I offer a safe place where you will unearth a
deeper understanding of self, strengthen your
connection with others, and increase your
capacity for joy.
We are influenced by our caregivers, our culture and ethnicity from infancy to adulthood. Our values, beliefs and attitudes are internalized in childhood and our reality is subjective. Our projected path and our view of how life is meant to be can feel safe and predictable.
Dragonfly Counselling
Somatic Experiencing is a psychobiological approach to the healing of trauma, including post traumatic stress disorder, and other stress related conditions. It is grounded in the life’s work of Dr Peter Levine spanning over four decades.
“Trauma originates as a response in the nervous system and does not originate in an event.” Peter Levine
We are hard wired for survival, our neurophysiology constantly on alert and ready for action if we sense we are in danger. Our self-protective responses: fight, flight, or freeze, are autonomic responses designed to keep us safe.
Imagine driving on a highway when suddenly someone cuts in front of you. Your nervous system moves into action. Your heart rate and blood pressure increases, blood shifts from your digestive system to your muscles to allow for quick movement, your pupils dilate all preparing the body for action. If the outcome is you are safe all of your bodily functions will return to a relaxed state. However, if you have experienced harm your nervous system may experience overwhelm, or trauma, resulting in becoming stuck most often in the freeze response.
The goal of Somatic Experiencing practice is to work with bound energy and over time allow for the persons nervous system to return to a regulated state. This work restores health, brings mindfulness to the wisdom of the body, and increases capacity for connection with others.
I have much gratitude to be able to live, work and play on the unceded territory of the WSANEC” First Nations and the Lekwungen speaking peoples of the Songhees and Esquimalt First Nations.