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.

21/09/2025

Hello, how are you? Its been a little while..
Here are a few things that caught my eye or that I've been reflecting on lately.
Thinking about, how space is the remedy to allow us to catch up with where we are. So often, we're time travelling back and forth with our attention, into different portals, both in our own minds and through the screen. Feet on the ground, and time and space help us to come back to where we are.

Talking about catching up with where we are... I turned 41 this week. It made me reflect on life a bit. We need connection more than ever these days, when there's the potential to be time travelling away from where we are, and for things to feel weirdly not real, our connections help us to stay grounded. Real, honest conversations, giving presence. Being with our different opinions. laughing together, moving together, being there for each other.

Are there any of these that spoke to you?

1.
2.
3. Random internet cat - source unknown
4. Magdalena Weinstein
5.
6.
7. The rain out of my window
8. The sun in my garden
9. Me!

15/09/2025

It makes sense if you're feeling a lot at the moment. I want to say, it also makes sense if you feel numb at the moment.

Some mornings, I wonder :
with so much suffering in the world,
What could I possibly share?

I don’t have the answer.
But I know this:
naming truth helps us feel less alone.
Gentleness matters,
even, or even especially, when things are unbearably heavy.

I hold both immense grief and awe.
Grief for lives lost, and at risk.
Awe for the fierce ones who keep showing up.

If your heart feels tender today, I’m with you.
If you can connect or bring hope, please share it, as
someone needs it.
We have each other.

And to those moving through grief, numbness, or uncertainty, I'm with you.

10/09/2025

If you've ever been called 'too sensitive', my guess is you'll know how it feels to create a story from this that there's something wrong with you.

That story only takes us further into pain or shame, and further away from what we actually need. The antidote, or what we actually need, is to get gently curious about what the needs are beneath the sensitivity.

Our sensitivity is asking to be listened to. As we slow ourselves down enough (which can often be hard by ourselves, that's where 1:1 support can be really helpful, at least in the beginning stages) we can often begin to get to know what the needs are that are asking to be heard. And we can learn new ways of meeting them. Very often what happens when we do this, is we experience a settling inside, and a new found sense of ease in ourselves. Also, the ability to continue to listen to ourselves and know that our needs matter, and that it actually makes a difference when we practice this kind of inner listening.

when we meet those needs in new ways, something shifts: a settling inside, a sense of ease, and the growing trust that our needs matter.

—

✨ For more on how to identify and recover from childhood trauma and emotional neglect, follow .
💌 Comment or DM “somatic” to receive details about 1:1 sessions.

03/09/2025

Gabor Maté’s book Scattered Minds has shaped a lot of conversations about ADHD. In it, he challenges the idea that ADHD is purely genetic and instead describes it as a developmental adaptation to stress and early experiences of disconnection. He suggests that the nervous system can change, and that healing is possible, not through erasing who we are, but by finding more regulation, presence, and connection.

I know some people come away from this book with the impression that ADHD “isn’t real” and that it’s only the result of trauma. Understandably, that can bring up shame. Growing up with unsupported ADHD can be traumatising in itself, and it can feel invalidating to hear that experience described as if it doesn’t exist.

I don’t believe Maté is suggesting that ADHD isn’t real. I think what he’s pointing to is the possibility that our nervous systems, including those of us with ADHD, can shift and change.

For me, ADHD is part of my identity. Many of my strengths and ways of seeing the world are linked to it. And at the same time, Somatic Experiencing therapy has supported me to meet the more difficult aspects differently. It has helped me soften patterns of freezing and dissociation, build more capacity in my nervous system, and live with a greater sense of connection and choice.

So for me it isn’t either/or. ADHD can be a part of my identity and it is also possible to find more ease, presence, and resilience in how we live with it.

I’d love to hear from you. What’s your own lived experience of ADHD? Have you read Scattered Minds, and how did it land with you?

Follow for more on recovery from trauma, with somatic therapy.

02/09/2025

More on this below ...

Warmth and pressure can bring us back into our bodies, soften tension, and give permission to be as we are.

Often, our bodies are reacting to the stress of a remembered past or an anticipated future, even when right now, we’re actually safe.

These stress memories live beneath the surface, in the subconscious. We may not realise it’s happening, only that we feel tense, overwhelmed, or like our mind won’t stop racing.

When this happens, the body often responds with: on the level of sensation : tension or bracing, constriction, and in our biology as racing heart, adrenaline, cortisol.

In the moment, we can gently show our body the safety of now.

For example: pressing a pillow into your belly. The weight and warmth can feel soothing, like a form of co-regulation, and help you come back to yourself. As you do this, you could also feel your feet on the ground, and look around you, looking for one thing you like the look of in this moment.

Another way we might feel pressure or warmth is to be in a warm bath, and feel the water wrap around us

Using a blanket over our lap

Lying on the ground and sensing gravity and the support of the earth

Or leaning your back against a wall, or a tree

This isn’t about escaping your experience. It’s about slowing things down enough to notice the ground beneath you, and what’s here to support you.

It takes practice. It may not work for everyone, every time. But gradually, these moments of care help us build new ways of being with our sensations and emotions.

Where we may once have been left alone with our emotions, or they were minimised or denied… now we can begin to meet ourselves differently, with presence and care. This can change our whole relationship with ourselves to a more caring and trusting one.

And over time, this can help us to become more present, connected and less overwhelmed in the world.

Have you used pressure or warmth to support you? How was it for you?

Follow for more on building safety in your nervous system for stress and trauma recovery

19/08/2025

Authenticity

You don't need to 'fake it til you make it' or perform confidence. The thing is when it comes to healing, noticing what our true experience is and responding to that is more helpful, and builds safety in our nervous system. So rather than pretending to be sure about something, if we're unsure, often noticing that's the case and allowing ourselves to be there is more helpful, in terms of building a sense of safety in our nervous system, and feeling more at ease in our own skin.

Building self-trust

If you grew up in environments where your feelings were dismissed, your needs unmet, or your voice unheard — of course self-trust feels shaky.

With developmental trauma, this goes even deeper. If safety was missing in your early years, you may not have had the chance to fully form a solid sense of self. It’s completely normal then to feel like you don’t know who you are, what you want, or what you value.

Your system learned: “I can’t rely on myself. I have to adapt to survive.”

And this is where so many people get stuck — trying to “fake it till you make it,” striving for confidence, forcing themselves to perform. Sadly, this is often when we're taken further away from ourselves and are driving and perpetuating the sense of stress.

Self-trust doesn’t come from pushing yourself harder. It comes from rebuilding the safety that was missing.

✨ A few ways to begin:

Keep small promises to yourself. Small commitments count. “I’ll notice when I need to drink water or go to the loo, and respond to that' “I’ll pause before I say yes.” Each follow-through sends safety to your system.

Name what you feel, without fixing it. When you acknowledge, “I feel anxious,” or “I feel tired,” you’re showing your body: I hear you. You matter. That is trust in action.

Slow down the urgency. Self-trust doesn’t grow under pressure. It grows when you give yourself permission to pause, to discern, and to choose at your own pace.

If you want guided support in practising this, my 1:1 session series was designed to support you in rebuilding trust, step by step.

Comment “Attuned” or visit my profile for more details.

Love,

Charlotte

14/08/2025

1. You’re developing self-trust
That grounded knowing inside you starts to feel like a place you can return to. You begin to make choices that feel right for you—even when they go against old patterns or other people’s expectations.

2. You’re learning to be gentle with yourself
Instead of pushing, criticising, or abandoning yourself when things get hard, you meet yourself with more patience and care. You notice the urge to rush or punish yourself… and choose a kinder response.

I’m speaking as someone who once outsourced her inner knowing for years.
And as someone who used to feel physically sick at the suggestion to “just be gentle with yourself.”

These big, life-changing shifts can happen.
For me, when we learn to meet ourselves with presence, trust, and gentleness, more of us becomes available : present, connected, and alive in the world.

A side note:
I believe bodywork, breathwork, and movement practices alone—while powerful—are not enough for most of us recovering from stress and trauma.

In my experience, we also need someone who can help us step out of the negative stories we’ve been replaying for years, and guide us towards trusting our own innate worth and goodness.

That might be a trauma-trained therapist…
But if therapy isn’t accessible right now, support can still show up in many forms:

Books on trauma and nervous system healing

Safe, nurturing connections with mentors, guides, or friends

Animal friends

Communities where we can be seen and met as we are

Your turn:

What has been your biggest sign that the trauma work is working?

Charlotte x

12/08/2025

My body felt relief in reading this today, so I felt like sharing it with you.

Often, what we're taking in these days is not whats in our immediate surroundings, in the grounded here and now. We're overstimulated and overwhelmed as a result of this. But we can always come back.

When the energy feels too big to hold alone, we can always take it to nature. To a tree, to the ground, to the sky. We can 'coregulate' with nature : allow nature to support us, and to bring our presence and care to nature, too. Coregulation is a mutual exchange of energetic support.

It feels like a huge resource to me, to rest into that. And still one which I often resist, with the urge instead to fill the silence in various ways 💚 I notice I'm getting better at allowing it, and noticing the resistance to it at the same time. I did a video a little while ago on how it's normal to resist peace and quiet, and how this is also an ancestral thing as it wouldn't have been safe for our ancestors to slow down, necessarily. I'll link the video in stories.

Thank you for sharing this quote - it made my body sigh relief to read. I felt inspired to share it, too.

11/08/2025

For the end of your day (or any time really). Simple sensory ways that we might be able to experience shifts in our nervous system towards more ease, and space.

What would you add? Any ways that you like to ground, or comfort yourself at the end of the day? 🩵

06/08/2025

Good morning 🌻

If you grew up feeling like your emotions weren’t welcome, it can feel unsafe to connect with them as an adult.

This gentle practice helps your body learn that emotions are safe to feel, one sensation at a time.

Swipe through to learn how to start feeling your feelings in a way that’s grounded, safe, and doable.

Emotions are essentially sensations, and when we can begin to connect with them on this level, a lot of that judgement and shame around some being more acceptable can begin to fall away.

Send me a DM or comment below with 'somatic' to receive details of my 1:1 Somatic Experiencing sessions.

03/08/2025

One of the signs of growing capacity as we build nervous system regulation is being able to hold nuance rather than a very black and white, binary perspective. dysregulation has us clinging urgently to a single perspective, and regulation expands us into capacity for holding difference and seeing things from different perspectives.

When we work with Somatic Experiencing and allow nervous system capacity to unfold, our perception becomes more layered.
We start to notice that two (or more) things can be true at the same time, and that life is rarely black-and-white.

For example…

I can feel anxious and safe enough to stay present

I can love someone and hold a boundary with them

I can feel grief and gratitude at the same time

I can want to rest and feel uncomfortable slowing down.

This ability to hold complexity is a sign that your nervous system is becoming more flexible, resilient, and alive to the present moment.

What would you add?
Can you think of more examples where two or more things can be true at once?

02/08/2025

Childhood trauma is different. Rather than returning to yourself, or restoring regulation, we are building this from the ground up, and you could say slowly meeting the you who was always waiting beneath the survival.

Life doesn’t wait until after healing : life becomes where healing happens.

Comment “somatic” if you’d like to hear more about my 1:1 Somatic Experiencing sessions and how this work can support you. 🌱

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Wood Green

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https://charlotte-preston.com/

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