Relational Bodywork
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Relational bodywork is a collaborative process that includes exploring patterns of tension, bracing, fatigue, ease, comfort, and other felt sensations in the body through somatic awareness, quiet listening, and conversation. During sessions, we communicate about what areas of your body are in need of support and attention and work together to follow the messages from the body itself.
Relational bodywork is about building and strengthening your relationship with your own body-mind system as well as receiving support for nervous system co-regulation via the practitioner. It honors the body as a wise part of your complete wholeness with its own way of knowing and communicating. We practice hearing the somatic language of the body through sensation awareness, imagery, and dialogue. Therapeutic techniques may include bodywork, movement practices, body awareness practices, body-mind dialogue, and other somatic work. The modalities I use excel at working with:
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CranioSacral Therapy
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CranioSacral Therapy is a gentle, hands-on method of evaluating and enhancing the functioning of a physiological body system called the craniosacral system - comprised of the membranes and cerebrospinal fluid that surround and protect the brain and spinal cord. While this therapy may be useful for countless concerns in both the physical and energetic bodies, my practice is focused primarily on:
As a long-time bodyworker, I have found CranioSacral Therapy to be one of the gentlest, yet most powerful methods of listening to the body and communicating a message of peace throughout the deepest core of who we are on multiple levels (body, mind, emotions, spirit). |
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NeuroAffective Touch®
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NeuroAffective Touch® is a psychobiological model that integrates the therapeutic use of bodywork with somatic psychology.
Bringing compassionate presence to the body is essential to address the neural numbing, muscular bracing, and autonomic disorganization that are the physiological correlates of grief, shame, anger, and fear. The mind must learn to decode the sensory language of emotionally shocked tissues, organs, and body systems. In its own way, the body’s intelligence is equal to the mind’s and we facilitate their collaborative partnership. NeuroAffective Touch® enables the release of fear and tension in the musculature and organs and cultivates the heart connection that supports post-traumatic growth. |
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Integrative Energy Medicine
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Energy medicine is offered as a stand alone service and can also be integrated into any other session. These methods are subtle, yet powerful, helping to increase our sense of well-being, encouraging our ability to release tension, and offering gentle support in our efforts to re-pattern healthier, happier ways of being.
I have been studying energy medicine since childhood and continue to be amazed at its paradoxical simplicity and complexity. During sessions, I may include techniques from eclectic methods as taught by Cyndi Dale, Polarity Therapy, medical qigong, Shamanic practices as taught by Alberto Villoldo, Pranic Healing®, and other methods. |
Yoga
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I began practicing yoga in 1993, started teaching in 2005, and have completed over 700 hours of formal yoga teacher training including studies in Thai Yoga Bodywork. I weave yoga philosophy into all of my work. My focus is on somatic education, building body-mind connection, and accessing inner wisdom. I always emphasize well-informed, safe mobility work, strength and stability, self-awareness, and slow, steady progress that nourishes the body.
I have had specialized training in Viniyoga, trauma-informed yoga, restorative yoga, and yoga nidra. These styles and methods help support our ability to get to to know our own bodies and nervous systems and help build our interoceptive and proprioceptive skills. We may weave in balance work, exploring resistance, trampoline work, and other embodiment supports into our practices. Props such as blankets, bolsters, chairs, balls, and other tools are readily available. I am well versed in developing safe yoga practices for those with EDS and other concerns around hypermobility, physical injuries, neurological challenges such as with MS, trauma histories, and other complex health concerns. In the somatically-focused style of yoga I offer, it's about the experience of embodiment and what we learn through the process. It's not about the "postures." Please have no worries if you are new to movement practices of if you don't consider yourself to be "flexible." If you can breathe, think, and feel, you can do this kind of yoga. I also use the tools of yoga to support personal transformation through health coaching based on yoga philosophy. Your yoga practice will be tailored to your needs and preferences and may include any combination of personal development work, education, movement, breath practices, and other methods. |
I have studied with many teachers over the years. This is the lineage of my primary teachers:
Tirumalai Krishnamacharya > T.K.V. Desikachar > Gary Kraftsow & Richard Miller > Mary Hilliker & Michelle Young > Myself |
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Somatic Experiencing®
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Somatic Experiencing (SE™) is a body-oriented therapeutic model applied in multiple professions and professional settings—psychotherapy, medicine, coaching, teaching, and physical therapy—for healing trauma and other stress disorders. It is based on a multidisciplinary intersection of physiology, psychology, ethology, biology, neuroscience, indigenous healing practices, and medical biophysics and has been clinically applied for more than four decades. It is the life’s work of Dr. Peter A. Levine.
The SE approach releases traumatic shock, which is key to transforming PTSD and the wounds of emotional and early developmental attachment trauma. It offers a framework to assess where a person is “stuck” in the fight, flight or freeze responses and provides clinical tools to resolve these fixated physiological states. SE provides effective skills appropriate to a variety of healing professions including mental health, medicine, physical and occupational therapies, bodywork, addiction treatment, first response, education, and others. Trauma may begin as acute stress from a perceived life-threat or as the end product of cumulative stress. Both types of stress can seriously impair a person’s ability to function with resilience and ease. Trauma may result from a wide variety of stressors such as accidents, invasive medical procedures, sexual or physical assault, emotional abuse, neglect, war, natural disasters, loss, birth trauma, or the corrosive stressors of ongoing fear and conflict. The Somatic Experiencing approach facilitates the completion of self-protective motor responses and the release of thwarted survival energy bound in the body, thus addressing the root cause of trauma symptoms. This is approached by gently guiding clients to develop increasing tolerance for difficult bodily sensations and suppressed emotions. |
Plant Medicine & Flower Essences
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My style of plant medicine offers botanical support primarily through the use of handcrafted flower essences and tinctures. We incorporate acupuncture theory, energy medicine concepts, and somatic awareness practices to help restore the body's flow of life force energy. This work supports you in bringing attention to your own inner experiences with the assistance of plant medicine.
Plants have been our guides and helpers as long as humans have walked on the planet. They possess the ability to remind us how to flow through life smoothly again when energy and emotions become stuck and stagnant. Plant medicine can be especially useful when a person is in a life transition, when doing self-healing and growth work, or whenever we have the desire to simply feel nourished. The plants provide subtle, yet powerful support to help you along your path as you quest to peel off the layers of "not you" in order to express more of who you are with clarity and confidence. I love working with this wisdom of plants and have been studying this medicine since childhood. I studied plant medicine formally in graduate school and have also trained with many other herbalists over the years. I love to forage and wildcraft and also spent 5 years working on an organic herb farm, truly getting to know these amazing beings! |
Some of my plant medicine teachers:
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Microsystems Therapies
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Microsystems theories examine how one part of who we are represents and communicates with other parts. Some of the most well known modalities that utilize this way of looking at the body include systems based on theories such as acupuncture and reflexology. These systems view parts of the body such as the feet, hands, scalp, abdomen, and ears as mirrors that can reflect and influence other areas.
This is also known as holographic representation. While the specific theories between modalities can differ, at its core, this means is that smaller parts contain the same wisdom and patterns of the whole. In East Asian Medicine, humans are seen as a smaller representation (microcosm) of the universe (the macrocosm). This means humans carry within them, a reflection of the organizational intelligence of the greater universe. Based on the same way of thinking, the feet, for example, carry within them the organizational intelligence of the rest of the entire body. Microsystems therapy excels at offering tools for relaxation, pain management, and a holistic form of whole body support. Going beyond physical symptoms, deeper into the foundational theories of these healing modalities, we also see how emotions, thoughts, personal challenges, and spiritual learning experiences manifest in the body. As such, these methods are also useful for quieting the mind, accessing inner wisdom, and supporting personal growth. I have been studying reflexology since childhood and acupuncture theory since 2005. I resonate most with Alchemical Acupuncture, Abdominal Acupuncture, Japanese Acupuncture, and Esoteric Acupuncture theories. I have done intensive, advanced studies of acupuncture to gain a deeper understanding of eclectic energy medicine practices and am credentialed at state and national levels. |
"The world is full of magic, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper."
~ W.B. Yeats
~ W.B. Yeats
Artema Somatics LLC | Center for Embodiment Studies™
800 Wilson Avenue, Suite 51
Menomonie, WI 54751
800 Wilson Avenue, Suite 51
Menomonie, WI 54751
