Your body is the key to getting there.

Trauma colors our perceptions, feelings, and behaviors in many ways. It can take a heavy toll on your mind, body, and relationships, showing up as:

• Disproportionate amounts of stress and overwhelm over “little” things 

• Difficulty relaxing, sleeping, or feeling at ease 

• Discomfort expressing your needs to others, saying no, or setting boundaries

• Bursts of panic or rage that seem to come out of nowhere

• Feeling numb or disconnected, like you’re in a haze while life passes you by 

• A loud “inner critic” berating you for not being perfect

• People pleasing and regularly prioritizing other people’s happiness/comfort at the expense of your own

• A secret shame that something is wrong with you

Trauma makes life harder than it needs to be, and can keep you from experiencing the ease, comfort, joy, confidence, and the authentic expression you long for.

Many of the clients I work with have tried talk therapy, only to discover that it wasn’t possible to simply think or talk their way out of their trauma responses. 

This is not a knock on talk therapy! It is valuable work that I frequently recommend.

However, talk therapy is very different from somatic work, which has the power to directly communicate with non-verbal parts of the brain that are significantly impacted by trauma.

In private sessions, I incorporate Somatic Experiencing (SE) along with contemplative embodiment practices that support your ability to heal from trauma and:

• Soothe, settle, and relax with greater ease

• Connect to the needs and desires of your innermost self

• Hold healthy boundaries with the people in your life

• Express yourself authentically

• Take empowered action to move your life forward in ways that are healthy and fulfilling 

• Trust that you can meet life’s ups and downs

• Be in satisfying, healthy relationships with others

• Experience more pleasure, joy, and ease of well-being

Hi. I’m Elena.

Embodiment and nervous system regulation have not always come easy to me.

Growing up, I often felt like a floating head, hardly noticing that I had a body at all. Either that, or the sensations in my body felt like a pressure cooker and made me want to explode (and oftentimes, I did!)

I grew up with undiagnosed complex trauma (CPTSD) stemming from a childhood that was all-too-often violent and terrifying. As a result, my nervous system got a lot of practice at being on high-alert and on edge, and/or heavily dissociating and collapsing into depression.

Throw in a chronic tendency to override my own boundaries in order to please others, and that was my nervous system in a nutshell.

In my early twenties, I was introduced to yoga and meditation while studying at the University of Vermont. These two practices initiated me on my healing journey and helped me I get in better touch with my body.

Gradually, I stopped feeling like a floating head quite so often. Better yet, I began to feel like an actual human, with an actual body. (Who would’ve thought?!) This was like discovering a missing puzzle piece, and it felt like a huge sigh of relief–at first!

But, the less I felt like a floating head, the more I felt like a pressure cooker. All the discomfort and emotional pain I was carrying became harder to ignore.

At first, I tried to keep breathing and meditating my way through it (because that’s what they tell you to do, right?!) But, no matter how much I practiced, small stressors continued to launch me into panic, agitation, or numbness.

Worse, sitting alone with these difficult feelings on my meditation cushion often exacerbated them until the intensity was off the charts. The feelings didn’t just pass “like fluffy clouds drifting through the open sky,” as the guided meditation recordings promised!

Instead, they often transformed into category 5 hurricanes. This is often the case with trauma. 

When I began therapy, my therapist quickly referred me to a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner to support my ability to be present with my feelings without having them spiral into something intolerable.

It’s been over 15 years since I first started my healing journey. A bookworm and nerd at heart, I’ve dedicated myself to learning everything I can about embodiment and trauma healing. I’ve trained with leading experts in the field of trauma healing and have acquired practitioner certifications in evidence-based and evidence-supported trauma healing modalities, like Somatic Experiencing and Trauma Center Trauma Sensitive Yoga (TCTSY).

But equally valuable to my formal education is my own lived experience. I truly can’t imagine doing this work without having an experiential understanding of what it’s like to live with trauma, from the inside-out.