BODY BASED therapy | In-person & online Across CA
Somatic Therapy in Murrieta, CA
Somatic therapy for complex trauma, chronic pain, dissociation, and nervous system healing
What if…
Your body isn’t the enemy?
You’ve spent years pushing through tension, ignoring what your body was telling you, or wishing it would just calm down.
Now you’re noticing…
Anxiety or panic in your chest, throat, or stomach
Numbness, fog, or leaving your body when things get hard
Living mostly from the neck up, cut off from the rest of you
A body that's always braced: clenched jaw, tight shoulders, shallow breathing
Collapsing or freezing under stress, and struggling to get moving again
Tension or physical symptoms your doctors haven't been able to fully explain
Sensing your body feels confusing or hard to trust
EMDR or other trauma work feeling like too much, too fast
Your body isn't trying to hold you back. It's just storing what you haven't been able to process yet.
Somatic therapy treats your body as a main place where healing happens. Stress and overwhelming experiences often show up physically, as activation, bracing, collapse, or numbness. Some of what you carry may have formed before you had words for it, or been too much to put into words at all. Sensation gives us another way in.
In session, we track what your body is doing as well as what you're telling me: sensation, breath, posture, the urge to move or pull away. The aim is to help your nervous system settle. We work in small doses, touching a little activation and then returning to something steady, so nothing floods you.
So What Is Somatic Therapy?
You can feel this work. The change shows up as "my chest feels lighter" or "my shoulders finally dropped," which you notice for yourself rather than taking on faith.
I weave somatic work into my IFS and EMDR sessions, and into EMDR intensives. Grounding first can make EMDR feel workable instead of overwhelming. In IFS, we check in with your protective parts before going anywhere tender, so nothing gets rushed.
Somatic therapy can help with:
Anxiety and panic that show up in your body
Dissociation, numbness, and feeling disconnected
Stress, burnout, and a body that’s always on edge
Complex Trauma and PTSD
Shutdown, freeze, and collapse
Difficulty sensing or trusting your body's signals
Somatic Therapy for Neurodivergent adults
Body awareness works differently for many neurodivergent people. You might not notice hunger, tension, or stress until it's a lot, or a question like "where do you feel that in your body?" might draw a blank. I adjust. We can describe sensations through temperature, texture, color, or movement, use objects or sounds as anchors, and set a pace that fits how you sense things.
Frequently Asked Questions
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No. Somatic work can involve movement, but it doesn't have to.
Most of what we do is simply noticing — what you feel, where you feel it, how it changes. Sometimes I'll invite you to try something (a deep breath, shifting your posture, placing a hand somewhere) — but only if it feels right.
You're never performing. You're exploring.
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That's normal — especially if you've spent years dissociating or in survival mode.
We start where you are. If you can't feel much, we work with what's available — even if it's just "I notice I feel nothing" or "My hands are cold." Over time, sensation comes back. But we don't force it.
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Then we work with the parts that are making it feel unsafe.
Somatic work isn't about pushing you to "get back in your body" when it doesn't feel like a safe place to be. It's about helping your system understand that the danger has passed — so your body can become habitable again.
We move slowly. We respect your protectors. And we only go as far as feels okay.
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Yes. Most somatic work translates well to video sessions.
I can guide you through body awareness, grounding, and noticing sensations from a screen. Obviously I can't offer hands-on work virtually, but the core of what we do — tracking sensations, working with nervous system states, helping parts release what they're holding — all works online.
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I'm trained in somatic approaches and integrate them with IFS and EMDR. I don't follow a rigid SE or sensorimotor protocol.
If you're looking for certification-level adherence to a specific somatic modality, I'm probably not the right fit. If you're looking for body-aware, trauma-informed therapy that integrates somatic work when it's useful — that's what I do.
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The timeline depends on whether you're processing single-incident trauma, complex relational wounds, chronic disconnection from your body, or something else.
Your nervous system can't be rushed. Building body awareness, safety, and capacity to stay present takes time — especially if you've spent years dissociating or living in survival mode.
Some people notice shifts quickly — breathing easier, less chronic tension, catching activation sooner. Deeper patterns (chronic pain, long-term disconnection, trauma held in the body) take longer to unwind.
I work best with people who can commit to at least 3-6 months. That's usually the minimum to build trust with your system, work through protectors, and help your body feel safe enough to let go of what it's holding.
We'll check in regularly about whether the work is moving, whether it still feels right, and whether we need to adjust. If you're stuck and I can't help, I'll tell you.
The goal is helping your body become a safer place to be — and that doesn't happen on a fixed timeline.
A Note From Tana
I didn't start out as a "somatic therapist." I came to body-based work because I kept hitting the same wall with clients: they understood everything about their trauma, could name every pattern, had done years of insight-oriented therapy — and still felt stuck.
Their bodies were holding what their minds couldn't process.
I used to live in my head a lot. For years, I didn't realize how disconnected I was from my body — until I started doing my own somatic work and realized how much I'd been missing.
Your body isn’t just the vehicle that carries your brain around. It's part of your system. It holds memory, stores trauma, and communicates what your parts can't always put into words.
I integrate somatic work because I can't do deep trauma therapy without it. When clients learn to track what's happening in their bodies, they catch activation earlier, stay present longer, and access material that talk therapy alone couldn't reach.
This isn't about making you "more embodied" as a lifestyle goal. It's about helping your body become a place you can actually live in — instead of a place you have to escape.
If you want to know more about how I work and who I am, [learn more about me here →]
Ready to get started?