Somatic Leadership & Communication Coaching for Women Leaders

If you’re unfamiliar with somatic coaching, you may be wondering what ‘somatic’ means, especially in the leadership space.

Somatics comes from the Greek word somatikos, meaning “living” or “bodily”, with the idea that the mind and body are not separate from one another.

In other words, the body is not just an object that shuttles our brain and other important organs around, while passively responding to our external environments and the commands that our mind doles out. Rather, as research has shown (including my own doctoral work), action is fundamental to our mental processes and behaviours. Our bodies hold much more information and influence than we may be giving them credit for.

So how does that relate to being high achievers and to our roles as leaders?
Often times, we are so busy and overwhelmed that our natural inclination is to think, react, and make decisions from the neck up. We fall back into old habits and ways of working that once helped us (and kept us safe) but now hold us back from reaching our goals at work, in relationships, and in our communities and society at large. And when we do finally put some time aside to address important issues, we soon discover that talking things out or trying to think our way out of things is just not effective enough for the long-term change that we want to see.

So, instead of talking or thinking our way through things, somatic coaching helps us build greater bodily awareness—and with this awareness comes greater choice, autonomy, and desirable change. This isn’t ‘soft’ skills. It’s building real human skills by attending to the science and intelligence of our mind AND body. By engaging in personalized practices, you’ll learn to deconstruct and dissolve old unconscious thought/feeling/behavioural patterns and instead embody new habits and ways of being that will help you speak up, communicate confidently, and move through life the way that you want to when faced with the same old pressures. This is how somatic coaching produces powerful long-term transformations.

Coaching sessions can cover topics such as:
— communication skills and confidence
— cultivating greater leadership presence
— burnout and overwhelm
— people pleasing, perfectionism
— racialization, genderization, sexualization
— systemic stress
— setting boundaries
— feeling disconnected from oneself and/or others
— decision-making
— mental/emotional/physical well-being
— self-compassion
— career goals
— creative pursuits
— navigating change and transitions
— building resilience
— exploring vision and values
— creating work-life balance
— having difficult conversations

What soundtrack is playing?
Our individual motifs are like riffs or sounds that can sometimes be silent, soft, beautiful, repetitive, dissonant, clamorously loud, and everything in between; but no matter what, they are always present even if we don’t consciously hear them. They deeply influence and are deeply interwoven into our feelings, reflections, motivations, behaviours, perceptions, thought patterns, and decision-making processes. This impacts the day-to-day rhythm of our lives with the inevitable ebb and flow of uncertainties, rewards, and challenges that shape our stories and experiences.

Just as a skilled musician understands the importance of each note and rest, effective embodied leadership coaching is a transformative process that will help you identify your conditioned patterns, dismantle them, and intentionally create a balanced composition of skills and strategies that are useful for where you are and where you want to go in life right now. I will support you in this through non-directive coaching; that is, instead of telling you what to do, I will provide a safe, challenging, and uplifting space for reflection and exploration, and we will partner closely together to find answers and develop practices that are specifically created for your goals. Only then can these solutions align with your own vision and values, leading to a more meaningful, fulfilling, and sustainable life.

Some of the words my clients have used to describe me and my sessions are:
safe, calm, grounding, professional, playful, empowering, focused, giving space, ‘surfing the wave’, supportive, deeply transformative, more helpful than therapy, magical, unexpected, non-judgemental, able to share things never shared before, eye-opening, life-changing, unlocking a new level, connected, collaborative, natural, resourceful, creative, compassionate, present, and genuine.