Pathways with Chris Anne Coviello

Audrey Burke on Sensitivity, Somatic Healing & Becoming an Island of Coherence

• Chris Anne Coviello • Season 1 • Episode 4

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In this episode of Pathways, I sit down with somatic practitioner Audrey Burke for a powerful conversation on what it means to be a highly sensitive person in a world that often feels too loud, too fast, and too much. Audrey shares her personal healing journey—from a mysterious health collapse in Italy to discovering the profound impact of touch-based trauma healing and nervous system regulation.

We explore what “islands of coherence” are (and how to become one), the difference between trauma and sensitivity, the power of co-regulation, and why subtle, somatic practices can create life-changing shifts.

Whether you identify as highly sensitive, work with trauma, or are just curious about how the body holds—and heals—deep experience, this episode offers practical insights and heartfelt wisdom.

Topics We Cover:

  • Audrey’s healing journey and the role of somatic therapy
  • What it really means to be highly sensitive
  • The science and soul of co-regulation
  • How to reduce energetic overwhelm in daily life
  • “Islands of coherence” and why the world needs more of them
  • Tools to find your center and regulate your nervous system

Connect with Audrey Burke:

Learn more about Audrey’s work and somatic healing offerings:

Support the show:

Leave a review, share with a friend, 

or visit buymeacoffee.com/ChrisAnne to make a small donation and support future episodes.



Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Pathways!

If today’s conversation resonated with you, I invite you to explore more at www.cantontherapy.com, where you’ll find resources, upcoming events, and ways to connect.

You can also follow my journey and stay inspired on Instagram @ChrisAnneCoviello and join our growing community on Facebook at Chris Anne Coviello-The Healing Space-Canton Therapy

Until next time,

May your path be grounded, heart-led, and full of light.

Peace,

Chris Anne

P.S. If you want to support my Podcast you can "Buy me a coffee" at

https://buymeacoffee.com/chrisanne

SPEAKER_00:

What if your sensitivity was never the problem, but maybe the portal? In this episode, somatic practitioner Audrey Burke shares her healing journey from a mysterious collapse in Italy to discovering the quiet power of touch, co-regulation, and the nervous system's ability to restore itself. We explore what it truly means to be a highly sensitive person, how trauma shows up in the body, and what islands of coherence are, and why the world needs more of them. Here we go. Hello. Hi. How are you? I'm doing good. It's just getting all my setup. All right. It's great to meet you face to face. I know. It's great to meet you too. Goodness. How are you today? I've been having a good day. Thursdays are like technically my day, one of my days off. So it's always nice to be able to sleep in and had tea with a friend. So yeah, it's a good day. That's the best. The morning routine can elongate a bit. Yes. Well, thank you so much for, you know, willing to be on my podcast and for sharing your story. I know that people will want to hear it and want to learn more about who you are and what you do and your journey. So, yeah, I mean, I guess just to start off with, you know, like what brought you into this, you know, world of healing and, you know, kind of what started you on your journey, you know, to becoming a somatic practitioner or body worker. Yeah. Yeah. So, Kind of the big catalyst for me was about 11 years ago. It was right before my 29th birthday. I had what I call a nervous breakdown. I'm not quite sure what triggered it. I did have a really bad cough for a few weeks. And then after that, I suddenly started losing weight, had irritable bowel syndrome, stopped getting my period. So it was pretty extreme somatic symptoms. And It was even difficult for a period of time for me to go outside. I just found the noises and the smells overwhelming. I was living in Italy at the time. I did try to talk to some Italian doctors about it. One of the first doctors I saw, I just like wrote down a list of what was happening in English, translated into Italian. I went into her office, I handed her this piece of paper, and she just kind of like pointed at my head and wrote me a prescription for anxiety medication or something. Oh my gosh, what did you think? Well, at the time, I was really angry. And I had at that point done like one yoga teacher training. So I had some idea that there was like mind, body healing. And I was just annoyed that the only thing she offered me was like medication, like nothing, nothing else. Maybe we should test your thyroid or, you know, some blood test for something, right? Yeah. And I think also, because I was losing weight, a lot of people would see me and just like assume maybe I had an eating disorder or something. But that's like not what was going on in my situation. And I think when I looked at the medication, she recommended it was something that was like given to people who have eating disorders. Yeah. So that's kind of what sent me on started me on more so on my search of healing. I eventually left Italy, came back to the United States, partly because I wanted to work with practitioners who were speaking my language. And I moved to California. I just had a sense if I want to heal through like more mind-body healing, like that's probably going to happen in California. But it took me about five years before I ended up finding this somatic work that's been so helpful in healing some of my symptoms. Wow. Yeah. So did you go to like a practitioner or yeah. Like how'd you find it? How did you find somatic experiencing? Yeah. I've, Finally landed in it. It was a doctor at that point. I'd moved to Asheville, North Carolina and a doctor there after our first appointment handed me a list of therapists and was like, I think you should probably read these books by Peter Levine. So I think he could just sense, especially he, even when he touched me, I probably was like, you know, had a startle response and all these things. Um, But the first therapist that I worked with actually wasn't a somatic experiencing practitioner. She was Hikomi. And it was helpful to some degree. It was like the first therapist that I ever worked with. But what I found after working with her for a couple of years is it really wasn't getting to the root of my nervous system dysregulation. Like I really needed something that was more focused on healing developmental trauma. And at that point, this is still working with the same doctor. And he was like, now I think you should read this book called The Body Keeps the Score. And so I listened to that book on audiobook. And as I was listening to it, I was having all these thoughts. you know, revelations of like, this isn't what I'm doing in my current therapy. And even though Hakomi was somewhat somatic based, we were really talking for like about 50 minutes and maybe doing 10 minutes of mindfulness, but it wasn't like what I thought trauma therapy was going to be. And so as I was listening to Body Keeps the Score, I was like, yeah, this isn't what I'm doing. And I need to find someone who specializes in trauma. And so that's what I ended up doing. Wow. Wow. And so, That doctor who gave you the list of books from Peter Levine, he was a medical doctor? He actually was a medical doctor, but he was like an integrative medical doctor. And I also later found out that his business partner who founded it with him, his wife was a somatic experiencing practitioner. So like, and it was in Asheville where there's a lot of healers in Asheville. So I think he was a little bit more holistically minded than a regular MD. Nice. And then how many sessions of somatic experiencing did you do before you start seeing like any results or what was your experience of it the first time? Like when you, were you like, oh, this is it? Or did it take a while to be like, this is, you know, cause I know some people are like, I don't know what this is, you know, you know, they can't really understand and they're still trying to figure it out. Some people are like second right away. They know this is like the therapy that's going to heal me. Yeah, it was kind of the second situation for me where after my first session, there was just such a huge sigh of relief, especially because I had been trying to do therapy that wasn't quite feeling right for like two years. And so then when I finally had someone who was really listening to my nervous system, and we actually did do touch work in my very first session. And so I was like, Oh, yeah, that's what my body needs. It's like regulation and touch. And you can you explain to people who might not have any idea what that means, like, what that looked like for you, that experience of having touch blended into the somatic experiencing their therapeutic context, right? Because a lot of people think, therapy, oh, my God, you should never be touched. There's no touching. So yeah. Well, and so the interesting thing about this practitioner, she actually wasn't a therapist, she was a massage therapist, but she had done the somatic experiencing training, and she had done other advanced trainings in touch, like Dave Berger has a base training she had done, she studied something called transforming touch with Stephen Terrell. So she did take more of a body based approach, which my body really liked at that time. And I believe what she was doing with me in the first session was Steven Terrell's work. He has this one protocol called Seven Point where the practitioner is just doing gentle touch on seven points of the body. It includes like a heart opening where they start out with a hand on one shoulder and like opposite hip and then they switch sides. They support left adrenal gland which is like right on top of your left kidney come over to the right adrenal gland, the brainstem, and then the ankles. But it's really just focused on co-regulation. So we're not even talking that much. We're not like tracking so much, like where do you feel discomfort in your body? Like maybe a little bit, but for the most part, it's just about the practitioner helping your system to receive co-regulation. Right. And explain for people what that means, co-regulation. yeah um so like when we're born as babies we don't have the ability to regulate ourselves yet so regulation i look at is feeling something uncomfortable and then having your system be able to settle back down so like having a stress response but then being able to settle back down so like if you're a baby and you're hungry or you're you're crying you call out for help and then someone comes and they hold you and they rock you and sing to you or whatever they do and that's what helps your system to settle. So at first when you're a baby, you can't do it by yourself. You need someone to come in and help you. And then through learning to co-regulate with our parents over time, we begin to have the ability to self-regulate and do it on our own. Right. And so this practitioner, hence why going to someone that can help you co-regulate a practitioner, someone, maybe that's like, I don't like to say a little bit farther down the road than you, right? Because this is not linear, but that might have a little bit more of regulation in their system at the time can help you to settle and co-regulate and balance. Yeah, I definitely think that's helpful. I have asked that question to Stephen Terrell before, like, do I need to see a practitioner who's like more regulated than I am? And he was actually like, you know, touching itself is so helpful that you don't have to be too strict about that. Like just receiving touch is super helpful, but I would say in my own healing journey, I definitely seek out practitioners who seem a little further down the path than I am. Right. Yeah. Yeah. See somebody that's a disaster and complaining about their life. They're probably not the one you want. Yeah. And I think you can really trust like, you know, learn to trust your body's reaction to people too. Like how do I feel when I'm around this person? Does it make me feel better or make me feel worse? Right. Yeah. So just saying, right. Yeah. I think it's like that, that intuition that, that we feel when we like go into a restaurant and for some reason we don't want to sit by that group of people or that person, but we want to sit here or on a bus. Like there is just this knowing of like, I don't know, for some reason we vibe or we don't, there doesn't have to be a story around it. There's just an, uh, an energetic sort of link up. Yeah. Yeah. And it's interesting. Like some people that might like working, some people might like working with me and other people might not. And it doesn't necessarily, uh, you know, mean I'm a bad practitioner, but just people, different people vibe with different vibes. Absolutely. So, so true. Yeah. So I know you consider yourself or like a highly sensitive person. Tell us a little bit more about that. Yeah, so I first heard the term highly sensitive person when I was like 34. But looking back at even like my younger years, it was very obvious something was different about me. I just didn't have words for it. But even as like a young kid, I was just nice to everyone, which, you know, Even when I think back to elementary school, some kids who weren't the popular kids would end up having crushes on me because I was just nice to everyone in the class. Whether you were cool or you weren't cool, I was just nice to everyone. Then as I got older, I realized whenever I would travel on airplanes, the person next to me would talk to me for the entire flight. And not just talk to me, but tell me their entire life story, their family problems. And I would look around the plane and be like, this isn't happening to anybody else. Like that person over there is just reading a book. Like how, what's going on? Do you, do you, do you like introduce yourself and say like, hi, or do they just like go for it? A lot of people just went for it and especially when I was in my younger 20s, like I don't even think I would say much in return. I would just sit there and listen and they would just keep going. I didn't really have any skills of holding space, but I could listen. Yeah. How does that play into, I wonder if a lot of people that sort of identify as a highly sensitive person have that experience? I think definitely. Even when I had people, that's actually the same doctor I've been telling you about. When I went into his office and told him, like, I think I might be a sensitive person, he was like, I could have told you that. I bet you all your friends want to tell you all your problems. He kind of knew that was a thing. And it's something I've definitely heard from a lot of other highly sensitive people. How has that, like, played into... Personal, I mean, I see how it plays into your personal life, but like your professional life, how does that work in to your experience working with clients? Well, in some ways, I think it's been really helpful because It's a strength of mine to listen and hold space and be empathic and people generally feel safe opening up around me. So it's kind of nice that I have like some boundaries around it. Like you're going to come into my office for this one hour and like this is the intention of what we're going to do and you're paying me for it. And then when I'm not working, I can choose to, you know, spend time alone or spend time recharging. And so I can have boundaries around like when I'm holding space for people and when I'm not. I have had to learn tools about how to reduce my empathy. So to like not merge with clients, like to not take on their emotions. So I definitely have some practices just for like me staying in my own center, even, and this can come from developmental trauma too. But if as a young child, you were having to track what was going on in your home and then you're highly sensitive, so you're even better at tracking the subtle things that are going on in your home, you become like really hyper attuned. And so I've learned that I can actually reduce the amount of attunement I'm doing even like by 50% and I'm still really attuned without being like so intense. And it can kind of get coupled with, I'm attuning and that's because there's a threat. But my clients, not a threat to me or like what's going on in their lives doesn't have to be like an urgent threat and so being able to like turn down the volume a little bit um has helped me right yeah i think that's really um i think a lot of people would identify with that that feeling of like i can't go here or i can't do this thing or i can't um you know, watch this thing because I take too much in and I don't know how to keep some stuff out. And of course there's always like, you don't want to watch, you know, CNN on repeat. Like, you know, there's obviously there's things that, you know, you can do that are much healthier than others, but in terms of like reducing that empathy of kind of creating an energetic boundary and feeling that sense of, um, safety and, um, holding that container for yourself. It might be interesting for people if you would share a practice or two that you do that maybe they could try also. Yeah, I'd love to share a couple. One of the main ones I do was taught to me by my somatic experiencing therapist. And I think she calls it finding your midline. But before every session, it's very quick and easy. Just like noticing the earth below me, noticing the sky above me, noticing left side of my body, right side of my body, inside of my body, and then outside of my body. Ooh, that's good. It's so quick. And I do it before every session just to like, make sure that, you know, I'm in my center. I love it. Can we do it one more time? Yeah, I did that kind of quick. We can do it one more time. And if you're not driving a car, you can close your eyes and try it at home or wherever you are. Maybe walking in the woods, you can stop and put your hand on a tree and I don't know. Yeah, so closing your eyes or just softening your gaze if that's helpful. And then first, just noticing the ground below you. So the earth below you. Sometimes I even like to have the image of Mother Earth below me. And then above me, noticing the sky above me. Sometimes I'll tap into an image of Father Sky supporting from above. Then checking in with the left side of my body. Just even noticing that I have a left side of my body. Coming over and checking out the right side of my body. Then noticing inside of my body. And lastly, noticing outside of my body. Yeah. I love that. And you call it the midline? I call it finding your midline. Finding your midline. Do you have another one? Yeah. I could probably name a couple few other little tips. One of them is sometimes I do feel stuff in my body from my clients. I've noticed it happens to me when I'm working with someone who has like chronic pain, fibromyalgia. Like sometimes I start to feel a little bit fuzzy, I guess might be the word. And so I... I've done some work with IFS therapists, the internal family systems. So I'll like kind of talk to my protector parts and just be like, Hey, I see you're reacting to something in this person. Like, thank you so much for trying to keep me safe. And like, actually we're okay right now. Like you can soften. And the image I have is that once my protector parts kind of soften in IFS, there's this idea of like your self energy, which is, like, yeah, the part that's not your traumatized parts or protector parts. But when my protector parts soften, my self energy can shine through. And when like, my self energy is filling up my body with light, that's kind of the image I have, that if I'm so full of myself, that nothing that's not mine can like get stuck in me. Hmm, that's so good. Yes, like really connecting with that core essence of self healing. feeling it all up like sand in a jar or something. Yeah. Yeah. And I've heard some people say when they feel stuff in their body, they'll ask like, is this mine? Is this not mine? Sometimes I do that. But for the most part, I kind of feel like if you're feeling something in your body, it is yours. It just might be a response to something happening in the field. So that's why I like that kind of, all right, this is the way my protector parts are responding to whatever I'm picking up. And you can soften. Right. So you say, and I understand what you mean because I'm also a somatic practitioner, but for those that don't know what that means, like if I feel something in my body, I think many people are just like, might not understand what that means. I'd be like, oh, like a shoulder pain, you know, kind of thing. Say more about like how they might feel, let's say they're at Thanksgiving dinner

SPEAKER_01:

and

SPEAKER_00:

they're, taking you know the temperature of the room over and over and over and over and they need to like it's really becoming overwhelming and they want to reduce the reading and the checking in and trying to i heard the coolest thing lately uh recently this um woman who i listened to kathy heller she has such cool things to say she no This particular quote was not Kathy Heller. This was Daniela Vance on my last podcast. She was saying how when you are taking the temperature of the room and you have this responsibility on yourself to feel like you have to make everyone happy, right? To make yourself comfortable, like you can't even do that. Like that's not even a thing. What makes you think you can make everyone happy? Like you certainly can. Like that's right. So getting back to, you know, reducing the empathy, reducing like what might people feel? And I'm sure this could be really very indifferent depending on who the person is, right? Like how can somebody start to like sense into empathy? This sensation of like, I'm getting a little overwhelmed with how much I'm checking in. I'm a really sensitive person. And so I feel so uncomfortable in this situation. I don't even want to go to Thanksgiving dinner because it's just so uncomfortable. Like, what might they sense or notice so that they could tune into that and then start doing some of these cool exercises? Yeah. Thanks for that. First, I think it's important to know what your baseline is. So spending time alone, connecting with your body, that way you kind of have a sense of like, this is what I normally feel like. And then you can start experimenting, going into social situations and then noticing what feels different. And you're like, oh, that's different than the way I felt this morning. And then also see how do you feel once you left that situation? Like, do you feel better once you've left that situation? So it's helpful to realize like, kind of what is your baseline? And then how do you feel when you're around other people? So some things you might notice when there's more of that sympathetic part of the nervous system that might feel like a racing heart, faster breathing, you're holding your breath, you might feel anxious or panic, irritated, things like that. But you can also start to shut down as another nervous system response. That's more of the dorsal vagal. So that's when you might start to feel like really tired, really fatigued, or a little bit floaty, fuzzy, or you might just like not feel connected to the surroundings or people anymore. So it can kind of be one of those two extremes. I kind of call it either being stuck on on or stuck on off. Yeah, right. Or the, I want to leave. The flight, right? Yep. But that's, of course, sympathetic, yeah. Yep, yep. Oh, gosh, gosh, I got to go. I have to get that dog. The dog's got to get out. Another big cue for me sometimes is just like how active I'm being in my mind. Like I consider myself, if I'm being present, my mind's a little quieter. But if I start noticing like lots of thoughts, it's a little cue for me like, Oh, I must be feeling anxious, you know, because sometimes maybe I want to have a flight response, but probably before somatics, I might not have had the ability to actually get up and leave if I was uncomfortable. Instead, I would just sit there like ruminating about it. Yeah, right. Yeah. Feeling sort of frozen or stuck, right? While still racing inside, like you can't move, but you're still racing on the inside. Yes. And the break at the same time. Yep. Yep. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So we have the, your midline, the feeling, the body. So noticing all those different sensations, just noticing. And then what, what would they do with that? How would that? yeah so a couple a few things that i do to reduce my empathy if i'm in a situation where like i feel like i'm feeling too much from the other person's field is first of all like break eye contact maybe try just like looking looking away a little bit looking out the window for a second um But yeah, if you're like directly looking at someone, you're kind of sucked more into their field. So anything you can do to just back away, it might even be physically like leaning back in your chair or energetically imagining yourself as just like back here a little bit, but breaking the eye contact or like taking a sip of water, but just anything you can do to get a little break from like being in it.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. Right. Yep.

SPEAKER_00:

Wonderful. And orienting, you know, it's a big somatic experiencing skill, but just like looking around the room you're in and really noticing the ground below you can help stabilize you a little bit. If you're starting to feel anxious, it's like, okay, just notice what is stable. Like the ground beneath my feet is stable, trying to take in what feels okay in that situation. Yeah, absolutely. That's great. Gosh. Yeah. There's, there's so many interesting things that play into, you know, a highly sensitive person. And I wonder, I guess I'm curious if like, I don't know what your thoughts are on this. It just sort of popped into my head right now, but like what percentage of people are highly sensitive and are we all, but we just like, you know, some of us are like, have much more filters or, you know, for whatever reason, just don't take as much in, right? I wonder if there's any thoughts around that. Yeah. So the statistic I first heard was like 15 to 20% of the population is highly sensitive. But even more recently, I've heard that it's become higher to like 30% of the population. And it is considered a personality trait that you're born with that does have some genetic basis. And there's also differences in the way that your brain is wired. So there's more like processing sensitivity, you are processing things more deeply, there's more active mirror neurons. So there are some differences in the brain they can see with brain scans. And it's also not just in humans, it's in like 1000 animal species have, yeah, no, should I say 1000? I'm in 100. Even a hundred. Yeah. They, they observe this in like animals as well. They observe it in flies and fish. If you, Dr. Elaine Aaron wrote a book called the highly sensitive person. So she talks about some of that in her book. There's some videos online, but yeah, it's a hundred different species and it's considered to have an evolutionary advantage that it's the sensitive people that might be the first one to notice something's off or notice a threat in more sensitive ancient times they would be like the priestly advisors so they're not going to be the king the one who's like in charge they're not going to be the warrior but they're going to be like the quiet introspector advisor who's like telling everyone what might be helpful and like what danger might be coming wow

SPEAKER_01:

that's so interesting

SPEAKER_00:

yeah yeah how has um you know, how does this idea of highly sensitive, a highly sensitive person and sort of the experience of, you know, that you said personality trait, right? How does that sort of overlap or intertwine or get confused with trauma? symptoms in terms of people that are, you know, global high activation or, you know, continuing to scan as a trauma response versus just highly sensitive response. Yeah, I'm so happy to talk about this topic. And it's still something I'm really unpacking myself and like my own personal journey. And there's a lot of complexity. I mean, I think most highly sensitive people probably do have trauma because we are more sensitive and we're living in a world that wasn't really built for sensitive people. We're having to use computers and phones and there's a lot of stimulation that our nervous systems weren't quite designed for. And because highly sensitive people, we are taking in more details. I like to think the window of tolerance, how much stimulation you can handle, not necessarily that ours is smaller, but I imagine it filling up quicker because we're just taking in so much information and we are noticing and we are feeling so deeply for everything going on in the world that our window of tolerance can kind of fill up quicker. And so then we become overwhelmed or shut down maybe quicker than a non-sensitive person would. So we really do have to be careful to make time for rest and downtime and having energetic boundaries. So there's that piece that I feel like it is confusing because a lot of highly sensitive people do have some kind of trauma. I mean, trauma is kind of a big word, but have like nervous system dysregulation because of all the stimulation. I also feel like there are some people who might use the highly sensitive label who might not be a highly sensitive person in the way that Dr. Elaine Aron describes, but they're just sensitive to sensory stuff. And so they're like, oh, I'm a highly sensitive person. Where in their case, it might be something different because there's a lot of overlap with, you know, even like autism and ADHD and some other things that are a diagnosis, not a personality trait that you're born with. So there is a lot of overlap and each person just has to figure out what fits for them, you know? Maybe it doesn't even matter. Maybe it doesn't matter. I think one difference, though, is like highly sensitive people, we are sensitive to both positive and negative experiences. So not only do we maybe feel threats more deeply, but we also really enjoy like art and beauty and connection. And when I think of trauma, trauma is more about this like hypervigilance, right? Like orienting to threat. And a highly sensitive person might get stuck in that state, but a highly sensitive person who's done their healing, we're still feeling more deeply, but we're also feeling more deeply of like the good stuff too. Yeah. So it can be a wider range actually, huh? Well, yeah, potentially you do have to build up your capacity to be able to feel like both ends of the spectrum. Right, yeah. And one other thing I might mention that I feel like has helped me differentiate the difference between like my innate trait and trauma is like if you are experiencing trauma, you're going to feel hypervigilant all the time, like even when you're alone.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

But once you've done some trauma healing, like a highly sensitive person might feel overstimulated if they're in an overstimulating environment, like they go to a concert, they're at a party. But once they leave that environment, they should start feeling better. Where someone's system who's stuck in global high, they might not necessarily feel better once they have time alone. There's still going to be some dysregulation there. Right. Yeah, absolutely. So you mentioned Stephen Terrell. Tell us a little bit about his work and how that relates to the developmental trauma and how you're using that. Tell us a little bit more about that. Yeah, so Stephen Terrell is a somatic experiencing practitioner. And he had a background in the adoption world. And he ended up actually adopting two children himself as a single dad. So he was raising these like two baby boys who had attachment stuff going on because they had been in the adoption system. And he developed this transforming touch protocol to help his sons feel safer with him and to start attaching with him. And it's really focused on the co-regulation, which we've already talked about. And it's a bit quieter because developmental trauma is trauma that's happened. Some people say in the first three years of your life. I've heard other people say first five years of your life. I've even heard other people say it's like anything while your brain's still developing, which is up to the age of like 25, 27. But especially those earliest years, Before the age of three, like you don't have conscious memories. So this is like a time that's pre-verbal, pre-cognitive. So it's kind of hard to heal those wounds through talk therapy because you don't actually have memories of it. And that's where the somatic work is so helpful. But often what that missing piece was, that missing wound was like not having enough touch, not having enough co-regulation, not having enough attunement in those first three years of your life.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So how do you do that? How do you integrate that into your work? Yeah, so his main protocol is that seven point protocol, which I described earlier. And he suggests when people have developmental trauma that you're doing that for like six to eight weeks. And it gives the person's nervous system that missing experience of having a caregiver who's like safe, regulated, consistent, doing what they said they were going to do, And over time, it's like your nervous system can start finding theirs. You know, maybe you have more of an avoidant attachment style, but just each week getting to be in the safety of someone else over time, your nervous system can start finding the practitioner's nervous system and start co-regulating with them. And then there is some stuff we can add on later on. But I find that that seven point protocol just by itself really helps. And what we see is that I was talking about the window of tolerance, that this touch work helps to expand the window of tolerance. And it's kind of miraculous, because when I first started doing that work, I kind of felt like I'm not really doing too much.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

In somatic experiencing, there's a lot more talking, a lot more tracking. What are you noticing in your body? But this work was quiet. But what I would find is my clients would leave, and when they'd come back the next week, I'd be like, how'd your week go? Did you notice anything different? And they were starting to notice big changes in their life, like Normally if I experienced a small stressor, I would have gone into collapse for like a day or two, but this time that didn't happen. This time I actually felt angry. And this time I set a boundary and I was just, my mind was kind of blown. Cause I'm like, we're not even talking about boundaries. We're not even doing boundary work, but just the fact that their window of tolerance is getting wider through co-regulation. They now have this like new capacity. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Do you have any, um, Any kind of stories around that that you could share without revealing any private details of clients or anything? Yeah. Well, that one that I was kind of alluding to was someone who had autoimmune issues. And so it would be like any small kind of stressors, even having like a phone call that was a little bit stressful. They would experience fatigue for like a day or two after. And then over time, they started to rather than collapsing, they would feel more of that sympathetic energy of feeling like angry or instead of collapsing, they would like want to go on a walk. Wow. Yeah, it's great. So you received this work as well. That's how you got interested in it.

SPEAKER_01:

And

SPEAKER_00:

how many sessions did you receive before you started noticing differences? Or do you still do it? Or is it something like you do a certain amount and then you're good? Like, how's that work? Yeah. The practitioner that I first started with, we actually worked together weekly for like two years. And then she eventually had to close her practice. She got ill with cancer. But I started noticing differences pretty immediately. I think it was even one of our first sessions. So I mentioned to you at the time I was, well, I mentioned to you that I lost weight, but I was also having a hard time gaining weight. And doctors were telling me that I should eat like 3000 calories a day so I could gain weight. And I was eating 3000 calories a day and not gaining a single pound. And we did a session where she kind of mixed the transforming touch, but also did some more, like added in some other things where she had her hand on my stomach. And after that session, I became ravenously hungry. And the next day I had food packed for the whole day and I ate it all for lunch and then had to like pull over later and buy more food because I was just so hungry. And between her and I was working with an acupuncturist at the time, but then I ended up gaining like five pounds. And tell me, what is the thinking behind that? Like, what do you attribute it to? I know to the work, talk more about it, the why you think. Yeah, I have some ideas. I've also... at that beginning stage did have to let go. Cause at the beginning I had this very intense, like I need to figure this out. I need to figure out exactly what's happening. And almost to the point where that was like a trauma response, like getting on Google and researching. So in some ways I've like surrendered to the mystery, but so what can happen, especially with, early trauma and I do, I'm a C-section baby and an incubator baby. So I was like in an incubator after I was born does have an effect on that, your nervous system development from the start. And what a lot of times these syndromes, what happens is the gas system and the brake system become off so like the gas being your sympathetic what helps you like mobilize get started with your day fight or flight and the parasympathetic which lets you slow back down rest back down those systems kind of get out of whack they're either maybe sympathetic stuck on on or parasympathetic is like stuck on off or as you mentioned earlier having both on at the same time um And so, yeah, I haven't quite thought through like all the details, but I imagine there could have been a little of both happening in my gut, like stuck on on and stuck on off maybe in different parts. Yeah. So, so it really feels like a nervous system issue that once resolved and really kind of the touch in the abdomen area just somehow created a coherence that allowed that to figure out what was on and what was off. Yeah, I imagine it probably helped turn more of the healthy dorsal, the rest and digest, we call it the low-tone dorsal. It probably helped turn that back on. Yeah. trying to think if i have any other thoughts on that i'm not sure but i'll let you know if something pops in i wonder too um like i i always feel like when we bring our attention to something it it it activates it right like there's so many different examples of this like you can put like duct tape on a wart and just the duct tape brings like, you know, the body's attention. Like, yep, you're, you're irritating me. Like, wait a minute. What, what is that tape up there? Like what's there's an irritant. Oh, wait a minute. Let's, let's go heal whatever that is. Um, and like how much this can work in the body, um, through some of these different practices with, um, with healing and how the, um, the, just the touch, the light touch on the abdomen, that coherence could create a situation where it's like, it brought all the attention into the nervous system in your stomach. And it was like, Oh, what's going on under there in a way that like you just touching your own stomach couldn't do. Right. Yeah. Steven Terrell actually has a quote. He'll say that as something like, Where intention goes, energy flows. Yeah. So true, right? Yeah. So, so true. And when I think about the digestion more, just more generally, right? Like if your nervous system is stuck in a survival response, digestion and reproduction are like no longer a priority for your body, right? Like your priority is to get to safety. And so your body isn't really sending its resources towards digestion or menstruation and these things. It's like, we just got to get to safety. Right. Yeah. So it just shuts down and it makes so much sense. Yeah. There's a really great book I read recently. Oh, I don't think I have it in my bookshelf. It's Gabor Mate. Yeah. And it's, um, it's all about what stress does to the body. Um, I know he has, when the body says no, he also has one called like, that's it. That's when the body says no. Yeah. That's it. Yeah. Oh, I love that book. I got it on audible. I got it in print. I was highlighting, I was underlining. I was like, oh, this book is so amazing. I think I could read it like five more times. Um, Such a good, a good representation of, like you were saying, you know, when we're in that stress space, we're not going to digest properly. We're not going to have the way they, they should, because it's all about survival. Yeah. And I think he mentions in that book, I, I haven't looked at it in a while, but that he was seeing that people who are really empathic are the ones who get sick. Doesn't he mention that in the book? And women are much more likely to get autoimmune diseases of the feelers, if you will, to kind of seek out and sense what is safe or not safe. Yeah. Yeah, and part of my digestion journey too, has been realizing this is a little bit more like energetic, but realizing I've been trying to digest stuff in my body. That's like not mine to digest, like I would see on the news that there was a school shooting or something, and I'd be feeling all this grief. And I would have to remind myself, like, well, this is really sad, like, I don't have children. Like my children were not in that building. Cause I'd be feeling the sadness as if I had just lost like my own child or something. And it has helped me lean more into spirituality of like, I don't have to feel this on my own. I don't have to fix all the world's problems on my own, but kind of, you know, asks for support from a higher power has really helped my system to settle of like, this is really hard. And like, I don't have to hold this in my body by myself. So true. Yeah. I often feel for myself personally that when I see those things, although sometimes it's hard not to feel, you know, really sad and upset and hopeless and the despair and the why and all of those things, I find that I can pretty quickly move through that and come to a place of prayer. Okay. So instead of sending all my energy to grief because, you know, my kids weren't in the school and I actually don't know anyone in the school. So really this isn't mine. This is out there. And how can I pray for all those people, all those families? How can I send them all like love, hugs, good energy, like support, like, all of the things right like if the energy is going to go there like you said where energy goes it flows

SPEAKER_01:

um

SPEAKER_00:

And I think that's such a good thing, a good tip for people that, you know, can you sort of shift your mindset to surrounding something with love instead of holding it with fear and sadness? And then what happens in your body when you create that shift? What do you notice when you now move into a place of love and support

SPEAKER_01:

and

SPEAKER_00:

send all that that way for all the people? And then just imagine if the millions of people watching this TV show or these news reports or hearing about these things are all like the collective energetic thing that's happening on our planet, right? Like if we're all just holding grief and sadness and despair versus the energy turn, if everyone's energy turned to love and support and healing and sending positive energy to all these people, what would that ripple effect be, right? Because we know we can measure the vibration off people's bodies, right? Not that those other feelings and sensations are important and really appropriate at times, but oftentimes, like you said, you're holding things that aren't yours, right? And so how can we shift when it's not ours, right? Yeah. Yeah. Well, I would love to share something on that topic, which really struck me. One of my instructors in the somatic experiencing training, we were talking about. coherence, which in somatic experience is kind of like, when things in the body are working in harmony. And so that's part of the way I work as a somatic practitioners, not just to focus on where there's pain, but like where things moving where things flowing, okay. But one thing he talked about is that when we're healing from syndromes, like irritable bowel syndrome, what we want to do is to start finding these little islands of coherence in the body. And then as we create these little islands of coherence, it starts to spread. So then the whole body comes a little bit more coherent. But then he added, which like really moved me was like, this is also how we can start to change society and systems. We make these little islands of coherence, whether that's people practicing yoga or meditating or sending their love. And then as there's these little islands of coherence, then the coherence starts to spread throughout the whole. And I was like, that is poetry. Yes. Yes. I love that. Oh, that's so good. Islands of coherence. Oh, it's good. So good. Sometimes I really get into, you know, like quantum physics and science and the, you know, and the way a lot of this stuff is, you know, now measured and, and thought of, you know, in the scientific community and how so much of this is, that used to be thought of as woo-woo is now just so really simply scientific. And I think it'd be really hard to argue, you know, that ripple effect of, you know, islands of coherence all over. Like, what would you do? How would you be kinder, you know, at the grocery store? And how would that lift up? I mean, it just dominoes everywhere of... Well, I'm sure you felt it as a mother having children that when you make yourself more coherent, it spreads through your family. Oh, my goodness. Great. I mean, the hardest lesson to learn, really, truly, because when, when I'm in a bad space, and I'm like, what is everyone? I'm like, it's a lot of responsibility to have to be so good.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

I get into them. I'm like, Oh, it's just so easy when I'm good. And everyone's just so good. Yeah. It's like, it's the strangest power. It really, truly is, you know, like with great power comes great responsibility. You know, that is true. That is true. Really, really, it really is. Even I, as much as I know it and feel it and see it a billion times, like I'm a mom now for three kids for 14 years, and I still want to deny it sometimes when I'm like in a little storm, you know, and like be like, oh, it's not true. Like, why can't you all just like hold it up for me? But it is, it's really true. And then, you

SPEAKER_01:

know,

SPEAKER_00:

they're good sometimes. They'll be like, mom, you're yelling. thank you I have instructed them you know like you know call me out like I might is my intention not to yell it is

SPEAKER_01:

my

SPEAKER_00:

common kind and they'll do that for me and they'll tell me to you know like hey mom thank you thank you yeah which probably works if they're like somewhat regulated but yeah if you have a dysregulated child and try to meet them At that heightened state. Yeah. You're good. And then it's just so amazing how you can have a dysregulated child. I've done this so many times now and it's profound to me how to have a really upset child. It's one of my biggest pet peeves and how people like stop crying. Like the worst thing you can say to a child is stop crying. I mean, really stop crying. And how it's, if you try to rush them through their process, it just takes way longer.

SPEAKER_01:

And

SPEAKER_00:

if you just like, like, no, you're really upset. It's really sad. Let's just sit together and I'll just be with them quietly and just like, just witness and say, you know, it's okay to really let that out. You can really feel that. And then it's like someone turned the faucet off. They're like, boom, it's like done. Like, oh, I have permission to feel whatever I want to feel. Okay. I'm good. It's amazing to me. That's so cool. It's really, truly amazing. I hope that everyone has the opportunity when they, you know, have big emotions to have somebody around them that can just hold space and, or

SPEAKER_01:

they

SPEAKER_00:

can, or, or, you know, if you're listening to this, if you can just hold space for yourself and say, okay, feel as much as I want to feel. And then it's up to me when I'm done to, you know, turn the faucet down or regulate how I need to regulate. Right. Yeah. But yeah, it really is cool to see how, when you do this work, how it does ripple, ripple out into the people in your life. So true. So true. Oh, I'm loving this conversation. Yeah. It's actually, I, I always have so much fun when I get to talk to like other somatic nerds because I, not everyone's into this stuff and so when i find someone who is i'm like yeah Yes, totally, totally. Okay, so I guess where we're at now, we're down the rainbow highway of islands of coherence, of wonderfulness. I guess, you know, let me ask you, what's lighting you up right now in your work? You know, are there any directions that you're excited to explore moving forward? Yeah. Well, I just turned 40 this year, which feels like a big threshold for me. And I feel like I'm stepping into a little bit more confidence as a practitioner and even like starting to do some podcasts, like doing some more public speaking, but feeling like I'm moving from, you I don't know if you wanna say like made into mother, I'm not a mother, but like I am graduating from like being the student to like kind of standing now in my own becoming more of an experienced practitioner and maybe starting to teach other people. So that feels, that's been feeling really exciting. I also love the touch work. And so I'm licensed as a massage therapist. And so I, I really want to keep developing my skills in touch. So I'm already signed up to study with Kathy Kane starting in October. So she was former somatic experiencing faculty. Her and Stephen Terrell actually co-wrote a book together called Nurturing Resilience, which is all about developmental trauma. So I'm going to do her somatic skills online, which I've heard is very similar to the touch skills for trauma training she does in Portland, Oregon, but I'll just, I'll be able to do it online. So I don't have to travel to Portland, but I'm super excited to study with Kathy. And I've been kind of daydreaming about like, what's my 10 year plan. And I was like, I kind of, I think I might want to be like Kathy when I grow up. Um, This is like the first time I'm really admitting that to somebody else, but I'm really excited to just like study as much as I can about touch skills for trauma and maybe like be a teacher someday. So that's what I'm excited about. Got the teacher bug. Me too. Me too. We want to share and also like, well, Kathy right now, she only does her in-person training in Portland and I'm on the East coast. So I would really love to spread some more of this work on the East coast. Um, and it's just been so helpful in my own healing journey. And I do feel like this regulation piece is such a missing piece, especially for people with developmental trauma, especially for people who are dealing with chronic health challenges. So I just feel passionate about being an advocate for touch work. Um, And then also, most of the touch trainers I know, which are like Dave Berger, Stephen Terrell, Kathy Kane, there's Elaine LaPierre, who's the neuroaffective touch. I think most of these people are in their 60s or 70s. So I'm just kind of wondering, like, what's going to be the legacy of all these touch trainings? And maybe some of their students will take it over, but I don't really know. Well, you're at the head of the line. You got your hand up, you know, you're like, and I will, you know. Next in line here. Yeah, but I am kind of thinking about like I would really if I step into the role of teacher because I have a background in yoga would want to do it in a way where I'm like honoring the lineage. So like maybe mentoring under someone and really getting their permission to teach. I don't want it to feel like I'm doing so much training and then stealing all their material and like teaching it myself. Like I want to do it in a way that's like honoring. So I'm just thinking through all of that and what it might look like. Right. And creating, you know, taking a little bit of all this and making your own thing. Or that. And then, yeah, what would my own thing look like? I don't know. I haven't gotten that far yet. yes yes that's exciting that creative process is wonderful yeah well it has been great before we wrap up I would love to ask you for those listening if you could just leave them with you know one or two things like you know if they you know never hear from you or I ever again, like what would you want them to know about this podcast? Like what would you want them to just like take with them about

SPEAKER_01:

the

SPEAKER_00:

healing journey or somatics or what is like the thing you wish everyone would kind of know? Yeah. I might sit with that just for a second. Two things are coming to mind. The first is, just is that you don't have to do it all by yourself and actually can't really heal all by yourself. I know a lot of people with avoidant attachment are going to be disappointed to hear that, but especially with these developmental trauma wounds, it's like that trauma happened in a relationship and it's healed in relationship through having someone like attuned to you and regulate with you. But I see so many people who are like, how do I do this by myself? Like, can you send me some exercises for somatic experiencing I can do by myself? And while there are some things you can do alone that are helpful, it's really the powerful part comes when you're doing this work with a practitioner, because they're keeping their system regulated while you're going into uncomfortable content. And then the practitioner system is kind of like a reference point for them that helps them to stay like rooted in safety. Like even though I'm feeling something challenging, I can look at this person and like see everything's still relatively okay. Like we're safe here. But just that it really is helpful to try to seek out support. Yeah, that is so, so beautiful. And then the second thing would be kind of that lesson I learned to like kind of let go a little bit of having to figure it all out. Like when we, our system is stuck on, on what that can look like is I need to figure this out now. I need to do all the things I'm going to do acupuncture. I'm going to do therapy. I'm going to do a psychedelics. I'm going to like, you know, do all of these like big shadow work all at once. Um, And I'm going to read all the trauma books and Google everything online. And in some ways, that's a symptom of your system being stuck on and that sense of urgency if I need to figure it out. But I would just encourage people to let go of that need to figure it out a little. Because I've also learned through my experience that we can't always figure it all out. Trauma works in really mysterious ways. And we can't always figure out what was the one event that kind of tipped my body over to being this way. And we don't actually need to figure it out in order to heal. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Love that. Love that.

SPEAKER_00:

Thank you so much, Audrey. It was so great to talk to you and meet you. And I'm sure everyone appreciates all the wisdom that you shared today. Yeah, well, thanks so much for having me. I'm excited to see where your podcast goes. And I think I listened to some of the podcasts you've done already. And I just think you're a natural at it. So I'm really excited to see where this goes. Thanks.

UNKNOWN:

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00:

So my website is www.restorativepresence.com. I see people virtually, I'm sorry, I do see people virtually, I see people in person in Durham, North Carolina, and then virtually anywhere in the world. If people want one on one support, I do like a free 15 minute compatibility chat. And there's a link on my website if people just want to book a quick chat with me to see if it feels like a good fit. I'm also on Instagram at somaticswithaudrey and YouTube at somaticswithaudrey. Wonderful. And we'll link all that in the show notes. Okay, great. Have a great day, Audrey. All right, you too. Take care. Thank you so much. to make a small donation. It really means so much. You can also find more about my work at www.cantontherapy.com and connect with me on Instagram at Chrisanne Coviello for more conversations and inspiration. Thanks again for being here. Until next time, take good care of you. Peace.