Body Sattva Therapies

07/28/2025

"The body has always known. What it needs now is permission to lead. A site of knowing, not just a vessel of survival. A place where grief can be metabolised, rage honoured, rest made sacred. And the future, however fragile, allowed to begin."

Collapse begins in the body.

07/11/2025

For a long time, women were simply left out of medical studies. It wasn’t because doctors didn’t care about women’s health, they claimed, but because female bodies—with cycles, hormonal changes, and potential —were considered “too complicated” for research trials. So they tested drugs and treatments on men, then assumed the results would apply to women too. The result? Medications that worked for men sometimes didn’t work for women at all—or caused unexpected, even deadly, side effects.

Heart disease is a perfect example. For decades, studies defined the “typical” heart attack symptoms based on men’s bodies, so when women showed up with different symptoms, they were misdiagnosed or sent home. Even dosage guidelines for many medications were based on average male body weight and metabolism, leading to overdoses or ineffective treatment in women.

It wasn’t until the 1990s that women pushed back hard enough to change these practices. Advocates demanded women be included in clinical trials, and laws were passed requiring federally funded research to include women. Still, the damage from those decades of exclusion lingers. Many medications and treatment protocols we use today were developed in studies that never included us, and it shows in persistent misdiagnoses, treatment failures, and side effects that continue to harm women.

We deserve health care designed with our bodies in mind, and that requires research that sees us, studies us, and includes us fully. Our biology isn’t a complication to be avoided; it’s a reality that medicine must learn to respect if it is going to heal us properly.

06/06/2025

I'm so chuffed to have been interviewed by the lovely people at Voyage Ohio. Please check them out. They are committed to supporting our community.

If you are interested in booking a session, I still have appointments available this month. Give me a shout with any questions!

Today we’d like to introduce you to Tara Hedges. Tara, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin? I felt called to bodywork in my early 20s. There was no specific aha moment, more a certainty that this is what I needed to do. I […]

05/05/2025

Emily Dickinson

04/23/2025

I have attended many CPR classes over the years, but was never told this…..
When you are alone and have a heart attack. What are you gonna do then?
A rarely good post that can't be shared often enough:
1.
Take a 2-minute break and read this:
Let's say it's 5:25 pm, and you're driving home after a tough day's work.
2.
You are really tired and frustrated.
All of a sudden, your chest pains. They are starting to radiate in the arm and jaw. It feels like being stabbed in the chest and heart. You're only a few miles away from the nearest hospital or home.
3.
Unfortunately, you don't know if you can make it..
4.
Maybe you've taken CPR training, but the person running the course hasn't told you how to help yourself.
5.
How do you survive a heart attack when you're alone when it happens? A person who is feeling weak and whose heart is beating hard has only about 10 seconds before losing consciousness.
6.
But you can help yourself by coughing repeatedly and very strongly! Deep breaths before every cough. Coughing should be repeated every second until you arrive at the hospital or until your heart starts to beat normally.
7.
Deep breathing gives oxygen to your lungs, and coughing movements boost the heart and blood circulation. Heart pressure also helps to restore a normal heartbeat. Here's how cardiac arrest victims can make it to the hospital for the proper treatment
8.
Cardiologists say if someone gets this message and passes it on to 10 people, we can expect to save at least one life.
9.
FOR WOMEN: You should know that women have additional and different symptoms. Rarely have crushing chest pain or pain in the arms. Often, they have indigestion and tightness across the back at the bra line, plus sudden fatigue.
Instead of posting jokes, you're helping save lives by spreading this message.
❤️ COPY (hold your finger, click on the text, and select copy, go to your own page and where you normally want to write, select finger again, and paste)

03/06/2025

As promised, I am offering classes in how to manage your nervous system during troubled times. We will explore how our nervous systems (sympathetic, parasympathetic, social) function, what these feel like in our own bodies and explore techniques to re-regulate. These are experiential classes.

Now more than ever we need to come together for community and solidarity. It's important that we support each other, not deplete each other.

I am purposefully keeping class sizes small. To that end, I have two dates available. These are first come first served.

Thursday March 20th at 7pm
Thursday April 3rd at 7pm

If you would like to register for either date follow the link below to view classes and workshops. Please feel free to email me with any questions! Direct messaging here is unreliable.

Myofascial Release, Somatic Therapy, Thai Yoga Massage, Reiki, Cupping, Cranial Sacral Therapy, Private Yoga Lessons

02/17/2025

After a week of fighting headaches this snowy cuddly day was most welcome. I realized I was over extending in my activism. There is a reason why we are advised to choose three things to focus on and why it is important to emphasize self care. Making multiple calls about multiple outrages every single day was too much. I am still calling for sure but narrowing my focus. I'm also aware that managing other people's freak out is not my priority. I will share resources and be supportive wherever I can but we all need to manage our nervous systems right now.

To that end, I am putting together a class to help folks do just that. Stay tuned.

02/06/2025

I am always thinking of the rib cage. It's too easy to think of it as a rigid structure but it isn't. It is agile and flexible. Breathe into its expanse. Let the exhale rinse you clean of all the gunk. Allow your heart to float.

This poem courtesy of Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

01/24/2025

Always

01/22/2025

https://youtube.com/shorts/l_OdszfDnBs?si=Dh06ZkOg6TA3uDmv

01/10/2025

The wood in winter. It's my happy place. A real snow is a bonus. This is how I have been managing my anxiety. Long walks in the crisp air, reading the messages from the trees, listening to the gurgling waters. There is a reason those sycamore branches look like the dendrites of our nervous system. In less mystical terms, I am moving my body, walking in meditation and soaking up Vitamin D. I am doing the necessary to keep myself healthy and centered.

It's time to take our self care seriously. These are challenging days and if we are to be of any use to ourselves and others, we need to tend the oil in our lamps. Our life force. Find what that is for you. Running yourself into the ground is a capitalist lie. Doom scrolling is playing right into their hands.
Find what brings you joy and be fierce about it.

01/05/2025

This is a hugely important essay! If you are a person in the process of healing trauma, if you are someone who works to aid people who are, you should give this a read.

I've read The Body Keeps Score and have found the language...reductive. There's so much potential for growth and healing and flourishing that doesn't get acknowledged. I realize that when I would quote or refer clients to this book, I would instinctively "fix" the wording. For myself, and in my practice, using my own words and/or my clients' own to communicate has always seemed best practice. It helps people feel heard and understood. Now I am wondering if I was responding to the problems outlined in this essay.

Looking with fresh perspective at an accepted "authority" is never a bad thing. Lots of people love Peter Levine but I think his work is rubbish (not the least of which because he quotes Woody Allen in his book about physical and emotional trauma🙄).

For me this is a reminder to keep growing, researching and learning. Not for nothing, but it's well past time we give more attention to the women researching and writing in this field, like the excellent Roshi Joan Halifax mentioned in the article. That's going to be on the front burner for me this year.

If you have read this book and this essay, I would love to know your thoughts.

https://www.motherjones.com/media/2024/12/trauma-body-keeps-the-score-van-der-kolk-psychology-therapy-ptsd/?fbclid=IwY2xjawHno95leHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHckfI40FAb4ywIv0sjtKdaZ5vLfw-HK1MvQWlwuDHiUsj6NeVphrWdeyhg_aem_a7ExsBxRPQalmIAIWN9dsg

People kept telling me to read "The Body Keeps the Score." I was shocked at what it actually says.