My introduction to somatics started about 5 years into my debilitating, whole-body, chronic pain. I spent years getting passed back and forth between practitioners and nobody was able to explain why I was experiencing this pain that I was in. Several doctors finally diagnosed me with a connective tissue disorder (Ehlers Danlos Syndrome) to explain my pain and told me there was nothing that could be done and I would never be able to live a normal life again.

Unable to accept that this was it, I started researching alternative modalities/approaches to chronic pain. I quickly developed a suspicion that while my pain was presented in my physical body, the source (or at least the amplifier) of my pain was not completely due to these physical abnormalities that I presented with.

With a lot of reflection, I came to the realization that I grew up as a highly sensitive and empathic child and I felt things very deeply. I did not know what to do with these emotions that I felt, and these emotions seemed to make others feel uncomfortable as well, so I quickly learned to suppress them. I became disconnected from my emotions and my body and I started to experience heightened anxiety, excessive worry, and perfectionism. I learned to cope with these experiences through excessive exercise, overwork, and abuse of my body.

That was when my body started to scream. Pain is not always reflective of an injury, but it is a call for change. I believe that my body was fed up with being ignored and finally cried out for help in a way that could not be ignored. But I did ignore it. And for the first 5 years of my pain, I went to all the specialists that I could trying to find someone else who could do the work for me. But the real work was inside me and after 5 years of trying almost everything I could no longer ignore it.

I slowly started to immerse myself in the work of Nicole Sachs, Dr. John Sarno, and Joe Dispenza. This led to a deeper dive into the works of Vessel van der Kolk, Gabor Mate, Kristen Neff, Hillary McBride, Bruce Lipton, Shamini Jain, and many others. I started to connect with my body and with my emotions again and found more relief than any doctor in the past had been able to give me.

I am still doing the work and I will be a forever student. I still experience pain, but I am more functional than I have ever been, and I know the rest of my healing will come with more time.

I became a certified trauma informed somatic coach with the hopes to help anyone who resonates in any way with me or my story. Additionally, I have a unique love for movement, and I am especially excited to combine this love with somatics to develop somatic movement modalities to release stress, tension, and trauma in the body. I am currently studying breathwork and different energy healing modalities to bring into my practice as well.