Healing through the Body.

Why body-based work for mental health?

Psychiatry can be life-saving and deeply stabilizing, and for many people it is exactly the right support—I respect it, and I’m grateful those options exist. My own work has been shaped by years of studying psychological models and depth traditions, and I continue to be influenced by the works of people like Jung, Hillman, and Schwarz-Salant. And still, my calling has led me through a different doorway: into the body, into the soul, and into the slow, sacred restoration of inner belonging.

My own path found its deepest support and change not through psychiatry or diagnosis, but through devotion to the places where healing rises from within—through sensation, breath, rhythm, meaning, and the quiet intelligence of the nervous system. Many people are not broken; they are exquisitely over-adapted—shaped by stress, pain, grief, trauma, and the sheer demands of living. The body remembers. The body protects. And when met with true attunement, the body can soften, reorganize, and transform.

A Somatic, Acupuncture-Based, Spirit-Led Model of Mental Health

I believe mental health is not only a cognitive matter. It is an ecology—a living weave of body, heart, mind, and spirit. In my work, we approach healing as a process of unfolding: returning to your inner essence, restoring the capacity to feel, and strengthening the ground of safety inside you.

Somatics: Listening to the Language of the Body

Somatic work is a way of entering the threshold where your story meets your physiology. We learn to notice what your system is saying through sensations—tightness, bracing, numbness, agitation, collapse, vigilance, dissociation—and we begin to build capacity from the inside out. This is not forceful work. It is paced, relational, and precise. It’s how the body learns: through safety, repetition, and truth-telling at the level of sensation. And through relationship.

Somatically Informed Acupuncture

A woven approach to regulation, release, and integration

I practice acupuncture in conjunction with somatics as a form of integration. In my sessions, the body’s lived experience leads—and the needles follow. Rather than applying a protocol first and hoping it reaches the deeper layers, we begin by listening: to sensation, breath, emotion, memory, rhythm, and the nervous system’s protective responses. As we track what is happening in real time, the somatic work reveals where energy is braced, where tissue is holding, where something inside is closing down or pushing through. That information directly informs the acupuncture—so the needle work is not generic, but responsive to what your body is actually asking for in that moment.

In this model, acupuncture becomes a kind of anchor for what we discover. The needles help “meet” the places that are stuck—supporting circulation, softening guarding patterns, and inviting the system out of fight/flight, freeze, or collapse. It can open space in areas that have been chronically closed. It can soothe the mind-body loop of stress and pain, not by overriding it, but by giving the nervous system a different signal: you are safe enough to shift.

Spiritual Unfolding: The Return to Essence

For many people, what we call “mental health symptoms” are also spiritual messages: not punishment, not pathology—but signals that something true is asking to be heard. When it’s welcome, we make room for the soul-level dimension of healing: authenticity, inner guidance, purpose, devotion, and the quiet voice beneath coping. This isn’t bypassing, and it isn’t doctrine. It is a return to what is real—and a reconnection with the part of you that has always been whole.

The Meeting Place of Mental and Physical Illness

One reason I’m devoted to body-based work is that mind and body are not separate kingdoms. Anxiety can live in the diaphragm, jaw, gut, and pelvic floor. Depression can show up as heaviness, inflammation, fatigue, and disconnection. Trauma can imprint the breath, the immune system, digestion, sleep, and hormones. And physical illness—especially chronic pain, autoimmune processes, hormonal disruption, or long-standing stress—can shape mood, identity, hope, and self-trust.

I see this intersection as sacred territory. The body is not “failing.” It is communicating. In many cases, symptoms are intelligent adaptations—your system is doing its best to survive. Our work is to help your body to no longer have to shout.

What This Work Is—and What It Isn’t

This approach may be a fit if you’re longing for:

  • A nervous-system–informed approach to anxiety, depression, overwhelm, trauma patterns, and burnout

  • Care that includes the body, not just the narrative

  • A slower, deeper process rooted in relationship and attunement

  • A model that honors spiritual unfolding alongside physiology

And it may not be the right fit if you’re seeking:

  • Medication management (I do not prescribe)

  • Crisis-level psychiatric care or urgent stabilization

  • A quick fix or purely symptom-based drop-in care

I’m also happy to collaborate with your current support team when appropriate—primary care, therapists, psychiatrists, PT, etc.—because healing often loves a circle.

A Gentle Safety Note

If you are experiencing thoughts of self-harm, feel unsafe, or are in crisis, please seek immediate support through the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (U.S.), emergency services, or your nearest emergency room