My Relationship with Soma

To me, the body—or soma—is more than a physical structure. It is a living field of intelligence and presence experienced from within. When we slow down and turn inward, the soma reveals layers of emotion, memory, and innate wisdom that words and intellect alone can’t reach.

Somatic therapy, while rooted in science, honours the many layered complexity of being human. As somatic pioneer Andrea Olsen reminds us, “The body is both simple and complex; its study involves both fact and mystery.” In my work, I meet body, emotion, mind, and spirit as interconnected expressions of wholeness so that therapy can bring about meaningful and lasting change. Click HERE for practical information about working with me.

Re-membering Wholeness — My Kintsugi Story

My path to somatic therapy began with a personal unraveling. In my mid-twenties, while at university, I experienced a mental health crisis that became the opening to a deeper healing. I embarked on my healing journey and found healing in nature: working the land, learning from those who lived with seasonal rhythms, weaving baskets, and growing food. Through these daily, physical rituals, I unknowingly began an embodied journey of  reconnection to myself.

Later, motherhood deepened this embodiment. The years that followed, practicing and teaching yoga and meditation confirmed the importance to health and healing of movement and breath, internalising awareness, connecting to the underlying mystery of Life.  Slowly, I came to feel my belonging, not just to myself but also to the world.

My Professional Path

My formal somatic training began with Hanna Somatics—a neurophysiological approach to re-patterning muscular tension, and expanded through workshops with teachers like Kate Ellis and Lisa Peterson. Eventually, I committed to a three-year training with the Institute of Integrative Bodywork and Movement Therapy (IBMT), integrating Body-Mind Centering, Authentic Movement, and Somatic Psychology. Developed by Somatic pioneer Linda Hartley, the programme supports the unfolding of process through the body, and the cultivation of awareness, clarity and compassion in the therapeutic relationship.

This training ignited a passion for exploring how our earliest experiences—conception, birth, infancy—shape the nervous system and our sense of self. I went on to study Pre- and Perinatal Psychology with Cherionna Menzam-Sills, a profound deepening of my practice both personally and professionally. It allowed me to recognise how we shape ourselves according to the conditions which we meet, our family, society and culture and then carry this identification, along with any adaptive patterns, forward into our adult life. Out of the early years context our adaptive styles can look like personality or pathology - my curiosity is to meet the core essence of who you are which may have become obscured along the way.

A Somatic Approach to Therapy

I like to think that my personal journey to Somatic therapy supports me to meet you in the wholeness you are. If you feel drawn to explore this approach, please get in touch. I offer a no obligation phone call to discuss what you’re looking for and answer the questions you may have.

To conclude, here are reflections from Psychotherapist and Grief Activist Francis Weller, ‘It is important to remember that emptiness is not a reflection of personal failing but a symptom of a wider loss. The personal and the planetary are inseparable, as is our healing. Our broken hearts have the potential to open us to a wider sense of identity’.

I look forward to speaking with you.

Click HERE to view my therapists page for practical information about working with me.

Email: ali@thesomarooms.co.uk

Mobile: 07883678629