Embodied Compassionate Healing
A safe space for connection, compassion, and healing.
I offer a safe, supportive, and compassionate space to guide you into processing and integrating challenging experiences, reconnecting with your authentic self, and building more resilience. My hope is to support you in having an increased sense of well-being & self-worth and to expand your sense of choice and possibility in life.
Services
I offer individual sessions for adults, in person and online.
Many of my clients are looking to work through:
anxiety; constantly being on edge; overwhelm; panic attacks; phobias
depression; feeling numb, shut down; lack of motivation; procrastination
PTSD symptoms after traumatic, overwhelming, scary experiences such as: accidents, assaults, falls, invasive medical procedures, violations, etc.
developmental and attachment trauma such as: childhood neglect, abuse; not feeling seen, heard for who we are; caregivers that were emotionally unavailable; difficult birth, etc.
other childhood experiences that need to be processed and integrated
chronic stress and tension; chronic pain that does not get better with medical interventions; clenching or grinding teeth
connecting with and feeling challenging emotions
creating and maintaining boundaries
grief and loss (loss of a loved one, of relationships, of health)
support for various life challenges and transitions
About the sessions
Each session lasts 1 hour and is offered in person in Montreal, Canada, and virtually worldwide. Contact me here to book a session.
Sessions may include touch work on the massage table (Transforming Touch®), always fully clothed and with consent.
Languages spoken: English and Brazilian Portuguese.
As a registered member of the A.N.Q. (Association of Naturopaths of Quebec), I can issue receipts for private health insurance plans under Naturopathy.
Beyond Coping: Expanding Into Possibility
In my practice, I don’t see symptoms or behaviors as pathology—I see them as ways that we manage to protect, to adapt, in order to cope, to survive and to keep navigating life the best way that we can. I recognize the intelligence of our bodies and its innate ability to heal. Healing is not about fixing ourselves, it’s about expanding our capacity to move through life with greater ease, spontaneity, and choice.
By bringing more regulation to the nervous system, uncovering the strengths already within us and building tools and resources, we naturally increase access to vitality, connection, presence and a greater sense of empowerment. With a more regulated system, we can respond with more flexibility to the ordinary - and sometimes extraordinary - challenges we meet each day.
Why Somatic Therapy?
Since trauma is not in the event but rather the imprint of what happened that remains stuck in our bodies and nervous systems, it’s by working somatically - with the body and the nervous system - that trauma can be renegotiated. By working somatically, we address the source of the symptoms.
The imprints of trauma are stored not as narratives about bad things that happened to us in the past, but as physical sensations that are experienced right now. By working somatically, we can reconnect with our inner sensations and restore our inner compass.
Our rational brain does not remember everything; in fact, it often blocks or distorts experiences. Under high stress, the rational brain actually shuts down. It’s in the emotional part of our brain that the imprints of overwhelming and stressful experiences are stored. In contrast with the rational brain, which expresses itself in thoughts, the emotional brain manifests itself in physical sensations, and it’s through a somatic approach that we can directly access and process these sensations. “No matter how much insight and understanding we develop, the rational brain is basically impotent to talk the emotional brain out of its own reality.”, wrote Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score.
When working with early trauma, which often occurs during a pre-verbal stage, and when the rational brain is not fully developed, there is no reliable cognitive memory or narrative to guide us. Somatic memories and responses are our best guides.
Emotions are experienced in the body, they are communicated in facial expressions and body postures. Thoughts and emotions are accompanied by changes in muscle tension. We have a tendency to use physical defenses, such as constriction, to limit emotions to a few places in the body, as a way of coping with them. It’s by working with the body that we can develop more tolerance and increase our capacity to regulate and tolerate challenging and pleasant emotions and experiences.
“One of the clearest lessons from contemporary neuroscience is that our sense of ourselves is anchored in a vital connection with our bodies. We do not truly know ourselves unless we can feel and interpret our physical sensations.”
— Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score