Frequently Asked Questions: Somatic Leadership Coaching

What is somatic leadership coaching?

Somatic leadership coaching is also called somatic coaching. It’s a type of leadership coaching and executive coaching. What’s unique about it is the process because it taps into and leverages the mind-body connection.

Our bodies are relevant to addressing pain points in our leadership and lives because our bodies hold onto stress and emotions that we’ve ignored or not dealt with from our past. These oftentimes underpin the challenges we face in our professional and personal lives.

Our bodies are also connected to our intuition and what we care about.

Re-connecting with our body gives us insight into our purpose, our vision for the future, and how to bring more meaning and energy into our lives. It can also help us address and resolve the root causes of our leadership challenges.

Somatic coaching can help you get clarity about what you want, where you’re going, and how to work with your body to address the roadblocks that get in your way. As a result, somatic coaching can help you address pain points in your work, relationships with colleagues, partners, kids, and most importantly, in your relationship with yourself.

All this helps shifts how you’re feeling and showing on the outside in your life. As a result, you can feel better while also more effectively sharing your gifts with the world.

What types of issues do you address in somatic coaching?

With somatic coaching, the place to start is what do you want. It’s a simple question but not the easiest thing to answer, especially when it comes to your vision for the future. For most people, answering this question can take a little while to unpack.

Once people get clarity about what they want, that’s when we dive into the roadblocks or issues that prevent people from realizing their ideal future.

That’s where challenges people experience in their leadership and professional development come in, such as communication, conflict, people issues, boundaries, self-doubt, burnout, etc. It’s worth noting that for most people, the issues people are dealing with in their professional lives are similar to, or are connected to, the issues they’re dealing with in their personal lives.

All of this is fodder for what we address in somatic coaching. Working through these issues usually surfaces, in gentle ways, emotions that have been stored in people’s bodies for many years. As a result, these issues become opportunities to heal parts of themselves that need tending, while also addressing very real issues people need to resolve in their lives to move closer to their vision for the future.

Partnering with the body is key in somatic coaching and is oftentimes overlooked in regular coaching or talk therapy. That’s why people can talk about issues for years, and can get insight into why they’re struggling, but it doesn’t necessarily translate into the change people are longing for.

What should I expect from a somatic coaching session?

In each coaching session, we’ll talk about how you’re doing and what you’d like to focus on during that session.

As we go, you’ll also be invited to experiment with different somatic practices. Some of these practices may involve you noticing what’s happening inside your body, while other practices may invite you to change how you’re sitting, moving, speaking, etc. Because sessions are all via Zoom, there isn’t any touch involved like there is in craniosacral therapy.

Given my background in leadership development and somatics, I have a wide range of tools that I’ll bring to each session depending on what you’re navigating. As a result, somatic coaching sessions are a combination of talking and somatic practices.

Where is your somatic coaching practice?

My somatic coaching sessions are online through Zoom. Many clients combine this online somatic coaching with in-person craniosacral therapy. My craniosacral practice is located in Mercer Island, WA, a few minutes from Seattle and Bellevue.

Additional Questions

If you have additional questions about somatic coaching, feel free to reach out here. I’m more than happy to chat with you about your specific situation, to see if somatic coaching is the right fit or if another modality which better serve you.

Somatic coaching sessions are online via Zoom. Sessions tap into the mind-body connection to invite gentle and meaningful shifts in clients’ leadership and lives.