SOMATIC HEALING WORK
Zoom | In-person
Virtual sessions offered Worldwide
Somatic work is grounded in a simple truth— our bodies carry the imprint of our lived experiences.
I offer sessions for people navigating grief, fear, life transitions, unprocessed pain, or experiences that feel heavy, complex, or hard to hold alone, as well as the deeper questions of who they are and why they are here.
Drawing from Somatic Work, Internal Family Systems (IFS), Mindfulness, Expressive Arts healing, Ancestral healing work, and Depth Psychology, I help people not only heal old wounds, but also discover meaning, reclaim vitality, and find a deeper sense of direction, alignment, and belonging in one’s life.
WHAT I HELP WITH
A persistent inner critic, self-doubt, or harsh self-judgment.
Repeated patterns where you find yourself in relationships and situations that don’t support you.
Cycles of rumination, overthinking, or over-analyzing.
Feelings of overwhelm that keep you stuck, disconnected, and numb.
Uncertainty about your work, your gifts, or place in the world.
Desire to break longstanding painful patterns and live in a different way.
Navigating complex grief, chronic illness, or existential crisis
Perhaps you long to soften into your body, to listen more deeply to yourself, and discover a way of being that feels more deeply true.
"and I said to my body. softly.
‘I want to be your friend.'
It took a long breath.
and replied
'I have been waiting my whole life for this’.“
- Nayyirah Waheed
I welcome individuals and couples of all gender identities, sexual orientations, ethnicities, nationalities, and religious or spiritual backgrounds. My work honors the unique experiences each person brings.
Why Somatic Work is so essential
What cannot be fully processed in the moment does not simply disappear. It settles into the body, shaping how we feel, relate, move, and even breathe through the world. Indigenous traditions have long known this. Neuroscience and trauma research are finally confirming it as well. To heal these experiences, we need to work not only with what we think and understand, but with what we feel and carry in the body.
What a Session is like
We might focus on a specific challenge, such as unprocessed pain, fear, or recurring patterns— or simply turn inward to see what is naturally asking for attention in the moment.
We begin with a brief moment to help you settle into your body and reconnect with your inner self. From there, we explore the emotions and experiences that are ready to be seen and supported.
Emotional pain and unprocessed wounds live in the body— as tightness in the chest, a knot in the stomach, or a lump in the throat. By bringing attention and care to these places— by letting the body speak— we allow for unprocessed emotions and unresolved patterns to be heard and healed.
After each session, I offer at-home practices for you to continue the inner work between our sessions.
Many people find it helpful to take time after your session to reflect, journal, or simply breathe, allowing the insights and healing to settle and begin to integrate.
Online sessions work best in a quiet, private space where you won’t be disturbed. No preparation is needed— just come as you are.
MY APPROACH
I offer a space of genuine warmth, curiosity, and great care, where you can come as you truly are. In our work, people often begin to feel softer, with more space inside, more capacity to breathe deeper. There can be a sense of opening and relief, of insight and understanding, feeling more alive, with less constriction, fear, or heaviness. Emotions that once seemed to haunt you, finally begin to quiet down. Alongside this, a new sense of direction, freedom, and coherence begins to emerge.
The Philosophy Behind My Work
I believe there is much within us that longs to be met, understood, and brought back into relationship with our lives. The body carries our histories, our wounds, and the adaptations we have made to survive. It also offers a way into the deeper layers of our inner worlds, where forgotten parts of ourselves, and unrecognized possibilities may be waiting.
My work is an invitation to listen more closely to what lives within you. Through the body, we can begin to meet the places that have been carrying pain, to release unprocessed material, approach ourselves with greater care, and loosen the conditioned patterns that keep us from living full lives.
Sarah West is a certified Somatic Practitioner and Educator, and a professionally registered member of the International Somatic Education and Therapy Association (ISMETA). She meets the high standards of practice and upholds the code of ethics. She has been in private practice for 7+ years.
“Sarah is hands down
the most gentle, open-hearted,
skilled, compassionate people
I could hope to do this kind of work with —
the deep inner work that
requires a knowledgeable,
sacred witness to be present.”
—Melissa
MORE AREAS TO EXPLORE
Work with your fear of being seen and stepping into your full potential.
Break limiting patterns that keep blocking your growth.
Heal unprocessed pain from childhood and adolescence.
Receive support through life transitions— a break-up, divorce, career shift, or moving.
Heal from the impact of narcissistic harm and reclaim yourself.
Navigate a spiritual awakening or a spiritual crisis with grounded care.
Integrate and receive support from powerful psychedelic experiences.
Heal the parts of yourself that learned it wasn’t safe to trust life.
Release old beliefs that keep you from trusting your instincts, intuition, and gut feelings.
Receive support with neurodivergence and ADHD
Learn helpful conflict resolution practices for your relationships.
Learn practices that help bring your dreams and visions to life.
MODALITIES
My work mainly centers on Somatic Healing Work, Ancestral Healing, and Internal Family Systems (IFS)— I also draw from complementary modalities, which I may bring in depending on what feels most supportive in the moment. This allows our work to stay responsive, creative, and deeply attuned to your unique process.
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Internal Family Systems is a way of understanding the inner world as made up of different parts— each with its own perspective, history, and role. Some are protective and organized around keeping things steady. Others carry older wounds or experiences that have been pushed out of awareness.
Rather than seeing these parts as problems, this approach meets them with respect and curiosity. Each one developed for a reason.
In working this way, attention is given to how these parts show up— in thought, emotion, and the body, and how they relate to one another. As they are listened to and understood, the system begins to reorganize on its own.
Over time, the more exiled or hidden parts can be integrated and the protective parts can soften. What emerges is a greater sense of internal coherence—less conflict, more space, and a steadier connection to a grounded, clear center within you.
This way of working can be especially supportive in relationships, as it brings awareness to what is actually being activated and creates more room for understanding and compassion.
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Mindfulness is the practice of gently returning to the present moment— again and again— without judgment. It invites you out of the constant movement of the mind and into a more intimate relationship with your own experience.
In this space, you begin to notice what’s here: your thoughts, your emotions, the subtle sensations in your body. Rather than getting caught in them or pushing them away, you learn to meet them with curiosity and compassion. Over time, this softens reactivity and creates space for more choice, clarity, and self-trust.
As mindfulness deepens, it becomes a steady ground you can return to—especially in moments of stress, overwhelm, or uncertainty. It supports a calmer nervous system, a more compassionate relationship with yourself, and a greater awareness of the patterns shaping your life.
Within our work together, mindfulness weaves through everything. It gently strengthens your capacity to be with what is, allowing deeper healing, more restful presence, and a quiet sense of inner steadiness to emerge.
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Expressive art offers a way to meet yourself beyond the thinking mind. When emotions feel complex or hard to name—grief, anxiety, old pain held quietly within—creative expression becomes a gentle doorway inward.
Rather than trying to explain or analyze your experience, you are invited to explore it.
We might move, allowing the body to speak what words cannot.
We might write, letting what is hidden find its way onto the page.
We might work with color, texture, and image—giving shape to inner landscapes.
We might use photography to notice what reflects back to you from the world around you.
We might engage sound or music as another way of expression.
These are not about making something “good” or “beautiful.” They are about whatever feels true.
Through this process, new perspectives can emerge. Unseen or unspoken feelings may gently rise into awareness. A deeper relationship with yourself begins to take root—one grounded in curiosity and compassion.
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Shadow work is the practice of becoming aware of the parts of yourself that live outside of conscious thought. These are the patterns, emotions, impulses, and traits that have been shaped out of your awareness— often held in the body as much as the psyche.
This includes what is typically labeled “negative”—anger, grief, need, instinct, but also what Carl Jung called the golden shadow: the disowned positive qualities we have not yet claimed, such as creativity, confidence, and gifts.
Rather than trying to change or get rid of these aspects, shadow work is about meeting them directly. In a somatic approach, this happens through the body—by noticing sensation, reaction, and subtle cues that reveal what has been held beneath the surface.
As these parts come into awareness, they tend to lose their charge. What was unconscious becomes integrated. People often experience more choice in how they respond, along with a greater sense of coherence and authenticity.
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Soul work, is a slow returning to your essential self. A coming back to the part of you that has always been there—beneath the roles, the ways you’ve learned to adapt and survive. It’s not about fixing yourself. It’s more like remembering who you really are. Reconnecting with what feels true. What feels alive in you.
There’s no set outcome in soul work. This kind of work moves in its own rhythm. Sometimes it asks you to let go of what’s familiar before you can see what’s next. People often find they feel more like themselves—more grounded, more belonging, more in touch with their own way of being in the world.
In our time together, I draw from different practices depending on what feels needed. This might look like slowing down into the body, paying attention to dreams, exploring the parts of you that have been pushed aside, working with meaningful life experiences, soul retrieval work, creating a ritual, or spending time in connection with the natural world.
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Nature-centered healing is an invitation to enter the lived experience of being. It weaves together time on the land with practices that help you listen more closely—to yourself, your parts, and inner expressions, and to the world around you.
This might look like taking a wounded part of you on a walk in nature. Or wandering without a set destination, letting the landscape guide your attention. It might be sitting quietly and noticing what you feel, see, and sense when you allow yourself to slow down.
It might include creative expression, working with dreams, exploring the parts of yourself that have been pushed aside, or tending to meaningful life experiences that still live in the body.
There is also a deep practice of relationship here—learning to listen to the animate world, to experience the land, the plants, the elements not as backdrop, but as something alive and responsive. Over time, this can shift the way you see yourself—not as separate, but as part of a larger, interconnected field of life.
I offer guided experiences that may include nature-based wandering, journaling, connecting to beings on the land, cross-species dialoging, praise walks, time in intentional solitude on the land, creative and reflective practices, and one-on-one nature-based soul mentoring.
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Focusing is a quiet, inward way of listening—through the body rather than the mind.
Developed by Eugene Gendlin, it centers on what he called the “felt sense”: a subtle, often hard-to-name bodily knowing that carries meaning beneath words.
Instead of analyzing or trying to figure things out, you pause and bring attention to what is being held in the body. Not just obvious sensation, but the more nuanced, atmospheric quality of an experience—the sense of something there, waiting to be noticed.
As you stay with it, without forcing or interpreting, images, words, or shifts can begin to emerge. The body reveals its own language in its own time.
Focusing is simple, but not always familiar. It asks for patience and a willingness to stay close to your direct experience.
Focusing can deepen your ability to sense what is true for you, to recognize what is unresolved or unspoken, and to move through your life with a clearer, more grounded inner reference point.
SOMATIC HEALING WORK
Somatic healing work recognizes that our experiences are held not only in our thoughts and but also in the body. By attending to bodily sensations, emotions, and the parts of ourselves shaped by past experiences, we can begin to meet unmet needs, and shift patterns that hinder our growth.
Somatic Work Supports:
Finding your voice, expressing your needs, and creating healthy boundaries.
Understanding long-held survival patterns and protective responses.
Healing relational and attachment wounds.
Widen your window of tolerance— increase your capacity for being with difficult things.
Reconnecting with the wisdom of your body, instincts, and intuition.
Cultivating a deeper sense of safety, presence, and belonging.
Healing feelings of being lost, frozen, stuck, or uncertain.
Releasing people pleasing and chronic caretaking patterns.
Coming out of numbness, dissociation, and suppressed emotions.
ANCESTRAL HEALING WORK
Healing work extends beyond our own lived experiences. Our bodies, nervous systems, and belief systems are shaped not only by our personal lives, but also by the fears, sorrows, wounds, stories, and beliefs carried through generations.
Many of us carry inherited beliefs and burdens that were never ours to begin with. Religious wounding may leave us feeling disconnected from our own knowing, while patriarchal conditioning may shape our beliefs about how we should look, behave, or live, including the idea that we must be in a relationship to be happy.
The conditioning of previous generations are carried forward through relationships (our parents relationship patterns often shows up in our relationships), as well as our beliefs, and habitual patterns that become woven into our lives and embodied experience.
Ancestral healing work involves bringing awareness to the burdens passed down through generations, exploring how they shape your life, and beginning to release what no longer belongs to you. In doing so, you can reclaim your own ways of being, reconnect with your gifts, and step into more personal freedom.
The Witch Wound
Many of us carry the pain of generations of women who were persecuted, silenced, shamed, or punished for their knowledge, intuition, healing practices, and alternative ways of being that challenged the dominant systems. I call this the witch wound, which is the inherited fears that show up as a reluctance to trust your intuition, speak your truth, be visible in your gifts, or step outside the expectations placed upon us.
By healing your witch wound, you can reclaim the intuitive, psychic, and creative gifts that have long lived within you. Gifts that may have been buried, silenced, or hidden away, but are waiting to be fully embodied.
RATES
60-minute sessions are offered on a sliding scale:
• $150 — Regular rate
For those who feel financially resourced. This rate helps support access for others.
• $125 — Reduced rate
For those who are able to meet their needs with some ease.
• $100 — Low-income rate
For those navigating financial strain or difficulty meeting needs.
Choose the option that you fit in.
I do not accept insurance, but I offer discounted session packages. See my Booking Page for more information.
Experience a virtual session from the comfort of your home.
No matter where you live in the world—if you have access to the internet, we can work together. Today, we are fortunate to be able to meet for sessions online through Zoom. Envision yourself receiving needed support while relaxing in your pajamas, with your pet, snuggled in your blanket, and enjoying a comforting cup of tea. You are welcome to come just as you are.
“Sometimes I wake up and have to remind myself: There is nothing wrong with me. I have patterns to unlearn, new behaviors to embody and wounds to heal. But there is nothing wrong with the core of me and who I am. I am unlearning generations of harm and remembering love.”
—Yolo Akili

