Somatic Therapy and Trauma
Sensitive Yoga

Somatic Therapy Online Across Australia

Somatic therapy brings attention to bodily experience alongside conversation.

At New Leaf with Nisha, this may include noticing sensation, posture, breath, movement, orientation, impulses or changes in activation as part of exploring what is happening emotionally and relationally. The goal is not to change how your body responds or to follow a particular technique, but to widen what can be noticed and understood.

Many people arrive with a great deal of insight into their history or patterns and still notice that certain responses happen quickly during conflict, under pressure, when resting, when receiving care or when something feels uncertain. Somatic work can offer another way of staying open and curious about these responses while keeping relationship, context and meaning in view.

When working with me, body-based practices are offered as invitations rather than requirements. We may remain entirely with conversation or, where it feels useful, explore a small movement, a shift in position, orienting to the room, breath or another present-moment cue. You can choose what you participate in, what you adapt, what you pause and what you leave.

I am based in Brisbane and offer somatic therapy online to adults across Australia.

How I Integrate Somatic Therapy Into Counselling

Somatic therapy is not separate from the relational context of counselling. What becomes noticeable in the body may be explored alongside emotions, relationships, history, culture and the circumstances in which a response developed.

Sometimes a person can understand a pattern very clearly and still notice that something happens quickly in the moment when the body holds tightness, withdraws, pushes through, becomes highly alert, goes quiet, or loses contact with what they need. Rather than treating these responses as something to correct, we can become curious about what is happening and what becomes possible when there is more choice.

Somatic work is not something I impose on a session. It may be woven into conversation when it is relevant, and there may also be sessions where we remain entirely with exploring your experiences.

Choice, Pace and Participation

At New Leaf with Nisha, all body-based exploration is offered as an invitation.

You are invited to participate, adapt, pause or sit & listen. There is no particular bodily response we are trying to produce, and the pace of the work is shaped collaboratively.

Embodied Rest: Trauma Center Trauma Sensitive Yoga (TCTSY)

Online Across Australia | Individual Sessions

Embodied Rest is my TCTSY offering for adults who would like to explore a choice-based movement practice.

TCTSY differs from a conventional yoga class: the emphasis is not on flexibility, alignment or performing a shape correctly, but on noticing your own experience and making choices about whether and how you move.

As pioneering Yin Yoga teacher and author Bernie Clark famously said, 'We don't use the body to get into the pose; we use the pose to get into the body.'

Embodied Rest is my way to support the shift of your focus away from how a posture looks on the outside, and redirects it to what we are feeling from the inside.

As a TCTSY Certified Facilitator through the Center for Trauma and Embodiment, I offer the practice using invitational language and without hands-on adjustments. You are welcome to change, pause or opt out of any form at any time.

Embodied Rest may offer opportunities to:

• Notice sensation, movement, breath and present-moment experience

• Explore choice in whether, when and how you move

• Notice tension, tightness, activation or disconnection without needing to immediately change it

• Experiment with movement at a pace that respects your capacity

• Become more familiar with bodily cues that may have become difficult to notice

• Practise making choices from your own experience rather than external instruction

No previous yoga experience is required.

TCTSY does not ask you to perform movements in a particular way or achieve a predetermined outcome; the emphasis is on your own experience, choices and pace.

Is Trauma Sensitive Yoga Right for Me?

TCTSY may suit adults who are curious about a body-based approach that does not require talking in detail about past experiences. It may be explored alongside counselling or as a distinct practice. No previous yoga experience or particular level of flexibility is required. A Discovery Call can help clarify whether TCTSY, somatic counselling or another form of support is more appropriate for what you are seeking.

A Client Experience of Somatic Therapy with Nisha