Embodied Heart Somatics

This is one of the reasons I love living in Maine. The beauty, and also the warmth of the community here.

Getting outside and being with the trees, ocean, rocks, mycelium, and vibrant colors has been a steadying force in this frenetic, unpredictability of the sociopolitical climate.

And... I will be sharing some exciting news soon about my practice. Stay tuned.

And reach out for a somatic therapy session if you're needing some support right now.

What an awesome experience last night with ArtVan at Maine Art Collective!

I loved this gathering with other gifted expressive arts therapists, two of whom I was surprised to learn also graduated from Lesley University's Expressive Arts Therapy program!

It was such a nourishing conversation about how creative art is vital for well-being. I was honored to share about the benefits of dance/movement therapy and body-based psychotherapy.

And it was a great opportunity to support Art Van - a local nonprofit that makes art accessible to underserved communities.

Please follow ArtVan and support them!

I hope you’ll join me this Thursday evening at Maine Art Collective where I’ll be participating in a panel discussion alongside other local artists and art therapists!

I’ll be touching on the benefits of dance/movement therapy, including…

✨ How healing can happen through direct experience, not just explanation, and how somatic therapy can expand upon talk therapy.

✨ How dance is for every body, regardless of ability, experience, or background.

✨ How the body has a language of its own.

✨ How body-based approaches can support recovery from chronic pain.

This event is in collaboration with ArtVan - a local nonprofit that brings art therapy to underserved communities.

The event is FREE!

I hope you’ll join us for this lovely community event! 💛

I wanted to quickly introduce myself again since it has been a while.

I'm Catherine (she/her). I am a dancer, somatic therapist, and lover of the outdoors.

I companion people who long to understand themselves more deeply—people living with anxiety, trauma, chronic pain, sensitivity, illness, or loss—as they find their way back into deeper relationship with themselves and the wholeness already within them.

My approach is rooted in presence, attunement, and a deep respect for the intelligence of the body.

Rather than trying to fix what feels broken, we slow down and listen.

We become curious about symptoms, patterns, and protective responses—not as problems to overcome, but as meaningful expressions of something within us that is asking to be understood.

I believe that the body carries both the imprint of what we have lived through and the wisdom of what we need.

Trauma, unmet developmental needs, chronic stress, pain, and experiences of oppression can shape the ways we protect ourselves and move through the world.

These protections developed for good reasons.

In our work together, we create a compassionate and collaborative space where they can be met with curiosity rather than judgment, and where new possibilities can gradually emerge.

I am a Certified Hakomi Practitioner and Licensed Massage Therapist, a Certified Pain Reprocessing Therapy Practitioner, and trained in somatic movement education.

I am currently completing my Master’s degree in Mental Health Counseling at Lesley University, specializing in Dance/Movement Therapy.

My work is particularly informed by Hakomi’s principles of mindfulness, nonviolence, and trust in the organic unfolding of each person’s inner wisdom.

Summer in Maine, 2026. What a good one!

I'm grateful for the ocean, and for my friends in the dance community here in Portland who help me remember how to play!

I'm grateful for the completion of my second summer residency for graduate school, and for my amazing cohort of heart-centered Dance/Movement Therapy peers!

As we move toward the autumn equinox, and I step into an internship supporting bereaved parents and grieving children, I am grateful for the tiers of support from my peers and supervisors who are here to hold me as I do this work.

I'm grateful to be surrounded with a lot of love during this chapter of my life. Thanks y'all!

When we take away being alone in our experience, a greater opening can begin to unfold. We begin to experience being held in a wider container of safety.

These are the basics of trauma recovery: processing the overwhelm in tolerable amounts within a container of relational safety so that the unintegrated trauma response that lives in the body can be metabolized.

The unconscious will not release its protections until there’s established trust that safety is consistently available. This is why trauma and chronic illness persist without needs getting met. And this is why community and a circle of support is vital.

Friendships and chosen family are deep balm to those of us who did not experience a sense of belonging during our upbringing, family of origin, or who currently don't feel welcome or safe in this society.

I do this work because I know what it's like to suffer with chronic illness and complex trauma. I have the lived experience, and I have learned many hard lessons and tools along the way.

It's important to me to cultivate spaces of healing and safety in this world, and that's what I intend to bring into my work with others.

When we don’t feel safety in belonging, it’s hard for the nervous system to truly allow for yielding into a wider support. You can think of this physiologically and metaphorically. The first need we have when we come into this world as infants is to be received, welcomed, and held.

Yielding is the first basic developmental movement pattern.

Before effectively pushing, reaching, grasping, or satiating - the foundation of those efforts must come from a fully embodied trust in the safety to yield.

When that doesn't occur, our efforts are fragmented and often filled with tension or disembodied collapse.

When basic safety and belonging don’t fully greet us as infants, the developing autonomic nervous system is the first line of defense. We either yield into the available support, or we physically and psychologically contract.

The basic, unconscious question “Am I welcome here?”, and primal protection that develops when we are not welcome remains embodied at the foundation of the nervous system as the brain, lived experience, and protective strategies become more complex as a person develops.

This primal protection is embodied as an implicit memory – not a memory that we explicitly remember the details of, but more of a fragmented sensory experience of emptiness, loneliness, and fear that’s often clouded by symptoms - mental, emotional, and physical.

When we don’t feel welcome, we pull away from the present experience. We pull away from the body. Dissociation and the flight response become our good friends in the moment of needing to protect ourselves from an unwelcoming environment, yet hold us back later in life when we desire more presence, connection, and self-trust.

This is why having a marginalized identity and/or developmental trauma requires not just internal individual work, but collective social justice, and community healing.

Hakomi offers a unique doorway into accessing the unconscious and implicit memories stored in the body—things we can’t simply think our way through or reach through talking alone.

Instead of pushing or analyzing, we create a mindful, attuned space where the nervous system feels safe enough to reveal and shift long-held patterns.

In a Hakomi session, we work experientially with old, protective patterns the body holds in the present moment so that they can be witnessed and reorganized in real time.

This leads to more meaningful, longer-lasting transformation.

Go to my bye-oh!