Connect to your body
Somatic Movement & Breathwork Therapy for Resistant Souls
Learn to recognise the difference between your trauma that needs attention and your innate wisdom that needs ears
Healing through movement and breath can change everything
We’re addicted to thinking. Always only using the intelligence of our brains.
To doing. To busyness. To productivity..
We’ve neglected nature and the world.
Rhythm and spirals.
We’re too focused on the tangible and yet everything that matters cannot be seen.
Love, connection, authenticity.
Capitalism and the patriarchy thrives on women being disconnected from our bodies and unconscious of our chains.
But the hardest part is, we believe we’re free…
Or I certainly did.
Until I realised at 29 I was saving for a house to buy because that’s what my grandparents wanted. I went on to spend that money on 4 months travelling South America. There is no right or wrong, to get married, to have kids, to travel, to not. But it’s knowing the programming, deconditioning it and know your truth. That’s medicine for not so many regrets.
The more we step into the body, “the map of the unconscious mind” Carl Jung, the more consciousness we become. Consciousness is freedom is one of the most famous yoga sutras, written 8,000 years ago.
If you struggle to love yourself, find yourself in patterns of addiction, feel so full of tension and want to be free. To really love yourself.
At this point to note to meet every door of resistance known to man if you are anything like me, come with me.
“Resistance is a doorway to what you seek” - Tara Judelle.
“What you are seeking is seeking you”
— Rumi
“Teaching breathwork is a ridiculous concept Carla”
(My Da)
We all breathe all the time - it’s what keeps us alive.
So why would you learn to breathwork when your body naturally, and more thankfully automatically breathes?
It’s the way that we breathe that makes all the difference.
The research shows 70% people breathe poorly, which means they over breathe, and unconsciously mouth breathe fast and quite shallow.
It finds people don't fully exhale, don’t fully let go (ring a bell?) which impacts the ability to inhale. It is the inhale that energises the electricity in the 37 trillion cells of your being. For the love of god pay that more attention or equal attention to your water, food, sleep.
It is the exhale that triggers the automatic response to breathe, the need to release the stressor Co2, not the need to take in 02. When you release what you no longer need, you take in what you do. The breath teaches us so much about how to live.
Every inhale teaches us how we receive, accept, connect, allow
Every exhale shows us how to let be, surrender, let go with grace
Breathwork is a practice where you bring attention to your breath and manipulate how you breathe, ranging for longer inhales, exhales, fast breathing, breath holds. There are an array of ways you can change the way you breathe and each practise gives different results.
“I hold my breath.”
is the most common thing I see in people when life gets hard or when trying something new. Which is why yoga and meditation can cause more stress in the start than relaxation.
A big issue for the majority of people (research indicates 70% of us- James Nestor), (including ‘past me!’) is that we unconsciously engage in shallow breathing and mouth breathing which lowers O2 levels in the blood and triggers our sympathetic system (fight/flight mode). Which makes sense if you think about the way you breathe when you are scared.
Now, we’re only supposed to be in this state when we need to survive, we should be in rest and digest the majority of the time. This isn’t our reality, for most of us it’s the opposite. A high majority of people spend most of the time unconsciously in the sympathetic system and very little time in the parasympathetic.
The research also shows that this means our systems don’t work very well so even when we are in rest and digest, it’s often not as restorative as it should be.
When the body can’t truly relax and replenish, we end up with ill health, fatigue, and hormone imbalances.
To have more energy, better health, balances hormones we must breathe consciously, slowly and deeply.
Which as simple as it seems, is very difficult in today’s world yet the most powerful thing we can learn to do is truly relax.
This is where I can help… through education, movement and breathwork.
‘Wise yourself Up’ Podcast
Healing can seem so hippy dippy, out there and not relatable in the slightest. If you are anything like me…. can’t identify an emotion to save your life, too attached to chasing, and tired of not knowing where any of your belongings are, listening to my shares on controversial and uncomfortable topics should help.
Join me for raw, honest, vulnerable shares about my journey of healing, with a good stick of Belfast humor. Covering topics of abuse, fuck boys, being disorgansied chaos and addiction; with education around the tools that support healing and why they work. Listen and you’ll understand why this podcast is growing so fast and making such a big impact.
Hiya, I’m Carla
Somatic & Breathwork Therapist
Who began as an absolute brat who thought healing was a load of tripe. But desperation to not feel empty and blank made me try anything.
I came to this work completely skeptical, and very vocal about my cynicism to the trained professionals who were trying to help me.
I was diagnosed with CPTSD at 27, yet I was unaware that there was anything wrong with me or that I had ever experienced trauma previous to this. “Not real trauma”.
Yet I am childhood sexual abuse survivor and was separated from both biological parents at a young age. I was a straight A student, then had a successful fast-paced corporate career and trying too hard at everything got me everywhere.
Until then it didn’t. At 27 I couldn’t see anymore. I always knew what I wanted where I wanted to go then the rug got pulled from underneath me and I don’t know why. I felt empty, lost, and couldn’t see a future for myself. I felt I had no passions and nothing I cared about. It was very scary time.
A great friend bought me a Christmas book “How to find your North star” which said if you had big trauma, i.e. sexual abuse, you had to go therapy. I had tried before but I decided to try again.
I wanted to work with the best psychologist, and looked up Queen’s university to see who was leading research around abuse, healing and impact of abuse on development. I spotted a woman with my granny’s Scottish middle name Kavanagh and chose her. She was the perfect fit. After benign accessed I was diagnosed with CPTSD.
Then she prescribed me yoga as I had completely disconnected from my body to the point where I couldn’t register sensations in my hands. I couldn’t believe others could feel their hands.
Yoga is a practise that connects you to your body as you pay attention to your breath and move to feel sensations in your body.
My favourite definition from my teacher Tara Judelle is, asana are music notes, your body the instrument, the order in which you place the notes creates different melodies and the different instruments create different songs.
My worse fear on this earth, was to be still, silent and relax. Would rather die, was my younger response.
I did not take to yoga like a duck to water, more like sheep to water. The resistance was at an all time high as was the amount of tension in my body. I looked like a 60 year old rugby player trying to do yoga.
It was through yoga that I realised I was sniffing my breath. Rushing my breath like I was life. No wonder I was so disconnected and tense.
Then on my yoga teacher training (listen to podcast if you want hear the full story), I experienced my first breathwork session where I felt things I never thought possible. Simply by conscious breathing.
It was my first time trying breathwork, yet I had a full blown psychedelic experience and that was enough get me hooked on the mystery of the breath for life. And yes, I have tried psychedelics, DMT and ayahuasca included.
That’s what I offer: helping you to learn to listen to your own body though somatic movement, breathwork and inner work. It is often the next step after talk therapy, yet not everyone needs talk therapy as it can keep people attached to their stories.
Ultimately we need feel to heal.
To feel any unprocessed emotions that lie in our bodies for freedom and clarity.
More we make the unconscious conscious, the more autonomy we have over our lives, and body is map to the unconscious- Carl Jung.
This work has changed my life and I hope in time, it will change yours too.
Work with me online
Let’s get out of your head and into your body…
1:1 Breathwork & Somatics Therapeutic Sessions
Ready to surrender the thinking and get into the feeling? Start to lead life from your own inner compass to live your most authentic and connected life. Available online & in London.
Breathwork Classes: Belfast, London & Online
These breathwork sessions are deep dive into your inner oceans. Join me bi-weekly for my online Full Moon & New Moon Movement & to see what is being revealed to you.
Connect to Self: Group Healing Container
A 4 week intensive psychosomatic course in healing for women who want a deeper connection with themselves.
Transform your connection with yourself to create real change in your relationships and overcome the unhelpful patterns in your life.
How My Clients Feel
