Stress and anxiety are natural parts of life, but when they become chronic, they can disrupt our well-being, decision-making, and capacity for joy. Many people try to “manage” stress through sheer willpower, numbing out, or avoiding discomfort, but true resilience comes from understanding and attuning to your body’s signals.

Today I am crying tears of awe and gratitude. I am remembering a tender chapter of my life. I was pregnant with my son, Alexander. I had just moved to Litchfield, Connecticut. I didn’t know anyone. I was feeling disoriented in my primary relationships. Overall, I had a strong center of who I was/am but the external world didn’t seem to reflect what I felt inside.

On Tuesday, February 25, I was a guest on an episode of Ask Herbal Health Expert Susun Weed. I’ve written at length to my email list about my relationship with Susun over the years. From my first visit for work exchange, to being a live out apprentice, to now being beloveds - my entire relationship with Susun has transformed the way I attune to myself, to plants and to tapping into human potential.

In a world that keeps pushing us to do more, be more, and ignore the signals of our own bodies, Somatic Experiencing (SE) offers a radically different approach: slowing down, tuning in, and reclaiming our natural capacity for healing. How can this innovative technique benefit you?

Discover how clarity and boundaries can transform your life. This blog dives into the foundation of personal growth and offers a free downloadable Values Alignment Guide to help you align with what truly matters. Start building your Capacity for Clarity today!

Unravel your body’s response to making healthy boundaries with yourself and others.

Order your spiral bound Seasonal Rhythms planner and initiate yourself into simple herbalism!

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Reclaiming Body Wisdom Across Generations:

My body resembles my paternal grandmother the most. I have her eyes, her hips, and her belly. As time passes, I watch my face soften, becoming more like hers...

Remember, if a plant isn’t flowering, we don’t call the plant dysfunctional by design! We check the soil. We learn when to water her, we adjust her light. We know we may have to uproot the whole pot in order to make space when she is root bound. No flower, no slow beautiful unfolding of beauty? Is there a repressed lifeforce?

The fat ladies club phone list was sticky and yellowed with nicotine. My maternal grandmother went to a weekly meeting to weigh in and see if she won the cash pot. During the rest of the week, you could find her taking long, smoky exhales while the sound of the rotary dial connected her with women from the club. 

I can only imagine the story medicine they were sharing. It is the way of women to speak their trials and triumphs to each other, to speak life into each other.

Monday, September 16 through Friday, November 1

Weekly Zoom meetings and WhatsApp Group

We will be working on shifting your mindset about what your body should look like, addressing the underlying emotions that lead to unhelpful habits, and create your individual understanding of what radiance means to you. Learn a new way to view weight loss, and develop a healthy mindset and habits that last for life.

I saw a somatic practitioner on TikTok today suggesting yoga is not a safe somatic practice. She even said it was dangerous.

The perspective that yoga is dangerous for somatic healing is counter to the supportive research on yoga, including on mental health. But I understand where she’s coming from…

“There, there…” “Oh, Nicole…” “Don’t cry…” “It’s going to be ok….” “I’m sorry it made you feel that way…”

The more we censor ourselves and each other in our grief, the more we will censor our big joy, our appropriate anger or anxieties—we will censor ourselves from life itself. We will lose the chance to celebrate lives, to let the honest sadness of loss inform us of the preciousness of our days…

When I started teaching yoga I knew that there was a missing piece to my yoga teaching practice. My sessions have typically been small groups or individual sessions which invite more conversation than a public class.

For my one-on-one sessions, there's much to know about someone’s history and how they perceive themselves. And within all sessions, there are emotions arising and meaning being made on some level.

When we have a backlog of unintegrated experiences, we need time to metabolize.

Metabolization of stress doesn’t always require more structure, more restriction and more doing the work.

Most people I speak to expect themselves to have the capacity to keep going, get it done and fix the issue nearly every minute of their lives. I get it. I thought that was the goal too.

Somatic. What does it mean?

The buzz around somatic healing is at an all time high and for good reason.

Somatic healing is feeling like you’re the whole picture on the box while you’re piecing together the rest of the puzzle…

My father once told me that transitions are where a family’s stress comes from. He said, “consider what it’s like for everyone to want to go, to be ready to go, or to even understand it’s time to go.”

That thought has been with me ever since, and as a mother, business owner, and somatic life coach, it’s an incredibly impactful reflection.

If you’re going to do anything of value you will feel the flavors of disapproval. People will judge you without knowing the full story. And they’re entitled to their judgment and opinion. Just like you are.

I feel like a bear coming out of hibernation, having done so much of my own somatic healing and deep integration and sitting before you with a root deep and thick like Burdock.

Bear is a private creature. I’ll see Bear maybe once every couple of years, even though I know he often passes through my backyard. I relate to that privacy as I choose to step out on the internet.