Charlotte Preston

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Charlotte Preston

Charlotte Preston is a Certified Somatic Experiencing® therapist based in Dorset, UK, working with adults, teenagers and groups.

She specialises in somatic approaches: Somatic Experiencing trauma therapy, bodywork & movement practices. I offer embodied movement group classes & one-to-one somatic therapy, online and in-person in Poole, Dorset, UK. I work with yoga, qigong, somatic movement, reiki, massage therapy and I'm currently training in Somatic Experiencing.

30/10/2025

I know how frustrating it can feel to live with tension or symptoms that don’t seem to shift - even after trying so many approaches. I work with many people in this situation.

This is a story (shared with anonymity + permission) from a Somatic Experiencing client session, to give a glimpse into how this work can bring new understanding, relief, and the possibility of using our body sensations as guides to what we need more or less of in our life - in this case, personal space.

🌿 My client had explored many routes: GP visits, nutritional therapy, regular exercise, and years of talk therapy : she’s a psychotherapist herself. Yet the tightness in her lower belly remained, like a constant background hum.

Through our somatic work together, she began to sense what the tension was protecting. She realised that it carried the feeling of “someone too close” - a familiar state her body had learned early on, when her personal space was never respected.

That image and realisation changed everything. She said that, for the first time, she could feel what personal space actually was. And she began gently experimenting with this in her daily life - noticing when her body started to brace, and giving herself more room.

As we worked with the feeling of anger that lived underneath the tension, and helped her body learn that it was safe to feel it, the bracing began to soften. It now shows up far less often, and when it does, she recognises it as a boundary signal - not just “tension to get rid of.”

🪞 Somatic work can help us listen to the language of the body : where tension, tightness, or symptoms can hold stories that words alone can’t reach. When we learn to listen, we can begin to release the old patterns of protection that are no longer needed.

🧠 The mind–body connection is real and powerful. Feeling our emotions through the body isn’t just healing - research shows it supports our wellbeing on every level.

Imagine if we tried to “get rid of” the tension, without ever asking what it needed.

See the link at the top of my page for specialised sessions in trauma and complex trauma recovery.

Follow for more on recovery from trauma & CPTSD.

29/10/2025

If you've ever thought 'why is this taking so long?! Or 'why can't I just get over it already?! You're not alone. And it's completely understandable that you'd want to get over feeling the really tough and overwhelming stuff asap. Almost everyone feels this way on the healing path.

But real nervous system work is by nature slow, because it's working at a very deep level. It needs time, just like learning a new language : we couldn't do it in a month. We could create some really great foundations in a month, but much more time is needed. This is because it's working at the level of your physiology : the internal processes of your body, deeper than your behaviour and your thoughts.

It isn't slow because you're doing it wrong. It just needs that time to land properly and integrate. It's because your nervous system is actually doing it right.

It tends to be the case that when we stop forcing it, trying to fix it, hack it, make it perfect. That's when it starts to land better and real change starts to happen.

Healing happens naturally when we create the conditions, without excess force. So, slower is often faster.

Follow for more on recovery from trauma and complex trauma.

See the link at the top of my page to read about my one to one specialist sessions in Somatic experiencing trauma and complex trauma recovery.

💙

28/10/2025

In Somatic Experiencing therapy, we approach this gradually.
We call it titration - working with just the right dosage of sensation or emotion, so your nervous system never feels overwhelmed.

What’s been buried was likely buried for good reason - it wasn’t safe to express before. Now, in the space of recovery, it can be met slowly, safely, and at your pace. Over time, your system learns that it no longer needs to suppress, but can *express* - and in doing so, recover more vitality, aliveness, and more of you.

We might express though words, movement, sound, impulses, reflexes through the body. All help energy that was held in through suppression of what we wanted to say or couldn't feel, to be expressed, move through and complete.

Along the way in this process, there is often the discovery that all along...
you weren’t bad.
That what you felt wasn’t wrong.

You’re not too much. And you don’t need to censor yourself here.

Sometimes, in trying to “be calm,” we skip over the anger that still needs to be felt and expressed. But when we gently begin to acknowledge and express what was once squashed down, something in us can finally settle.

For me, learning to let anger back in was life-changing. Beneath the shame of feeling “too much” was the truth that I was never bad : just a kid whose body needed to fight back.

And when I let that be true - I found calm.
Real, grounded calm. And realised that calm all the time isn't the goal, it's meant to exist alongside all of these other energies, including anger. Anger, just like a cat would swipe their claws when another invades their space is simple : simple and serves a purpose.

One of the interesting things about anger is that the more we can feel it and express it, the less explosive it tends to be. Sometimes, it just comes out as a clear, grounded 'no'.

All of you is welcome here .

26/10/2025

I’ve been meaning to share for a while about something called limerence - and this video by captures it beautifully.

It’s something I experienced earlier in life, before I had the language for it. And it’s something I’ve supported many clients through, too.

Limerence is that intense emotional preoccupation with another person - the kind that takes over your thoughts, your focus, even your sense of self.
It often looks like:
• intrusive thoughts or fantasies about someone
• placing them on a pedestal or seeing them as a “soulmate”
• longing for them to finally make you feel special, seen, or whole
• losing touch with your present life or relationships while chasing the fantasy

It can feel intoxicating and painful at once - a pull that seems impossible to break.
But underneath, limerence isn’t really about the other person.
It’s about the part of us still longing to feel seen, chosen, or special.

Often, this pattern takes root in childhood, when we weren’t the centre of someone’s world in a “good enough” way. As adults, that unmet need can reappear as longing for someone we can’t have, or as fantasies of being rescued by perfect love.

Somatic work helps us bring this longing home to the body.
To notice: Where do I feel this ache for connection? What does it need?
Sometimes it feels like a raw, open space, and our work becomes creating containment, warmth, and safety from the inside out.

Over time, we shift from “they complete me”
to “I can feel this longing and care for it myself.”

Because what we’re really craving isn’t another person’s love : it’s our own presence, safety, and belonging.

Follow , somatic trauma specialist, for more on recovery from trauma.

See the link at the top of my page for ways we can work together, including specialised sessions in trauma and complex trauma recovery.

🧡

24/10/2025

Follow for more on complex trauma recovery. See the link at the top of my page for ways we can work together, online & in-person.

Complex trauma isn’t “too much sensitivity” or “overreacting to the past.”
It’s what happens when stress, fear, or emotional neglect become normal : when the body has to adapt, again and again, to what isn’t safe.

Over time, those adaptations shape everything: how we think, feel, relate, and who we believe ourselves to be.
Connection and curiosity give way to preservation and survival.
And underneath, the story forms: I’m bad. I’m unworthy. The problem must be me.

Working with the body is essential for Healing. Healing isn’t about convincing yourself that story isn’t true.
It’s about creating the conditions, in your body and your relationships, to feel something different.
A new felt-sense. A new narrative.

In Somatic Experiencing therapy, this happens gradually.
By slowing down, tracking sensations, and meeting activation in small, digestible doses, your nervous system can begin to learn what safety feels like.
The old patterns no longer have to run the show.

We don’t erase what happened, we recondition how your body relates to it.
And over time, the story of survival can begin to move into one of belonging.

22/10/2025

We can expand our capacity for health, by creating the right conditions.... and there is no end point. We are a living, ever-evolving process, rather than a 'before' and 'after' 💚

21/10/2025

Have you ever looked deep into the eyes of an animal and felt entirely known?

Often, the connections we share with non-human animals represent our safest, and most reliable relationships, offering unique and profound opportunities for healing.

For many people who grew up with abuse, neglect, or emotional disconnection, an animal might be the only source of safe touch and consistent love we’ve ever known.

Peter Levine, the founder of Somatic Experiencing, writes in his autobiography about his dog, Pouncer, who joined him in therapy sessions. Pouncer’s presence helped clients feel safe enough to access play, connection, and joy.

I’ve seen this in my own work too. Some of my clients ask for my cat, Bailey, to be part of our sessions -his playful or calm energy (depending on which state he's in!) helps their system energise or settle and find a deeper sense of safety.

Note: of course, respect if you don't like cats and / or prefer Bailey to not be a part of a session. It would only be on request.

When we stroke an animal’s fur, listen to their breath, or feel their warmth against us, our body receives powerful signals of co-regulation. Over time, those moments of safety and connection help our nervous system re-learn what calm and play feel like.

The bonds we form with animals are often profound - our closest family. And when we lose them, the grief can be just as deep as losing a family member - deserving of tenderness, space, and respect.

They remind us that safety, connection, and love are possible, not as ideas, but as felt experiences in the body.

It’s an immense privilege to share life with them.

🐾 Do you have an animal who helps you feel grounded or safe? I’d love to hear about them below.

20/10/2025

Do you ever feel like you’re stuck in a fog? Numb, disconnected, or unable to move forward?

Maybe your body feels heavy, your senses muted, and even when you sleep, it’s never enough.

Your thoughts might sound like:

❌“I can’t.”

❌“I’m not capable.”

❌“Something must be wrong with me.”

If that sounds familiar, you might be experiencing your dorsal vagal complex – this is your self-protective state of immobilization or shut down.

This happens not because you’re broken, but because your system believes it’s the only way to keep you safe.

We only go here when our system perceives we’re in so much danger that we can’t fight and we can’t get away. So instead, this state helps us to leave our bodies and disconnect, to not feel the perpetual pain of the moment.

Think of it kind of like a bear in hibernation. 🐻 We’re slowing down, shutting down, and disconnecting.

But just like a bear slowly waking up after winter, you can begin to come back toward regulation. We do this through introducing small amounts of movement or energy to the system and gently reconnecting with our senses.

It’s not about “snapping out of it.” It’s about supporting your body one breath, one step, and one neural exercise at a time. 🌱

You’re not broken, my friend. Your system is wise. And healing is possible. 💛

19/10/2025

When calm feels uncomfortable and chaos feels familiar - it may be how we adapted growing up in a chaotic environment. It doesn't mean we can't also get more familiar and at ease in the absence of chaos.
For many of us, stress became our “normal.” It felt like being alive.
Healing is the slow re-learning that safety can exist in stillness too.

🌀 I offer specialised 1:1 somatic therapy for trauma and complex trauma, available online. You can find more details through the link in my bio.

Credit: 💚

18/10/2025

Trauma and complex trauma create a wound that can distort the sense we have of ourselves in relation to the world around us.

Comment 'yes' or see link in bio to read about my specialist sessions in trauma and complex trauma healing. 💚

Follow for more on somatic trauma healing.

16/10/2025

I found a few old photos the other day when I was at my mum's house, including this one of me aged 10.

It feels really tender sharing this younger me. I hold her with a lot of love.

Whenever I see myself as a kid around this age (it's not just this photo, but many others too with similar energy), I realise how much I was holding in. I’d already learned to suppress and numb out in different ways. My face looks quite expressionless, like my energy had been drained away.

I now know I was in a nervous system state called functional freeze : where everything looks “fine” on the outside, but inside, the system is shut down in subtle ways.

It shows me how different I feel now - how much more alive I am in my body.
And how much of my adult life has been about slowly reclaiming that aliveness. It is a privilege that I've been able to experience that.

A big part of my journey has been learning to recognise the difference between numbness and aliveness. Between dissociation and arriving into a sense of real safety.

It’s one of the reasons I’m so passionate about this work is because I’ve lived it, and it feels like it's been the biggest mission of my adult life, both on a personal level, and in the work that I'm lucky enough to do in the world now.

I’ve felt what it’s like to carry stored survival energy in my body... and I’ve also felt what it’s like to come back to life.

If any part of this resonates, I see you, and you're not alone.
So many of us learned to freeze, or to live in another one of our survival responses (fight, flight, fawn) as a baseline, before we ever had words for it. Somatic Experiencing can be a really supportive therapy for moving out of survival, to more aliveness and vitality, and recovery from childhood trauma.

15/10/2025

3 things I sometimes remind my clients (and myself) as a somatic trauma specialist:

1️⃣ Many of us in trauma recovery aren’t trying to ‘get back’ to who we were before.
For some of us, there isn’t even a clear before, just survival.
We’re not re-building, we’re building who we are, often for the very first time.
That takes immense patience, courage, and self-compassion.
Becoming someone you’ve never been is brave work, and it takes time.

2️⃣ Healing happens in layers, not leaps.
As your system processes stored stress or survival energy, it needs pauses for integration.
Sometimes you’ll feel change, then a sense of not much happening, no progress or even what feels like going backwards, but often not because you’re stuck, because your body is reorganising.
This is how regulation deepens: slowly, safely, one layer at a time.
Quick fixes can create rupture, but sustainable change unfolds through consistency and care.

3️⃣ Desire shows you what’s possible, capacity shows you what’s next.
Desire lives in imagination and hope. Capacity lives in the present moment.
Your capacity changes all the time : with rest, food, hormones, environment, even the moon.
When we try to move faster than our body can handle when our desire is bigger than our capacity and we push through, we often burn out or shut down.
Healing means listening for the pace your system can hold, and respecting and responding to it.

Your body already knows the way. It just needs space, safety, and support to remember.

Comment “Somatic” to hear more about my specialist somatic trauma therapy 1:1 series.

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https://charlotte-preston.com/

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