Many people come to therapy with deep insight into why they feel anxious, burned out, stuck, depressed, or reactive and still can’t get themselves to change.
This isn’t a failure of motivation or effort.
Often, it’s a nervous system issue.
Somatic therapy and polyvagal-informed care focus on how stress, trauma, and overwhelm live in the body, not just the mind. When your nervous system has been chronically activated, depleted, or pushed into shutdown, insight alone isn’t enough. Your system may not yet have the capacity to do the work you’re trying to do.
Capacity, the Nervous System & Why Insight Isn't Enough
Many of the people I work with are insightful, self-aware, and intellectually understand what would help them feel better. They can name the “right” tools, the healthy habits, or the changes they want to make and still feel unable to follow through.
This is not a motivation problem.
And it is not something to feel ashamed of.
In my experience, this gap between knowing and doing is almost always related to nervous system capacity.
What I Mean by Capacity
Capacity refers to how much stress, emotion, and demand your nervous system can tolerate while still staying regulated enough to function, reflect, and make choices.
When your system is chronically activated, depleted, or stuck in survival mode, even helpful strategies can feel:
-
overwhelming
-
impossible to start
-
exhausting to maintain
-
emotionally activating rather than supportive
Trying to “push through” in these states often increases shame and reinforces the belief that something is wrong with you, which actually keeps the nervous system more stuck.
The Window of Tolerance
You may hear this described as the window of tolerance: the range in which your nervous system feels regulated enough to:
-
think clearly
-
stay present
-
access emotions without being flooded
-
take action without forcing yourself
When you’re outside that window (in fight/flight or shutdown), insight alone doesn’t translate into change. Your system is focused on survival, not growth.
Why We Start With Regulation
This is why my work often begins with nervous system regulation and capacity-building, rather than jumping straight into cognitive restructuring or deeper emotional processing.
By helping your system feel safer and more resourced:
-
strategies become more accessible
-
habits feel less effortful
-
emotional work feels tolerable rather than overwhelming
-
lasting change becomes possible without forcing
Once capacity increases, approaches like CBT, ACT, parts work, or trauma processing tend to land more effectively and sustainably.
This Is Not About Doing Less- It’s About Doing What Works
Starting with capacity doesn’t mean avoiding meaningful work. It means sequencing therapy in a way that respects your nervous system.
The goal is not to push harder.
The goal is to create the internal conditions where change can actually happen.
And when we start there, many clients are relieved to realize:
“Nothing was wrong with me, my system just needed support.”
What Somatic Therapy Focuses On
Somatic therapy helps you understand and work with:
-
patterns of tension, fatigue, or numbness
-
chronic fight-or-flight activation (anxiety, urgency, irritability)
-
freeze or shutdown states (low energy, disconnection, depression)
-
emotional overwhelm or reactivity
-
difficulty feeling safe, grounded, or present in your body
Rather than pushing you to “calm down” or override your responses, we focus on listening to your nervous system and working with it.
Polyvagal Theory: A Nervous System Lens
Polyvagal Theory gives us a framework for understanding how your nervous system shifts between states of safety, activation, and shutdown.
From this perspective:
-
Anxiety often reflects a system stuck in mobilization
-
Burnout and depression often reflect nervous system depletion or collapse
-
Emotional reactivity is often a protection strategy, not a character flaw
-
Difficulty resting or slowing down can be a learned survival response
When we understand these patterns, we stop blaming ourselves and start choosing interventions that actually help.
How I Use Somatic & Polyvagal-Informed Work
My approach is integrative and collaborative, not protocol-driven. Depending on your needs and readiness, somatic work may include:
-
noticing internal cues (tension, breath, posture, energy shifts)
-
gentle grounding or orienting practices
-
learning to recognize early signs of activation or shutdown
-
identifying what helps your system feel safer (and what doesn’t)
-
building regulation skills you can use in real life
-
pairing body-based awareness with cognitive or emotional work
Importantly, what helps one person may feel unhelpful or even distressing to another. For example, traditional grounding or breathwork can feel unsafe for some clients. That information helps us understand your nervous system; it doesn’t mean you’re “doing it wrong.”
We always adapt the work to your capacity. Somatic and polyvagal-informed therapy is not about forcing a particular outcome. It’s about helping you feel more grounded, present, and able to engage with your life- on your terms.
Regulating First, Then Changing Patterns
For many clients, somatic and nervous-system work comes before deeper cognitive or trauma processing, not instead of it.
If your system is overwhelmed, depleted, or shut down, asking you to:
-
challenge thoughts
-
process memories
-
“push through” avoidance
can actually make things worse.
By first increasing nervous system capacity and safety, other therapeutic approaches (CBT, ACT, parts work, trauma processing) become more effective and more sustainable.
Some clients want to move toward deeper trauma processing over time. Others want to focus solely on regulation, present-day patterns, and learning how their nervous system works.
Both approaches are valid. The important piece is that you are in control of what feels safe for you.
Who This Approach Is Especially Helpful For
This work is often a strong fit for adults who:
-
feel chronically anxious, burned out, or emotionally exhausted
-
understand their patterns intellectually but can’t shift them
-
feel disconnected from their body or emotions
-
experience shutdown, numbness, or low motivation
-
are highly sensitive, neurodivergent, or high-masking
-
have tried “talk therapy” before without lasting change
Many people are deeply self-aware. They understand what’s happening cognitively, but their nervous system hasn’t caught up yet. Embodiment helps bridge that gap.
Embodiment means learning to notice, trust, and respond to your body’s signals in real time, rather than overriding them or living solely from the neck up.
How to Get Started
The best way to begin is with a free 20-minute consultation. This gives us space to talk about what you’re experiencing, answer your questions, and decide together whether this approach feels like a good fit.
Somatic work is not about fixing you.
It’s about helping your system recover enough safety and capacity for change to become possible.
