Why I Do This Work

I believe that personal healing is inseparable from collective healing. When we reconnect with our bodies, we enter into authentic relationship with our whole selves, which allows us to enter into genuine connection with the world around us. In a world that often encourages disconnection from self and other— somatic work helps us return to wholeness and connection.

I also do this work because I know what it’s like to feel broken — to be caught in striving, self-blame, and disconnection. I know what it’s like to get caught up in spiritual practices and healing modalities that encourage transcendance, self-denial or clawing out of who we are, rather than turn towards with understanding and compassion.

My mission is to create a space where our bodies and who we are is not something to override or fix, but a source of truth, resilience, insight and belonging. Where healing happens not by endless struggle to improve, change or figure things out; but by listening and slowly returning to what’s always been sacred and true within us.

Somatic work doesn’t assume someone else holds the answers. It lets the body lead, and in doing so, brings us home to ourselves.

The modalities I practice (Somatic Experiencing, Somatic Inner Relationship Focusing, NARM, and the Unshaming ProcessWork work of David Bedrick) are all life-affirming paths back to trust in the self and the body’s wisdom. They don’t just treat trauma, they help us understand our symptoms as intelligent messengers, and teach us how to listen and feel trust in our own selves again.

  • For Full List See Below

    • Somatic Experiencing® Practitioner (SEP)

    • Somatic Experiencing Intermediate Training Assistant

    • Certified NARM®- Informed Practitioner (NeuroAffective Relational Model)

    • Trained in S/IRF (Somatic Inner Relationship Focusing) 

    • Certified Yoga Teacher (RYT-500)

    • Certificate in Process-Oriented Facilitation (David Bedrick’s Un-shaming

    • Approach)

    • 500 RYT

    • Alvin Ailey BFA 1998-2001

My Story

My somatic story perhaps starts as a C-section baby and includes an early invasive medical procedure.

But it really got going as young child when I found dance. It quickly became my first love and the first place I truly felt alive: fearless, aligned, and moving with life force. It awakened a knowing that expression through the body could speak volumes beyond words and create a feeling of freedom that I didn’t find otherwise.

That intuitive language of embodiment became my compass. I followed it into a ballet company, a demanding modern dance school in NYC and thousands of hours of yoga training. Even outside the dance and yoga studios, I was always tracking energy — attuned to what lived beneath the surface of words.

  • Yet despite how my life may have looked from the outside, I privately struggled. I couldn’t yet tell the difference between using my body and actually listening to it. I wrestled with perfectionism, people-pleasing, eating disorders, auto-immune illness, executive function issues and a deep belief that something was wrong with me. I sought answers in social justice work, years of working with different therapists, seeking out a variety of spiritual practices, and living in alternative communities. Each path offered something of value, but nothing seemed to get to the root.

    In my early 30s, after months of experiencing neurological symptoms that doctors couldn’t explain, I knew something deeper was asking to be felt. That marked the beginning of a descent — into my body, into trauma, into parts of myself I had long bypassed.

    Finding somatic work was a turning point for me. It gave language to what I had always sensed: that there is a lot going on behind the story, that mentally understanding our patterns isn’t the same as healing them, and that shaming, trying to get rid of what we don’t like in ourselves or being on the self-improvement hamster wheel isn’t it. Through this work, I stopped relating to myself as a problem to fix. Instead, I learned to meet and welcome my full self with presence, compassion and understanding.

    With the guidance of skilled somatic practitioners, I began what I now call my “re-humaning” process. I came to see my patterns not as personal failures, but as intelligent adaptations that protected me. This shift brought relief, and also new responsibility: to care for myself in ways that were gentle, wise, and rooted in the body.

    This is the lens I now bring to my work — one that respects the body’s intelligence, sees symptoms as messengers, and honors the complexity of each person’s story. I believe healing is less about fixing or transcending ourselves, and more about inhabiting the wholeness that’s already here.

    • Somatic Inner Relationship Focusing. Online Training Embodied Parts Work Academy With Maureen Gallagher. 2024-2025

    • NARM (The NeuroAffective Relational Model for Healing Complex Trauma) Online Basic Training. 2024 - 2025

    • Pre and Perinatal Trauma (PPNT) Video Course. Online recording with Dr. Raja Selvam. 04/2023 - Present

    • Strategies for Working with Sexual Trauma and Sexuality. Online recording with Ariel Garretto. 04/2023 - 05/2023

    • Trauma Solutions Workshops. Online with Diane Poole Heller and Peter Levine including: Working with Complex Trauma and Somatic Interventions for Chronic Pain and Syndromes. 01/2023 - 01/2024

    • Jaguar Sessions. Online with Kimberly Ann Johnson including: Limits and Boundaries, Feminine Sexuality and Spirituality, Women’s Health and the Nervous System, Breathwork and the Nervous System. 12/22 - Present.

    • Somatic Experiencing® (“SE™”) Professional Training- 2022- 2024

    • Process-oriented Facilitation: 10 Month Certification- 2022

    • Nervous System and Restorative Yoga Online Training with Tiffany Cruikshank. 2022- Present

    • Applied Polyvagal Theory in Therapeutic Yoga with Arielle Schwartz. 2021-2022

    • 500-RYT Yoga Teacher

    • Nervous System and Restorative Yoga Online Training with Tiffany Cruikshank. 2022- Present

    • Applied Polyvagal Theory in Therapeutic Yoga with Arielle Schwartz. 2021-2022

    • Viveka Subtle Body- Online 50-hour module with Annie Carpenter. 2021

    • Radiant Body Yoga 300-Hour Teacher Training Modules with Kia Miller. 2016-2020

    • Panca Bhuta 250-Hour Yoga Training with Richard Rosen and Mary Paffard. 2019

    • Radiant Body Yoga 200-Hour Yoga Teacher Training with Kia Miller. 2016

    • Sarah Power’s Insight Yoga 100-Hour Yin/ Insight Yoga Training. 2015

    • Jivani Yoga 300-Hour Hatha Yoga Teacher Training. 2015

    • Golden Bridge 200-Hour Yoga Kundalini Yoga Teacher Training with Gurmukh. 2015• Gentle Yoga

    • Barnard College, Columbia University- BA, Latin American Studies. 2004

    • Alvin Ailey/ Fordham University- BFA Dance program. 1998-2000

    • Reparative Communal Consultations in Somatic Abolitionism with Resmaa Menakem. 2022- Present

    • Bi-Weekly somatic anti-racism meeting. 2020- Present

What People are Saying

  • “Charlotte is truly a gifted healer. Her authentic presence, warm accompaniment, and patience is indeed the only thing that has allowed me to choose to engage with remnants of decades old shards of trauma. The wisdom derived from a combination of her SE and yogic trainings integrated with her own healing journey creates real hope and possibilities for my own healing and re-embodiment. I’m grateful for her walking with me in my path to retake ownership of my own body and the wonder of being in this world fully present and integrated.” – C.L.

    Laurie Payton

  • “Charlotte came into my life and made some major positive changes that I had been struggling to make for years. I had been on antidepressants for years, and my condition was quite bad. I had tried the best available medical help and psychotherapists around me over the years. I was very hopeless and just flailing in the dark for help. Then, by destiny or coincidence, I met Charlotte, and now every time I see her, I thank life. Just seeing her and hearing her voice makes me feel calm and peaceful. She is not just a great practitioner but also a very compassionate human being. What she has done for me is unbelievable. We live on opposite sides of the globe, but she has still been able to give me the kind of comfort and support that I have never felt before in any of my psychotherapy sessions or anywhere else. She is an amazing person and a very smart and intelligent SE therapist. Highly recommend.”

    Jamie Kokot

  • I have had the pleasure of working with Charlotte for the past 6 months and I highly recommend her as a somatic practitioner! She has a gift for creating a nurturing space where I feel safe, heard, and supported. Her compassionate and non-judgmental presence helps me feel more at ease exploring whatever emerges every session. I feel validated in my experience and feel guided to build a stronger connection with my body. What I appreciate the most about Charlotte's approach is that she offers choice and honors the pace at which I feel comfortable going. I never feel pressured to explore or share more than I'm ready to, and I appreciate that she provides options to help me feel in control of my own healing journey, which I feel is so important. The sessions with Charlotte feel gentle and well-paced, never overwhelming. I am deeply appreciative of how she understands my unique needs and ensures that the sessions are tailor-made to what works best for me. It's reassuring to see that a practitioner cares for my overall well-being. I am grateful for the work that Charlotte and I have done together. I cannot recommend her enough as a practitioner!

    Lindsey Beumer

  • Charlotte continues to hold space for me so beautifully where I'm able to tune in and express (and eventually release) physical AND emotional pieces that cause me discomfort and overwhelm. In our sessions without fail I am blown open (in the best way possible) and blown away by all that I discover that my precious body has been holding. Charlotte calmly guides me and lets me take my time while processing. I get to a place of clarity and lightness that I am so so grateful to her for. She is both calm and incredibly encouraging, what a gift! With complete honesty I can say that our sessions together are truly incredible. I recommend working with Charlotte to anyone that’s ready to explore themselves in a safe, supportive environment!

    Keith Finley