Work With Me
“The body has been designed to renew itself through continuous self-correction. These same principles also apply to the healing of psyche, spirit, and soul.”
Dr. Peter Levine
SOMATIC = OF THE BODY
Somatic healing restores the connection between you and your body, bringing you home to your innate power.
The foundation of my work is Somatic Experiencing, a highly effective model of healing developed by Dr. Peter Levine. Some of the practices we utilize are nervous system regulation, parts work, inner child healing, shamanic soul and power retrieval, mindfulness, guided meditation, visualization, and self-compassion practices to assist you in healing on every level of your being.
The goal of our work together is to restore sovereignty, resilience, groundedness, emotional stability and regulation, presence, personal power, boundaries, healthy relationships with yourself and others, and a renewed trust and faith in life.
Somatic Experiencing is a body-centered therapeutic healing modality. This internationally recognized approach focuses on helping you release stored tension, stress, energy, and trauma held in the body. Unlike cognitive approaches like traditional talk therapy, Somatic Experiencing brings awareness to the sensations, fluctuations, movements, and responses of the body. This enables you to learn the unique language of your own body.
Somatic Experiencing places most of its emphasis on working with the nervous system to resolve chronic stress, emotional dysregulation, and trauma. The nervous system is responsible for how we respond to life every single day. If your nervous system is dysregulated, you may feel overwhelmed, anxious, stressed, depressed, or shut down. In our work together, the goal is to achieve emotional regulation, which helps you to be more able to manage the stresses of daily life without overwhelm or collapse.
Through our work together I help you become literate in reading the signs of your body so you can feel more embodied, and empowered, experience life beyond survival mode, build confidence to advocate for your needs, have agency over your life, and build a strong and resilient sense of self that enables you to move through the ever-changing tides of life with ease.
“Allow the body to discharge its bound energy and embrace what is, the organism’s natural self-regulation.”
Sakti Rose
You are here because you want to experience a deep and authentic connection with yourself and your intimates.
You are ready to come home to the soft ground of your body, that houses your inherent goodness and power.
You are eager to dismantle old trauma and fear so that you can embody the fullness of your being.
You are willing and ready to face unresolved pain and challenging emotions to liberate yourself from the past.
You are devoted to learning to reparent your wounded inner child so that you can feel safe, accepted, held, loved, and protected.
You are ready to accept personal responsibility as the creator of your life so that you can fully align with who you truly are.
I know how challenging it can be to navigate life and keep your head above water, especially as a trauma survivor.
So many of us feel that we are broken and need ‘fixing’ just because we sometimes struggle.
The truth is that there is nothing wrong with you at all, and my job is to help you fully realize that so that you can create a life that serves and supports who you truly are.
Does Any of This Sound Like You?
You are emotionally dysregulated and ungrounded
You feel stressed out much of the time
You struggle with anxiety or depression
You tend to neglect your own needs
You have trouble saying no
You’re exhausted from constantly over-extending yourself
You have a harsh inner critic and lean toward perfectionism
You feel overwhelmed by day-to-day tasks
You struggle with chronic feelings of not-enoughness
You settle for less than you desire and deserve
You want to learn to set healthy boundaries in your relationships
You want to feel like who you are and what you do is enough
You want to learn to embody your worth
You want to believe in yourself enough to be loyal to your vision for your life
You want to learn to manage your emotions in a better way
You are ready to make big changes in your life
I Totally Get It
For most of my life, I never felt safe or worthy, so I tried to mold myself into what I thought would be pleasing to others, and I settled for way less than I deserved or wanted for myself. In addition, for decades I attempted to escape my pain through any means possible, which only created more pain for me. It took time to learn a new way to live, but I finally learned to come back to my body, creating a sense of safety there, and learned to create boundaries to keep me safe, to make decisions that were healthy for me, and to tend to and respect my own needs. I learned my true worth and to never settle for less than I truly deserve.
I found a way to accept what happened and what didn’t happen in my life, accept the choices I have made and where I've been, see myself as a powerful, resilient woman, and live a life of choice, creativity, freedom, and joy without bypassing my pain and humanness.
Now I help others to do the same.
What I do in my work is to help you unwind from the patterns of belief, thought, habituated responses, and ways of being that no longer serve you. I am not here to fix you or save you. I am here to support you and guide you in learning a new way to live that allows you to fully be your unique self…a way of living and relating that is based on compassion, love, understanding, and acceptance of who you truly are so that you can reclaim your power in every aspect of your life.
Stop Settling For Scraps
Settling for scraps...
that old conditioning
that tells you lie after lie
to keep you small, fearful & complacent.
Making you feel as if you’re not enough,
making you feel like you don’t have what it takes
to create the life that you desire.
When you fear that you may receive nothing at all
if you ask for too much,
YOU SETTLE.
When you settle for whatever comes along,
& you settle for less than you truly want and deserve,
you give your power away, & you remain…
Fearful
Stunted
Desperate
Disempowered
Impoverished
Like a beggar, taking scraps, when you should be sitting
Like a Queen on your throne
In your castle
Full of riches.
VISION A NEW WAY OF BEING
A way of life where you feel deeply connected to yourself.
You feel safe, grounded, and able to live honestly and authentically.
You know that your relationship with yourself is the key to your well-being and you put yourself and your needs first without guilt.
You stand in your full embodied power without shrinking or compromising your vision for your life.
You are discerning and only allow things in your life that feel supportive and good to you.
You can hold your boundaries with others easily and without apology.
You are deeply connected to your body. You move at a slower pace so that you can hear its subtle messages and cues.
You are in tune with yourself and nature.
You feel resilient, courageous, and confident in who you are.
You are sensitive, and you are connected with your emotional world.
You feel everything deeply without being overwhelmed by your emotions.
You see yourself, accept yourself, honor yourself, and love yourself completely.
You know yourself as a whole person and are aligned with your highest expression.
You feel capable and confident, able to fulfill the dreams and visions you have for your life.
You enjoy your life and make time for play and creativity.
You do the things that make you feel most alive and vibrant.
You raise your standards and only accept people and situations into your life that feel aligned and good to you.
CLIENT TESTIMONIAL
“This woman changed my life. If you are ready to do some REAL work on yourself and lead a healthy life then she's the person to go to. With truth as the guiding force, Kara provided me with tools to help deal with extreme anxiety. With a rough upbringing, I have sought counseling throughout my life which is probably upwards of over 20 practitioners and I have to say her approach has been the most successful out of them all.”
Amber M.
SOMATIC HEALING OFFERS A PATH OF SLOW, SUSTAINABLE GROWTH
The relationship between coach and client is a powerful one that offers a space of co-regulation and safety, which is vital on the healing path, especially with healing trauma. In addition, there is a sense that we are a team, working together to help you to heal and grow. Working together in a focused way over a period of time provides a sense of safety and containment that is necessary for healing to occur. The nervous system is sensitive and easily overwhelmed, so we move slowly to achieve lasting results and permanent transformation. There truly is no quick fix to healing and overcoming the habitual patterns and coping mechanisms that are parts of trauma.
This work is about healing your relationship with yourself and your life. For so many of us, our ways of being have been to run from challenging emotions, sensations, and situations, and to rush through things, both of which only further cement feelings of unsafety and fear, keeping us stuck and bound to past trauma.
As we work together, you begin to feel a deep connection with yourself and your power, reclaiming your agency and vital life force. This does not mean that your life is free from struggle. It means that when life brings big waves your way, you become more adept at riding those waves instead of allowing them to pull you under. As you reclaim your resilience, you may even find that you view challenges as opportunities for growth and expansion that are here to assist you in becoming more of who you were meant to be.
What our work together looks like:
Assessing your desires, intentions, and focus for our work together.
Building connection, rapport, intimacy, and trust between the two of us to ensure that you feel safe, seen, and supported.
Understanding the role of personal responsibility in your life so you can get the most out of our work together.
Learning the language of your nervous system. Cultivating a deeper relationship with your emotions, sensations, body, and expression.
Creating a foundation of spiritual awareness that will allow you to expand on all levels of your being.
Building a relationship with your inner wisdom that supports your growth.
Taking action in small digestible steps that create sustainable growth each day.
Working with your unique nervous system creates more capacity, awareness, flexibility, and resilience to move out of survival responses into a space of thriving.
Expanding your capacity to feel, be present with what is, tolerate challenging emotions and sensations, and build a deeper connection to your inner world.
THE BIG PICTURE
In our work together, we move through three primary phases…
Building A New Foundation:
creating an inner sense of safety, self-attunement, capacity, tolerance for intense emotions, stability (grounding), spaciousness - the space to feel, space to be exactly where you are that allows you to meet life exactly as it is in each moment
Healing and Integration:
being compassionately witnessed and supported, grieving, remembering, feeling the feelings that were not safe to be felt before now, healing thwarted survival impulses that were blocked, replacing maladaptive coping mechanisms with healthy ones, retrieving disconnected and burdened parts of the self, cultivating a loving relationship with yourself and your intimates
Rebirth:
continuing integration, authenticity, agency, aliveness, expansion, inner union, embodiment, creativity, healthy relationships, belonging, purpose, fulfillment, embodiment of the true self and inner wisdom
Self-leadership and Thriving:
going into the world in a new, more expansive, aligned way that allows you to be all of who you are
ARE YOU READY TO CHANGE YOUR LIFE?
“I hope this is the lesson we women really commit to memory - we learned that it doesn’t work to try to be someone other than who you really are.”
Elizabeth Lesser
Working Together
Sessions are 60 minutes long and take place online via Zoom or in person in Asheville
Since healing is a process that takes time, I suggest committing to doing sessions for a while so that you can receive optional results.
I offer a discounted package for those who want to work together for longer and want to save money. Learn about my packages and programs by scrolling down to the bottom of this page.
I offer single sessions for those who would like to book on an as-needed basis. Scroll to the bottom of the page to schedule a session with me.
As an ordained minister, I pledge absolute confidentiality. Whatever happens in your sessions stays between us.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Frequently Asked Questions ~
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I am not a psychotherapist.
Therapy and my work are quite different. Therapy is primarily focused on unpacking the past and coming to terms with it, and is helpful when folks are in a time of crisis. In contrast, my work is designed to focus on working in present time through the body and through focusing on where you are going and who you are becoming. Therapy focuses on solving problems and somatic work trusts that the client is already in a place of wholeness and is therefore able to thrive.
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This IS THE JOURNEY for you if you are:
Ready to face the truth of where you are in life.
Prepared to journey into the uncomfortable parts of you.
Curious about somatic-based healing.
Here for the slow game and serious about making long-lasting changes.
Familiar with coaching but feel like there's still a piece missing (hint: tuning into somatic embodied wisdom!)
Ready to take responsibility and be self-accountable.
Ready to reclaim your power.
Committed to taking action.
This is NOT THE JOURNEY for you if you are:
Looking for a purely cognitive approach to healing
Looking for someone else to give you the answers.
A quick fix kind of person
Not ready to face yourself fully
Not ready to shift out of victim mentality.
Seeking insights and inspiration but don’t want to integrate and apply.
More interested in staying in your story than learning from it.
A 'good vibes' only kind of person.
Not willing to get uncomfortable.
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The main issues I can help with are chronic stress, boundary issues, self-worth, anxiety, depression, lack of motivation and inspiration, feeling lost, feeling stuck, chronic emotional dysregulation, healthy habits, relationship issues, and people-pleasing. I help my clients view these issues and themselves from a place of compassion and help them to build resilience and self-trust. Through this, we work around nervous system regulation, goal setting, belief systems, and more.
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If you are interested in working together, you are welcome to schedule an appointment.
If you have questions, you are welcome to schedule your complimentary 20-minute phone consultation so that I can answer your questions.
I recommend trying a session before committing to a package or program so we know we are a good fit for working together.
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I usually work with clients for around six months, but I do have clients that I have been working with for years. It depends on your needs and goals for your healing path. If you are interested in working together, you are welcome to book a session or reach out for a phone consultation.
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The options for working together are listed on this page at the bottom.
CLIENT TESTIMONIAL
"Working with you helped me to move through my past and a lot of difficult emotions… From holding me in that space and helping me work through it I feel so much more capable and able to move through this world with my feet firmly planted on the ground. Thank you for how you helped me to acknowledge myself and transform. "
Kacie Q.
Somatic Experiencing Session
One-Hour Session Via Zoom or In Person in Asheville
Not quite ready to commit to a program? Try a one-time single session so you can get a feel for the work I do before you sign up for a package or program. Sessions are offered via Zoom.
Pricing: $120
Package of Six Sessions
Six one-Hour Sessions Via Zoom or In Person In Asheville
Discounted Package (save $60 off single session rate)
This package is for those who know they want to work together for a longer time for a deeper transformation. All sessions must be used within 90 days. *