Hi, I’m Niki. I’m a Certified Somatic Coach through the Strozzi Institute. I have experienced and been in practice with many lineages in dance, yoga, and intentional movement in community, as well as paid work in reproductive justice, youth work, interpretation, and cross-cultural experiential learning rooted in social justice.

I come from a background of a variety of traumas in my family of origin (sexual abuse, domestic abuse, substance abuse and severe mental health conditions) that started in my early childhood and continued into my young adult years. Today these types of traumas are often referred to as Adverse Childhood Experiences, and these experiences and trauma can have deep impacts on our development as children and how we grow into our adult selves.

I tried a variety of talk therapies for several years and while this was supportive in many ways, I felt disempowered and dismissed. I kept getting told in one way or another that the patterns I was aware of and wanted to change were a direct result of my trauma, and that my trauma was making my decisions for me. While there are truths in that framework, I refused to believe my life would continue to be a consequence of the traumas I had experienced.

Only once I started working with a somatic practitioner in 2017 did I start to realize my own personal healing and transformation was directly related to my connection to my body. It was the first time I was being asked what I felt in my body, where I felt specific sensations, and how I knew when the body was giving me clear signals.

Slowly—very slowly— over time I began to learn how to listen to my body and discern what it was telling me. I began to learn how to trust my body again. And this made all the difference.

My work as a Somatic Coach is grounded in my belief that every body holds the wisdom and the information it needs to heal and transform. And that healing and transformation needs to happen on an individual and collective level. Meaning, we heal together and our individual healing does not happen in a vacuum. Our collective work to transform systems of oppression are essential for our own healing, and this work needs to also be rooted in the body.

What this looks like in my sessions with clients is that I ask questions and offer practices, but the client makes meaning where and when they see fit. The client has agency over the goal of the 10 sessions, and the smaller goal of each individual session. We co-create the container together and both need to bring our attention, intention, care and respect to each session and to the relationship. The deeper knowing of each client is honored, and this requires humility and deep, embodied awareness and presence from both of us.

Here are some tangible outcomes that are possible from our work together:

• Deepen intimacy in relationships (self, others, Divine, etc)

• Greater capacity to be with uncomfortable emotions, thoughts and sensations

• Cultivate (more) awareness, love and reverence in and for the body

• Harness (more) joy, creativity, play and aliveness

• Greater sense of internal safety

• Accompaniment to explore deep, challenging and sometimes scary emotions—anger, rage, grief, shame, sadness, guilt and fear

• A change in your shape more aligned with your values and longings—a felt and visible shift in how you show up under pressure

There is one body we get for this lifetime. And it holds more wisdom, information, capacity, and love than we can fully measure. This work is slow, intentional, patient, and enduring. And it is for anyone with a body who is curious and willing.