Questions people ask

Including the ones most people are too polite to ask.

1. What does "somatic" mean?

Somatic means we work with what your body is sensing — tightness, constriction, openness, ease — not just what your mind is saying.

2. Is this therapy?

No. This is somatic facilitation work.

I'm not a therapist, and I don't diagnose or treat mental health conditions. But I do work alongside those providers, and we can be complementary to each other.

What you're feeling is still where we work. Anxiety, stress, frustration — that's what most people arrive with. We work with it all, and we work with you where you're at.

3. Isn't this just mindset work?

Some of it is. Gratitude, affirmations, keeping what you want in front of you — those have a place, and I use them.

But they work on where you're going. The bigger part of this is understanding how you got here in the first place — because a belief you haven't untangled doesn't care how positively you're thinking. You have to work on the root.

4. Is this going to be months of digging through my past?

We're looking for the patterns running your life now, and the beliefs underneath them that aren't serving you today.

So we go back far enough to find where a belief came from, and how old you were when it formed, if we can.

Sometimes we can't find the origin, and that's fine. It doesn't stop us reframing the belief and building something else in its place.

Either way, we don't stay there. Staying in a memory longer than we need doesn't help — it just puts you back in it. Once we have what we came for, we work forward.

5. Will this feel weird? What if I'm not comfortable?

You're in control the whole time. If you need a pause, you ask for one — a moment of silence is always there, and using it is part of the work rather than a failure of it.

Noticing what's happening in your body is a skill most people have muted, not one they never had. The signals are there. My job is to slow things down enough that you can feel them again.

6. Will this conflict with my faith?

No.

I want to be clear about that, because two different worries live inside this question.

The first is whether I'll try to change what you believe. I won't. I don't teach religion or spirituality, I don't encourage anyone toward a faith, and I don't encourage anyone away from one.

The second is whether the work itself is spiritual. It isn't. Noticing that your shoulders tense up when you speak to a particular person is not a spiritual practice. It's paying attention to your own body.

I work with the beliefs people absorb growing up — from families, communities, churches, schools, whatever shaped them. I've coached women from many different backgrounds and many different religions, and the same ideas keep surfacing:

• "You shouldn't think too much of yourself."

• "It isn't humble to want more."

• "You should be seen and not heard."

• "Wanting money says something about who you are."

Those can quietly run a whole life.

Your faith is yours. My work is helping you find what's in your way.

7. Will this truly change a deep belief, or is it another temporary fix?

When a belief surfaces, it's because your mind and body are able and ready to work with it. It comes in layers. We work with one layer at a time.

There is no one set way. Every person is individual. Some beliefs we come back to several times, because of how they were built. Others go the moment you see them for what they are.

Mine did. At twenty-one I failed at a sales job and decided I could never sell. That wasn't where it started — it was a belief from childhood showing up again, and the job just looked like proof. The same belief was already running my relationships. One root, showing up in different places. I carried it forty years without knowing it was there. When I finally saw it and let it go, it was gone — not managed, not coped with. Gone.

What you're left with isn't a technique. It's knowing where that belief came from, and the choice not to let it influence your decisions going forward.

8. Will I end up dependent on you?

No.

In every session I'm teaching you the process and giving you the skills. So when a new belief surfaces, you'll know what's happening in your body, what you're feeling, and what to do with it.

That doesn't mean I disappear. When something big comes up, I'm here. It means you won't need me for the everyday work, because you'll be able to do that yourself.

9. Who do you work with?

People untangling beliefs formed in childhood, people in the middle of a midlife career change, and people finding their way out of the dynamics that come with big families and closed religious communities.

Most of my writing speaks to women, and my books are written for women. My paid clients are about half men. The beliefs don't care about gender.

I work with English-speaking adults. I have clients all over the world, and we find times that work for both of us.

I have a Spanish edition of Intermittent Fasting for Women, but I don't coach in Spanish. This work lives in the small nuances of language, textures and sensations.

What they have in common isn't a demographic. It's that staying the same has become more uncomfortable than changing.

10. What are your qualifications?

I'm a certified life coach and a somatic facilitator.

Read my full background on the About Me page →

11. Why weekly?

Weekly matters. The consistency is what builds momentum — going two or three weeks between sessions loses it, and you lose the accountability and the support just when you need it the most.

12. How long are sessions, and what should I plan for?

Sessions are ninety minutes, and my goal is to keep to that.

Please plan for about thirty minutes afterward. Sometimes we run a few minutes over, and sometimes you'll simply want time to sit with what came up, or journal.

13. What if something comes up between sessions?

Email me. I'll get back to you as soon as I can.

Email works well for the practical things — you're unwell, you need to move a session, or something has surfaced and you'd like to use one of your check-in calls.

If what's come up needs more than a short reply, that's what the calls are for. You have two thirty-minute check-in calls included. Some things need to be talked through rather than written out, and I'd rather give you that properly than try to answer it in an email.

One thing I want you to have in advance, so you're not looking for it when you need it.

I'm a coach, not a crisis service. If something feels urgent or unsafe — for you or for someone you love — please don't wait for my reply. Call or text 988, the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. If someone is in immediate danger, call 911.

That's what they're trained for. I'll be here for you afterward.

14. Can I try a few sessions first?

I have offered shorter packages in the past, and it came down to two things:

It takes time to tune in to what your body already knows.

People would reach the point where understanding meant changing — and change is uncomfortable, so they'd stop, come back later, and we'd start over.

I found that offering fewer sessions was a disservice. Some people move faster, some take longer — twelve weeks is a good average for making lasting changes that move you toward the life you want.

15. What happens after the twelve weeks?

I'm still here for you. Book another twelve weeks to continue the work, or let things settle for a few months and reach out when another layer surfaces that you want to work with. Returning clients get a preferential rate.

16. How do I get started, and what happens on the call?

Fill out the application — five questions plus your contact details. As soon as you submit it, you'll be able to book your call.

The point of the call is to find out whether you and I are a good match: what you want for your future, and whether I can help you get there. There's no cost to you, and it takes about an hour.

We'll walk through the investment on that call, and I'll be straight with you about what the twelve weeks asks of you — in time and in money. What I won't do is push. If you'd rather think about it, think about it. And if I don't believe I can help you, I'll tell you that instead.

17. What if it isn't the right fit?

If you change your mind before we start, I'll refund what you paid, less payment processing fees.

And you don't have to decide right away whether to keep going. If after two sessions it doesn't feel right, tell me and I'll refund 75% of what you paid, less payment processing fees.

18. Is Calm the Noise just a coloring book?

It's a reflective coloring book — pages to color, prompts that encourage reflection, and music to listen to while you do.

Fifty coloring pages and fifty reflection prompts. The coloring pages aren't all the same — some are paint-by-number, some are tracing, some are open to color however you like.

Coloring quiets the noise. Reflection and music can do that too — three tools, used together or on their own, for whatever you need that day.

See Calm the Noise →

19. Is BooBoo & Boots just a coloring book?

It's a coloring book for ages 4 to 8 that helps children recognize what feelings look like and what they feel like in the body, and learn that all feelings are okay. The adventure stops on the page to ask what BooBoo and Boots are feeling — and what a kind choice might be.

See BooBoo & Boots →