Somatic Therapy for Anxiety and Nervous System Regulation
Anxiety
Your chest is tight before you open your eyes in the morning. Your mind is often three steps ahead: rehearsing conversations, scanning for problems, trying to get everything ‘right’. Or maybe it's the opposite: you feel strangely flat, numb, cut off from the things you want to care about.
Either way, you're probably exhausted. And maybe a little frustrated that nothing you've tried has worked long term.
If anxiety or emotional overwhelm are running your life, even beneath the surface of a life that looks fine from the outside, you're in the right place.
What's Actually Going On in Your Nervous System?
Anxiety isn't a character flaw. It's not weakness, and it's not something you can think your way out of. It's your nervous system doing exactly what it was designed to do. Detect threat and respond.
When your nervous system has been shaped by early stress, chronic pressure, or unresolved trauma, it can get stuck in patterns that no longer serve you. Your threat-detection system stays on high alert even when the danger has passed. Your body keeps bracing for impact when there's nothing to brace for.
This is why techniques that work on the surface - breathing apps, journalling, talking yourself down - only go so far. You can know something isn't dangerous and still feel terrified. You can understand a pattern intellectually and still repeat it. You might think you just need more willpower, but this isn’t something you can muscle through. Your nervous system hasn't yet learned it's safe.
The work we do together goes deeper than insight. It goes into the body, which is where lasting change is more likely to happen.
What Anxiety and Nervous System Dysregulation Can Look Like
My clients dealing with anxiety and nervous system dysregulation often describe some of these experiences:
A mind that won't quiet down: looping thoughts, worst-case scenarios, difficulty sleeping
Constantly on the go without feeling like you can ACTUALLY slow down and relax
Physical symptoms with no clear medical cause: tension, digestive issues, fatigue, chest tightness
Emotional reactions that feel bigger than the moment warrants
Feeling shut down, disconnected, or foggy (this can be a nervous system response, not laziness)
Difficulty tolerating uncertainty or "waiting" without anxiety ramping up
Hypervigilance — always scanning, always bracing, never quite able to relax
Burnout from trying so hard to manage everything, or ‘crashes’ where you shut down or collapse after running on adrenaline and fumes for too long
You might be keeping it together on the outside. Maybe people even think you’re ‘calm and composed’ while you’re quietly running on empty. Many of my clients are. That doesn't mean they need less help. It often means they've been holding it together longer than anyone should have to.
How Somatic Therapy for Anxiety Works
I use Somatic Experiencing® (SE) and Internal Family Systems (IFS), two evidence-informed, body-based approaches that work with anxiety differently than traditional talk therapy.
Rather than focusing only on what's happening in your thoughts, we work with what's happening in your body. Anxiety lives in the body: in the bracing, the holding, the tightness, the speed. Lasting relief comes from helping your nervous system learn through experience, not just understanding, that it might be safe to settle even just a little bit.
Somatic Experiencing (SE)
SE was developed by Dr. Peter Levine and is based on the observation that anxiety and trauma get stored as unfinished survival responses in the body. In sessions, I'll guide you to gently notice what's happening in your body — sensations, impulses, images — and work with these in a paced, titrated way that helps your nervous system complete what it couldn't before. This work is about slowly, carefully helping your body find its way back to regulation and ease.
Internal Family Systems (IFS)
IFS, developed by Dr. Richard Schwartz, understands anxiety as a part of you: one that's working incredibly hard to protect you from something. Rather than trying to suppress or override this part, we get curious about it. We ask: what is this anxious part trying to prevent? What does it need? What is it afraid would happen if it let go?
When anxious parts feel genuinely heard and supported, they often soften. Then the calm, curious, grounded part of you (what IFS calls the Self) has more room to lead.
What Therapy for Anxiety Can Help You Build
Working together on anxiety and nervous system regulation, you can expect to:
Start to develop a felt sense of safety in your body: a new experience that moves beyond just trying to turn off your thoughts.
Build the capacity to move through hard emotions.
Interrupt anxious loops with methods that actually work (though I’m never against re-watching a comfort show when you need it).
Understand the roots of your anxiety and what your nervous system learned to protect you from
Befriend the parts of you that have been working so hard to keep you safe
Find more ease, more presence, and more spaciousness in daily life - riding the waves rather than peaking and crashing over and over
Who I Work With
I work with adults 19+ in Squamish in-person and online across BC. Many of my clients are thoughtful, reflective, often high-achieving people who've tried other approaches and are ready to go deeper. They're not in crisis, but they're not okay either, and they're ready for something to actually shift.
I especially love working with people who are sensitive, who feel things deeply, and who are beginning to suspect that their anxiety has a story. That story deserves to be heard, not managed.
A Note on Online Therapy for Anxiety
Online sessions for anxiety and nervous system regulation are just as effective as in-person work. Many clients find they can go even deeper from the safety of their own space. I offer 50 and 80-minute online sessions across BC, so wherever you are, this work is accessible.
Ready to Begin?
I offer a free 20-minute consultation call so we can get a sense of whether we're a good fit. You don't need to have the right words or a clear story, you just need to be ready for something to change.
I work with adults in Squamish and online across British Columbia. I'm a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (SEP) and Registered Clinical Counsellor (RCC #18811) with a Masters in Counselling Psychology.