakomi offers a unique doorway into accessing the implicit memory - the stored emotional and bodily experiences we cannot reach through logic, willpower, or through talking alone.

Instead of trying to ‘fix’ symptoms, we create a mindful, attuned space where the nervous system feels safe enough to reveal and shift long-held patterns.

We work experientially with these protective patterns the body holds in the present moment so that they can be compassionately witnessed and reorganized in real time. This leads to more meaningful, longer-lasting transformation.”

Address

Portland
Portland, ME
04102

Website

https://www.embodiedheartsomatics.com/

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