Why I Shifted From Parent Coaching to Somatic Experiencing

I had spent four years working as a parent coach before I even came across Somatic Experiencing. Prior to that, I was a stay-at-home mum to two young daughters with a dream to spread the message of conscious parenting, and I did just that in a relatively short period of time.

One of my career highs was being invited to support a UK-based celebrity with her daughter, to be filmed for her reality TV show. I remember being wracked with nerves as I said yes to travelling down to Essex with very little time to prepare. The desire to spread awareness around conscious parenting was greater than my nerves and I still have so much gratitude for having that opportunity especially as some of my longer-term clients found me from that three-minute snippet of me on the show.

(behind the scenes filming summer 2021)

In my years as a parenting coach, I also enjoyed sharing parenting content on my Instagram account and built a nice little following of like-minded people who also wanted to break generational parenting patterns. The only intention with that account was to share personal insights, professional teachings, and to encourage people to take steps to be the parent their child needs them to be. I never sold online courses, PDF guides, or webinars, my mission was to spread awareness, not generate money.

Then something changed pretty much overnight. (Lots happened in between, but I might share that in a future article, or I may not.)

Fast forward to embarking on training as a Somatic Experiencing practitioner. I remember the first week’s module in London and learning about titration and pendulation, and how to work safely with clients. A huge light bulb went off - I knew I could not go back to working with people as a parent coach in the way that I had spent years doing.

training - Amnesty international london

Trauma can be described as something that is “too much, too soon, too fast,” and the Somatic Experiencing approach is “slower is faster and less is more.”

Parents were already incredibly overwhelmed they did not need more books, podcasts, or Instagram posts. They did not need someone telling them to follow “x, y, z” (not to mention, since this profound aha moment, ChatGPT and other AI platforms have suddenly become a thing. I can only imagine how many hours and late nights a parent spends talking to ChatGPT asking for parenting help!).

I knew as soon as I came back from that first module that my whole business was going to shift. For any new clients who reached out to me during that time period, I was honest with them I told them, “Yes, we can work on parenting and the issues you have with your children, and I’m also in a transitional phase as I’m training in Somatic Experiencing, so we will be focusing on your nervous system first.” And fortunately for me, these clients trusted me some of whom are still with me today, and others who took what they learned and did incredible things (I still feel very fondly about these clients).

At this point, I already had a year of weekly personal Somatic Experiencing sessions under my belt. I felt calmer. I felt more at peace in my body, which translated into how I felt sitting in the practitioner seat which was a huge change from how I sometimes felt as a parent coach.

As a parent coach, I had learned the theory, I had the workbooks, I knew what the window of tolerance was and what the different nervous system pathways were, yet at that point I hadn’t had that felt experience of nervous system co-regulation, which I later received from my wonderful Somatic Experiencing practitioner. Four and a half years later, and I still sit in the client chair with him. I attribute a lot of my professional way of working to what I’ve learned first-hand from being a client more so than what I learned on professional trainings.

I completed my SE training last June, and it was difficult letting that chapter end. I have met some lifelong friends and colleagues, and we went on a deep journey together that no one outside of those four walls of the training room will understand. Some of the healing that took place was so personal and profound that it is not translatable into words. It also was a huge time and money investment. I remember being told on our last day that we had completed training to the highest level in trauma and that we were now “trauma experts.” I still wouldn’t consider myself that, as I look up to my trainers and mentors who have decades of experience under their belts and can only aspire to be as educated and experienced as they are (the work never stops).

April from Synergy Somatics and I on our final day of training - a mixture of elation and exhaustion! Shoreditch, London

April from Synergy Somatics, Jon Rees - fantastic friends and colleagues on one of our winter modules spent in London.

Which then also makes me think about how problematic “Somatics” in the social media space is now becoming, as everyone with an internet connection can call themselves a “trauma-informed nervous system practitioner/expert,” which is unethical, unsafe, and also undermines those that have invested a lot to have that title. Viral videos of people “shaking out trauma from their hips” or “screaming from mountaintops” is not what Somatic Experiencing is about. My friend and colleauge April actually wrote a fantastic article you can find here on "why the body shakes during trauma work and why focusing on the hips only wont heal trauma" - click here to read:

I reiterate: “slower is faster and less is more.” SE works with the natural impulses that arise, and if a client shared with me they had an impulse to scream, we would slow that right down and perhaps start with working with the image of screaming whilst tracking what their body is doing, you would be surprised what comes up through image alone!

For myself, I’ve had to question my boundaries around social media, and I don’t believe it’s possible to convey how profound Somatic Experiencing is through reels or posts. It’s a bit like watching a stunning sunset on holiday and trying to explain how beautiful it was, the photo, the words - they wouldn’t quite do it justice. It’s one of those “you had to be there” moments. It’s also one of those moments that was just for you and those that were lucky enough to share it with you. Some things, I believe, we just need to keep sacred for ourselves and we don’t need to share everything with the world.

The thought of being on social media platforms gave me a stomach-churning dread so I listened to it. Even the thought of reposting someone’s business offering (which I’ve always loved to support other businesses) or sharing an article created such physical nausea inside me that I just decided to delete the app altogether that was 14 months ago. And today is my first day posting since then, so I guess my relationship with social media has shifted a lot since then.

The more somatically aware I was becoming, the more I was able to track these things. I noticed when something overwhelmed me, whether it was people, places, events, or online platforms. I used the physical somatic markers as signs and took my time to learn from them. Realising I’d likely spent a whole lifetime masking out, numbing out, and freezing over what I really felt.

I think that’s why it’s sometimes difficult to make change when we are just approaching things from a “head level,” where we are constantly overriding our bodies and our nervous systems. I remember buying a book years ago on “how to quit using your phone,” and I read it from front to back, yet was still addicted to the dopamine hits my phone gave me. I was working with head knowledge, not my body.

Much of how I approach things now isn’t from what I’ve read in a book (or what I’ve asked ChatGPT), more so it’s what I’ve felt and embodied.

One of my main messages time and time again over the years, which I think echoes Dr Gabor Maté, is: “At the root of all suffering is disconnection.”

And as one slowly heals their suffering, they slowly heal the disconnect.

The more connected we become to ourselves, the more we connect to the environment around us, and we can intuitively move towards what regulates us whether that’s feeling your feet on the earth, using the sun as a co-regulator, or enjoying the simplicity of staring at beautiful trees. (Can you tell I’m in the garden right now?)

My clients who trusted me during my career transition, who initially wanted support for their children, slowly realised the more they focused on their own nervous system regulation, the more things naturally shifted with their children without having to follow a script or a prescribed list of “how-to’s.” I’ve noticed the same to be true with my own children and even my cat! You might have even heard that plants tend to thrive the more regulated someone is. It’s true.

As I now work daily in the nervous system space and have the incredible honour of sitting with people from all walks of life and different backgrounds (not just parents!), I see and feel the quiet ripple effect of Somatic Experiencing. I saw it on my training with my colleagues. There would be people who just “felt” different in year 1. You could feel their dysregulation, their protective parts, their bracing, the parts that turned away from connection. And as each module passed (and more personal healing that was done behind closed doors), you could feel the shift in them. They were more warm, open, embodied, welcoming, connected - I wish we could have done video diary entries on each module to see the shift!

What I now know is that change rarely happens through insight alone. It happens slowly, through safety, repetition, relationship, and the body learning that it no longer needs to brace in the same way. This isn’t to say parent coaching doesn’t have its place. I know some fantastic parent coaches doing some wonderful work. The diffeeence for myself is now I can teach top down (cognitive processing) and bottom up (body based) approaches to nervous system regulation!

And this is the work I now dedicate myself to supporting that quiet return to connection.

Thank you for reading and for being here.

My daughter and I last weekend. A constant reminder of my own inner child.