Somatic Bodywork
Trauma-sensitive bodywork with breath, movement and mindful touch – for what your body is still holding.
4 sessions · €800
Each session is approx. 2 hours · In personNot through analysing, but through feeling.
“Soma” is Greek for the living body, as you experience it from within. Somatic bodywork turns attention to exactly this: how your body feels from the inside, where it holds tension and how it responds to breath, movement and touch.
Unlike a classic massage, the focus is not primarily on the muscles but on your nervous system. Much tension is a protective response your body once needed. In somatic work we meet it with awareness and patience instead of pushing it away: not through telling, but through feeling.
Trauma is not what happens to you, it's what happens inside you as a result of what happens to you.
Gabor MatéWhen your nervous system stays in survival mode
Survival mode is your nervous system’s natural response to threat. It is meant to be temporary: activate, respond, return to rest.
But when stress never fully settles or keeps repeating, your nervous system never gets the signal that it can let go. It simply stays on. Over time this becomes the new normal. You stop noticing it as stress; it just feels like who you are.
Your nervous system can protect you in different ways. Perhaps you recognise yourself in one of them, or in several.
Wired (Fight or flight)
You are always busy and constantly tense. Your mind never stops planning, and even in quiet moments your body stays on alert.
Switched off (Freeze)
You can tell your story, clearly and calmly, yet without feeling anything. Or you feel tired, empty and cut off.
Adapting (Fawn)
You sense immediately what others need, but hardly what you need yourself.
These are not flaws, but wise protective mechanisms of your nervous system.
Why it takes time
That is why thinking about it differently changes little. The shift needs the body, because that is where the stress is held. A walk or a few deep breaths can calm you for the moment, but they don’t teach your nervous system that it is safe to let go. That takes repeated experience: your body learning again and again that it may come down from high alert. This is why we work over several sessions.
Perhaps you already recognised yourself above. Or perhaps you know this:
You often feel exhausted or without drive, even though everything is basically fine.
You feel cut off from yourself and your emotions.
Your body stays tense even though you want to rest.
You are going through an emotionally difficult time and feel how much it weighs on you.
You often feel alone or withdraw, even when people are around you.
You have understood a lot in your mind, but your body is still holding on.
You would rather swallow tears, anger or sadness than show them, and sometimes you no longer know what you are actually feeling.
You keep reaching for something so you don’t have to feel: food, work, your phone, alcohol, constant busyness or other things that numb you for a while.
You long for a deeper connection with your body, your aliveness and your inner voice.
How a session unfolds
Arriving & personal conversation
We begin with time to arrive and talk about how you are, what is present right now and what you would like from the session.
Arriving in the body
Through breath and awareness you move out of your head and more into your body. We notice where tension or tightness shows up.
The bodywork
With breath, dynamic movement, mindful touch and trigger points I guide you in sensing protective tension in your body and giving it space – at your own pace.
Rest & integration
Afterwards there is time to rest and feel. Your nervous system is given space to settle again.
Closing & reflection
Finally we look together at what has come up and what you would like to take into your everyday life.
What can shift
Feeling safe
Your nervous system shifts from survival mode towards more calm, safety and connection.
From isolation to connection
As your nervous system feels safer, it becomes easier to open up and allow real closeness and connection with others, instead of withdrawing.
Finding relief
Stress, tension, exhaustion and overwhelm become noticeably lighter.
Letting the old move
What your body holds from past experiences begins to move and makes room for something new.
Awakening intuition
As your life force flows more freely, your connection to your intuition and inner wisdom grows.
Deepening body connection
Through breath, movement and energy you sense your body more fully again.
Finding clarity within
Answers that don’t arise in the mind show up through feeling.
Releasing tension patterns
Protective tension that has settled in over the years can soften, and breath and movement gain more space again.
Posture & energy flow
As tension and contraction ease, your posture and energy flow change, and you feel lighter and more open.
I know this myself. For a long time I had understood many of my patterns in my mind, and still they kept repeating. My body was still holding on to what my mind had long understood.
Only when I began to work through the body did something truly start to change, and little by little I was able to experience more safety in my own body. This is the experience I want to pass on, with my experience as a breathwork facilitator, the knowledge from my training as a Somatic Alignment Practitioner and a great deal of care for whatever you bring with you.
Your pace. Your boundaries. Your choice.
Working in a trauma-sensitive way means your nervous system sets the frame. I listen closely to the signals of your body – your breath, tension, whatever is showing up – and make sure you feel safe at all times. Nothing has to happen, and we only go as far as feels right for you. Before I touch you, we talk about it, and you can pause, change something or stop at any time.
Every session follows what is present right now. You don’t need to arrive with a clear topic or be able to explain anything.
Somatic Bodywork · Somatic Alignment
4 sessions
approx. 2 hours per session
€800
In person
Sessions take place in person, wherever I am at the time. Where I am right now and which dates are available, just ask.
Not sure yet whether this work is right for you? Let’s find out together in a free, no-obligation intro call (20 min, via video).
Book an intro callThis bodywork does not replace psychotherapy or medical treatment.
Safety is not the absence of threat, it is the presence of connection.
Gabor Maté