I Am Not My Job, I Am My Energy
I’ve struggled a lot with “what to call myself” in this season of my work in somatics.
Am I a coach? A healer? A practitioner? Which title truly resonates, and which one will connect me with the people who need what I offer?
While “somatic” has definitely become a buzzword (maybe even a bit trendy!), there are still so many people who don’t fully understand what it means. Ever since I stepped away from massage therapy years ago and evolved into other forms of somatic work, I’ve been in an ongoing contemplation about how to describe what I do and how I help.
Even after completing my undergrad at Washington State, I still didn’t know what I wanted to be “when I grew up.” But massage school had always been on my bucket list. I was fascinated by anatomy, physiology, the mechanics of the skeleton and muscles—actually, all the systems in the body. How vast we are! So, around the year 2000, I followed the breadcrumbs of desire and enrolled. That’s what you do in your 20s when you’re unsure… you follow what feels alive.
I knew one thing for sure: I wanted to help people in pain feel better.
I completed a year-long training program and loved it. I got the best grades of my life - because when you do something out of desire and genuine interest (rather than simply to check a box), you thrive. I started my own business and helped people feel better in their bodies, in their soma. (Soma is the Greek word for body.)
So, it’s not surprising that when my own body began to burn out, and I started diving deep into my own healing, I found my way to somatics. Everything I guide clients through today is work I’ve done myself. For better or worse, I really am an expert at it, lol.
My practice has shifted from working on people’s bodies to working with them—energetically, emotionally, mentally. The work is collaborative now, not passive.
And the truth is, it doesn’t really matter what I call myself.
Because this work is about the soma - yours and mine.
Before I sit with anyone, I sit with myself. I tend to my own system first. It’s become my way of life. Without that, collaboration wouldn't be possible. I’d burn out. Clients would feel my incoherence, my dysregulation. For this work to be real and transformative, I have to show up regulated, embodied, heart-centered. And when I do, clients start mirroring that. Even if they don’t know that’s what’s happening, they feel it.
What I do is help people come back to themselves. To remember who they truly are.
Because we are not our titles. We are not our jobs. We are so much more.
We lose ourselves daily: in responsibilities, in identities, in the noise of the world. Spiritually, emotionally, mentally. The real work is returning. Coming back to our bodies, back to our hearts.
So maybe I’m not a coach, or a healer, or a practitioner - not just those things. Maybe I’m a mirror. A reminder. A companion on the path back home. And maybe what matters most isn’t the title I hold, but the way I hold space. With presence. With care. With energy that says: You can come back to yourself now.
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