Embodied Awareness
I offer a relational somatic approach that supports embodied awareness within the social and relational ecologies you inhabit. I co-create a warm, collaborative space with you to explore who you are beyond layers of conditioning, others’ perceptions, and traumatic imprints. Those I support feedback a sense of becoming more authentic in who they are and responding to their inner realm with curiosity and kindness. I'm passionate about supporting you to experience an embodied knowing of yourself, which also reshapes the worlds you belong to.
Ways I Work
I see us as made of many parts, identities, and ways of navigating our worlds. As such, we need multiple ways of engaging with these aspects. This is why I am a practitioner who enjoys a fluid interplay between therapeutic modalities. Internal Family Systems (IFS) becomes especially alive when it meets the felt sense through Somatic Experiencing and Focusing. While Narrative work can also be embodied.
While I deeply value these approaches, I don’t see them as the “sole answer” or the “ultimate approach” to the complexity of each person. They are more like maps into your experience, but they need to evolve in response to the social and political worlds we live in.
I support people who are curious about relating to themselves in a more embodied way. One which fosters a tender and fiercely supportive inner partnership - a felt sense of home within, even when things feel unsettled. Together, we gently attend to somatic patterns shaped by relationships, trauma or oppressive systems, so they can shift into more generative ones.
I'm not sure we ever arrive at an idealised state of being of “healed,” particularly in a systemically violent world. I prefer to see what we're doing as cultivating flexibility in how you think, feel, and respond and expanding aliveness (agency, choice, creativity, love, sexuality, belonging, autonomy, pleasure) from the inside, out.
The creative nature of my work also draws on poetry, art, ecology, somatic movement, mythology, stories, and dreams. These act as portals into your experience when words are hard to find.
My work is rooted in social justice and empowerment practices that centre personal agency. I also lean into relational ecology, which understands our interconnectedness with the more-than-human world. I see my work as a form of mentorship where I share knowledge, skills, and practices. Some people pass these learnings on to friends, partners, or family. I love this. I don’t believe inner work ends with the person; shifts ripple outward like a fractal, reshaping the worlds they belong to.
I co-create space with you that is warm, collaborative, and playful, where we explore whatever feels most present for you. We unearth, we reflect, we get creative, and we stay curious together.
Somatic Experiencing®
*While Somatic Experiencing® is the intellectual work of Peter Levine, it's also vital to acknowledge the global Indigenous Worldviews that embody somatic understandings and have seen the whole body as an active agent in well-being processes for all time and beyond.
I am a certified Somatic Experiencing Practitioner™ with SE International and practice in accordance with their Code of Ethics and Standards. SE 101 - Somatic Experiencing® International Code-of-Ethics-7.21.22.pdf
Our bodies hold protective patterns formed in response to early attachment wounds, traumatic experiences, relational disruptions, and systemic pressures. Somatic Experiencing (SE™ ) offers a holistic response to the physiological effects or felt sense of these patterns. While SE™ has a trauma focus, it also offers you everyday support. Your feelings, thoughts, and sensations are viewed as distinct facets of knowing that, when connected, provide more coherence.
The body is a living organism shaped by our relationships and the social systems we move within. I use a politicised somatic practice that recognises the harms and oppressive forces that operate within both. I listen and attune to the distinct language of your body's experience and how you move through the world. We work from what already lives inside you, attuning to the body’s language of sensation, emotion, and impulse - which tells us what needs to happen next. It’s about meeting whatever turns up inside your body with a curious and tender presence, including the wisdom of your protective responses.
I dearly cherish the alliance I have with the people I support. I love witnessing them come home to themselves as they discover an embodied sense of who they are.
We don’t go into the body to prise these protections apart; we validate and support them with care and respect, so they can softly move into more enlivening forms. New responses become possible: allowing more choice, agency, and movement to emerge. Whether that looks like rest, boundary-setting, rage, grief, mobilisation, tenderness, joy and pleasure. The core of this work is about cultivating an embodied sense of worth, agency, and inner knowing that puts us in right relationship with others and the non-human world.
'The type of change we're after is cellular as well as institutional, is personal and intimate; it's collective as well as cultural' (Prentis Hemphill).
Progress in this work can look like capacity gently increasing to be with a wider range of experiences, traversing physiological and psychological states more flexibly, speaking kindlier to yourself and a strengthening of your personal agency as your head, heart, and gut becoming aligned.
Areas of support
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Experiences of trauma - inc. relational, social and collective.
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Anxiety, depression, and low self-worth.
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Loss & grief.
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Chronic shame.
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Emotional dysregulation.
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Impactful core beliefs.
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Family or partnered violence.
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Affirmation of LGBTIQA+ identities and neurodiversity.
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Distress intolerance.
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Life transitions (work, relationships, shifts in age, etc.).
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Nervous system education.
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Relationship support (inc. ethical non-monogamy and poly; chosen family & friends etc.).
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Navigating discrimination and power structures.
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Intolerance of perceived inadequacies, failings and insecurities.
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Relational hurts and interpersonal difficulties.
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Boundaries education.
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Fostering self-kindness
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Integrating inner parts.
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Awareness of survival states (fight, flight, fawn, freeze).
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Building self-trust and inner discernment.
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Identifying values and needs.
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Embodying safe, supportive & trustworthy relationships
Fees
I have a 3-tiered fee option:
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160 (Standard rate)
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140 (Mid - range rate)
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110 (Concession rate) I have a limited quota of concession spots per year, you're welcome to enquire and I'll do my best to accommodate.
I trust you will be honest about what level fits your circumstances. I encourage you to pay the standard fee if you are in a position to do so. This helps sustain swan riot somatics so I can continue to provide good quality support to people.
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I don't offer a Medicare rebate, mental health care plans or accept health insurance.
Request a Zoom Call
You can request a 30-minute Zoom call to get a sense of how we might work together (press the link below). Please fill out the form with a brief overview of your support needs. I aim to respond within 48 hours to arrange a time that works for both of us. If we agree to work together an initial session will be booked at the end of the Zoom call.
Cancellation Policy
I require 48 hours’ notice for cancellations. Sessions cancelled within 48 hours are charged at the full rate, unless there is an unforeseeable crisis or health issue.
Mode of sessions
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I provide online sessions via Zoom only (Australia-wide).
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I am open to receiving international referrals where the time difference sits within business hours. All sessions are listed in Melbourne time (AEST) or (AEDT) - from Oct to April.
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I provide weekly or fortnightly sessions only.