About Me: Personal and Professional Story
Greetings and Salutations!
I’m Amy. I’m a Somatic Coach, a Structural Integration Practitioner and a bodywork educator. I’m an aspiring writer and an artist. I love walking as exercise and as meditation and am a big fan of the Oregon coast in any weather. I reside in, and work from, Portland Oregon where I share my home with my husband and two cats. I'm a member of the International Coaching Federation (ICF) and I completed my body-oriented coach training with The Somatic School based in the UK.
I found my way to coaching in 2022 after taking a three month sabbatical, spending most of my savings on travel and an Advanced Training in Structural Integration. I arrived home with the distinct sense that I had somehow not scratched the itch that I had hoped to scratch by taking time away from my practice to travel and deepen my studies. Oops!
It was a great experience and I’m delighted that I went. I met wonderful folks, saw beautiful new places and learned a great deal both professionally and personally. It also became clear to me that all I had learned and seen was not “it”. So, I found myself on the other side of this amazing and quite satisfying experience more than a little motivated to figure out what would scratch the itch. I wanted badly to understand what my “next thing” really was and I was unsure how to go about doing that. What I did understand was that my Advanced Training served to deepen my bodywork practice as well as my understanding and appreciation of my profession but what it did not provide was new information and the challenge that I came to realize I craved.
Life coaching was something that had kept bubbling up in my awareness. I know a few wonderful people who do this very thing for an actual living. However, a part of me cringed a bit (a lot) when thinking of using the term to describe myself. So, instead, I threw myself into several other areas of study including Narrative Medicine and Hakomi as I continued to explore the idea of what life coaching might look like for me.
At some point as I was researching schools and reading everything I could about coaching as a profession, I found the Somatic School which turned out to be a delightful conglomeration of so many of the ideas, modalities and philosophies that I’ve been interested in over the last decade. What I found, “clicked”. It *felt* right - so I immediately enrolled. It proved to be exactly what I needed. It’s bodywork adjacent, working with the “invisible” webbing of emotion and subjective experience rather than the immediate and tangible webbing of the human fascial system. It involves cultivating a different way of being in relationship with myself and people (I am no longer wearing the expert hat!) and continuing to explore work that I love; helping others find new perspectives and avenues forward. This endeavor of meeting what presents itself in the moment and following what comes up in service to helping people shift and play with their patterns is rich and astonishing and deeply humbling.
I bring to my coaching practice two decades of experience as a bodyworker and a teacher. Through my own explorations of what it means to be a human being in this world and via my private practice, I’ve spent a fair amount of time with the question of how can we find awareness and alignment in our embodied experience of our lives and I would be honored to accompany you on your journey into your wholeness.
"Today’s tangents will become tomorrow’s arcs, and unforeseen connections will tie up your loose ends in a way that will make you want to slap your head and holler at your accidental brilliance"
- Chris Baty
How to Human 101
Like you, I have no handbook. I’m pretty sure that the Powers-That-Be never did get around to writing one…they probably got distracted and then forgot all about it. Therefore, like you (probably), I have made my way through life with a combination of luck, the help of trusted others, lessons learned the hard way, sheer logic sometimes and gut feelings other times. I’ve read a ton of self-help books and tried on the truth of various proverbs and memes, testing them for resonance and authenticity. I’ve gone to therapy which was really hard and which helped me in ways I cannot yet fully fathom and for which I am eternally and incredibly grateful.
And yet, life continues to present herself on a daily basis with new conundrums that she happily lays at my feet and then watches expectantly to see what I will do. No instructions or opinions about how I should proceed.
In these cases (perhaps not therapy worthy, but needing witness) I have found that it can be helpful to be in presence with another mind and heart. Another human to hear me say things out loud and to witness the shape and texture of those observations, ideas and yearnings. To see if they “fit”. To see if they feel true and align. In some lucky cases, I can rely on friends and loved ones. However they are never impartial and often carry conundrums of their own.
You happen to have within you all the answers you long for regardless of what Life has delivered to your doorstep. What you might need is space and time and to consider it with another mind. You may have something specific that you are wrestling with or simply a sense that your life is in need of more (or less!) of something not quite defined. You may be looking for specific strategies about how to move forward, how to define a goal and organize next steps or you may simply wish to explore out loud a long buried dream that has arisen just now. What I know for sure is that you actually have all that you need inside you to find clarity and a way forward. I accompany you in this process.