"Working with Petra is like stepping into a supportive cocoon of self-discovery..."
Hanna M.
Somatic Therapy & Coaching
I work with individuals one to one through trauma-informed somatic therapy and coaching.
These individual sessions offer you the opportunity to work more directly with a particular issue or question, or to get support in deepening your understanding of yourself and of the dynamics that shape how you show up for and with yourself, others and in the world.
Depending on your intention and needs, I work in different ways, according to what is right for you. This may look more like therapeutic accompaniment to support you with processing, resourcing and in depth enquiry, or coaching to help you find the clarity, confidence and courage to bring yourself or your work more fully into the world. Often, it's a mix of both.
This work brings together my training in somatic approaches to healing, nervous system based work rooted in Polyvagal Theory and Practice, Movement Medicine, Integrated Somatic Trauma Therapy, Processwork, Innate Somatic Intelligence Trauma Therapy, Embodied Facilitation, Neuroplasticity and the Work that Reconnects. Sessions are trauma informed and supported by other trainings and life experience. My approach is somatic, relational and earth-based. In session, we may use a mixture of speaking, body-based enquiry, education and explorations to understand and tend to your nervous system and the way it shapes experience. We follow what is emergent in the moment to discover what the intelligence of your system wants to show us about what is needed.
I work mostly online but if you are based inthe Garden Route in South Africa, face to face sessions are also available.
“Polyvagal Theory is the science of feeling safe enough to fall in love with life and take the risks of living.” (Deb Dana)
Polyvagal-informed practice
Understanding our nervous system and how it functions is a way of empowering ourselves in our ongoing healing journey as well as giving us tools to navigate our day to day better- our moods, our fears, our triggers – what limits us in our behaviours and choices, as well as what allows us to open to the world, see possibilities and fulfil our profound longing for connection.
The nervous system is what I like to think of as our body's wild wisdom.... wild because it is our own instinctual nature, evolved over billions of years. Wise because it knows how to protect and connect us - both functions that are crucial for our survival. The nervous system really is the foundation of all of our lived experience: our neurobiology shapes the way we live, love, work and play.
The beauty of working with the nervous system as our ally is that it takes away the intense self-shaming and perpetual self improvement projects we engage in when we think there is something 'wrong' with us. We learn and see that our patterns originate in our system's desire to keep us safe and help us survive. Our behaviours make perfect sense as strategic adaptations to our adverse childhood experiences and any contexts or situations (family, culture, community of origin etc.) where we were unsafe.
Understanding what's happening in our nervous system in this way offers hope and the possibility of change. It means that we can tend to our nervous system in a way that ultimately offers us more choice over how we act, react and relate, both to ourselves and others. Exploring what your particular nervous system needs in each of its states, offers you new choices, freedom from compulsion, and the possibility of creating more fulfilling relationships with yourself, others, and the world.
When there is enough safety in our system, we can continue to make new life experiences rather than being stuck in limited and limiting patterns rooted in the drive to survive.
Healing means growing our capacity to include and hold all of ourselves with compassion, and to make choices that support our dignity and belonging.
This is not about endless self-improvement rooted in a sense of lack or wrongness. It is a remembering and reclaiming of who we are- resourceful, creative, interconnected beings. It is about shining the light of curiosity and compassion onto the adaptive strategies we developed and stories we have lived by in order to survive adverse experiences in our families, communities, cultures and the many systems of oppression we live with.
"I love the way Petra uses embodied, somatic work to access deeper parts of ourselves. She creates a safe, expertly-held space in which to explore what's going on. In a very short time, she helped me realise some core, long-held beliefs that have been very eye-opening for me in understanding how I relate to the world. If you get the chance to work with Petra, I highly recommend it – you won't regret it!"
Hannah M, Wellbeing Coach, Writer, Marketer, UK
“My elderly parents required more input, which has proved a very challenging time: Cooperating with siblings, being faced with younger versions of myself who still have issues with younger versions of parents and siblings. And then keeping perspective, finding ways to maintain and assert my own lifestyle on top of the demands of family. To find ways of resourcing myself. To dare to say no. To dare to say yes. To be angry. To feel grief, bewilderment. All these elements have been explored within the somatic context
of our sessions. The body, in the most astute poetic way, getting to the nub of the matter and revealing it to me, through the patient and compassionate
guidance of Petra.”Maggie W, UK
“We are working to make hearts that are capable of containing much joy and much sorrow, hearts capacious enough to contain the complexities and mysteries and contradictions of ourselves and of each other. We are working to make hearts that know how to love this world.”
Kate DiCamillo
Isn't this a wonderful definition of healing?
The somatic therapy and coaching work I offer is intended to help you get out of overwhelm, self-judgement and unhelpful patterns that disconnect you from yourself, others and the web of life. Working with the incredible wisdom that lives in your body and your nervous system, I help you to find ground, clarity, new perspectives and fresh energy in relationship to what you have been struggling with.
This work offers us the opportunity to bring to light the unconscious patterns that drive our being and our doing, so that we can expand our perspective on what is happening, reclaim our power, choice and agency, and continuously grow our capacity to be with life as it unfolds.
When we understand that our patterns originate in our system's desire to keep us safe and help us survive, we can interrupt the cycle of moving between self-shaming and harsh self-improvement projects, and engage with ourselves from a place of curiosity and compassion. We can honour the ways in which our behaviours make perfect sense as strategic adaptations to coping with our adverse childhood experiences and any contexts or situations (family, culture, community of origin, environment etc.) where we were indeed
unsafe. We can work with our nervous system as an ally, bringing it up to date with our present adult reality where our needs and possibilities are different.You surely know that old saying, 'you can't stop the waves, but you can learn to surf'? It's a good analogy. This kind of therapeutic and coaching work is not about reaching a point where everything is easy and all challenges disappear. It's about getting to know ourselves with curiosity and compassion, understanding and befriending our nervous system and creating a personalised 'medicine bag' or toolkit of resources that we can reach for when times get tough. Rather than expecting the terrain to change, we take responsibility for building a stronger boat and equipping ourselves with maps, a compass, life vests, nourishing provisions and a fine crew of fellow travelers onboard, so that we can continue to show up and engage with life meaningfully, even when the seas are choppy and there is no land in sight. You could call this 'cultivating resilience': We strengthen the 'container' of who we are so that we can hold more of the complexity and mystery, the joy and grief, the beauty and terror of being human at this time on Planet Earth. We do this so that we can be who we are and give what we've got, living our one precious life and giving the gifts that we have been given on behalf of the whole web of life of which we are a part.
“I feel more resourced for this life, on this planet. I have practical techniques and I feel that I've entered into a totally new relationship with my own body.
The sessions with Petra were both gentle and incredibly powerful at the same time. This type of therapy goes deep into places that you didn't know were even there.
I now have several practical tools to use to make my body my best ally and my best feedback about what's truly going on. Petra has such a beautiful way of guiding these sessions. Her honest and wise guidance made this journey safe, insightful, joyous and impactful."
Elizebeth, South Africa
Looking for something else?
Are you a spaceholder, facilitator or conscious movement facilitator looking for mentoring?
Scroll down I've got you covered.
Professional Mentoring for Spaceholders
I work as a mentor to both Movement Medicine Apprentices and Professionals for the School of Movement Medicine.
I also offer professional mentoring for thoseworking as facilitators of conscious dance or as spaceholders in other modalities eg coaches, group facilitators etc
In this role I support professionals in the practicalities and with the experiences that arise when working as a teacher and facilitator of movement/dance or other spaces. Drawing on my own experience of offering Movement Medicine and other group-based work, as well as my learnings from working as a facilitator with NGOs, governments and community organisations, I am aware ofwhat can get triggered in us as we ‘hold space’ for others- the transference, questions, tensions, triggers. In this approach to mentoring, we use these experiences as pathways to deepening and growing our work. Alongside this, there are practical considerations relating to your offering that we can also explore. As facilitators/teachers/spaceholders, we need spaces where we feel safe and able to receive the kind of support we so generously offer to others; spaces where we can take off the professional ‘hat’ and lean into support so that we can refill our tank and keep on showing up sustainably for our participants and clients.
If you work as a Movement Medicine teacher, a facilitator of another conscious dance modality, or offer other spaces that involve working with people and their embodiment, eg coaching, you are welcome to get in touch to see how professional mentoring could support you in your work.
“Petra’s presence and powerful questions during our coaching session were so helpful, in a very practical and grounded way. They opened new possibilities for me in my own coaching practice and helped me get more clarity, insight and a new way of perceiving what we worked on during the session.”
Giulia, Coach, South Africa
© 2020