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about merreley

smiling woman standing in fireweed flowers with alaskan mountains behind her
watercolor painting of fireweed flower

i'm a somanaut.

Props to Gil Hedley for the term "somanaut" as a way to describe someone who is dedicated to exploring inner space and the body. ​

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I have always been drawn to somatic and relational work and have spent the last 25+ years playing in the intersections of the body and psyche as a Somatic Experiencing practitioner, Structural Integration practitioner, a movement educator, certified coach, nature lover, mom and human.

the bullet point credentials:

  • Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, SEP

  • Somatic Practice: Touch Work For Trauma Therapists, Kathy Kain

  • Transforming Touch Practitioner, Stephen Terrell

  • Dr. Ida Rolf Institute, Certified Rolfer

  • Certified Co-active Coach, CPCC from Co-active Training Institute

  • Certified Embodied Meditation Teacher through Realization Process, Judith Blackstone

  • Certified MELT Method Instructor

  • Certified Franklin Method Level 1 Instructor

  • Certified SourcePoint Therapy Practitioner

  • Licensed Massage Therapist

  • Trained Birth Doula and apprenticed with a midwife for a couple years.

  • Certified In Cranial Sacral Therapy

  • Studied and practiced Yoga for many years

but more personally,

woman smiling in hammock

A little over 5 years ago I began to notice a constant feeling of stress, exhaustion and chronic anxiety.   We were also in the midst of a pandemic, so for me and most everyone else, everything intensified.   I felt almost daily panic trying to make "all the things" happen...including my bodywork practice, raising two children as a single Mom, managing my multiple side hustles, my new relationship and living with the continual feeling that "it would never be enough."  I  was super stressed and stuck in survival mode. Moving so quickly all the time, I can remember literally running around town doing my errands.   I would find joy, gratitude and peace, but always seemed to be just a few steps away from anxiety getting the better of me.

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During my Rolfing Structural Integration Training, I had learned about Somatic Experiencing® and of  Dr. Peter Levine, the creator of SE.  Peter had studied closely with Dr. Ida Rolf, the creator of Rolfing® Structural Integration.    One of the main goals of Rolfing® is to help our clients down-regulate their nervous systems.  I became aware that though I could help other people with their own nervous systems, I was having trouble regulating my own. I knew that I needed help understanding my own

nervous system and how the effects of my stressful life experiences  (aka traumas) were affecting every part of my daily life.  

 

During this time, a friend introduced me to an SE Practitioner and serendipitously, I found out that the first SE Training was soon to begin in Alaska. This began my own healing journey with Somatic Experiencing®.   

 

Getting to know my nervous system  and creating a new relationship with my nervous system by working with SE has been such a blessing, not only inside my own internal landscape, but for the community that I am now a part of.  I still and will probably always get anxious and disregulated, but the tools and support I have learned how to give myself, and more importantly how to recognize and ask for support when I need it are priceless.  Working with and practicing SE has made such a dynamic shift in the quality of my life and in my relationships.  I am so grateful for this work!  I am thrilled to be  currently assisting in SE trainings in Alaska and in Colombia.

 

A little bit about my coaching history:  After becoming a mother, and while I was still in my marriage, I started doing group coaching with a women’s group, led by the woman who would eventually become my coaching mentor. I was in this group weekly for 10 years and it helped me open my heart and gave me the support, love and shared experience I so needed during  that time. I was stunned by the ability of good coaching to use just a few words to change my whole perspective and shift into a more whole and conscious perspective.  I wanted to learn more about how to help others with this shift of perspective and I completed a multi-year coaching training and became a Certified Co-active Coach (CPCC).

 

I was already a bodyworker at that time, and had my Rolfing practice. Rolfing gave me a deep appreciation for how our bodies hold, and in many ways determine, the way we experience our lives. As the years in my practice went by, I became more and more interested in the link between the body and the nervous system, and how we can learn to nurture and affect our nervous systems. 

 

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I began training in work that would build a heartier bridge between the body and psyche in my work: how to experience and guide other people to experience true embodiment through Realization Process, how to be with people on a transformative journey through process coaching, and how to help people shift their nervous system states with Somatic Experiencing. 

 

As a Somatic Practitioner, the work that we do together is the integration of this path.

i live in valdez, alaska

With my partner, two teenagers, a cat, a dog and 5 chickens. I love this land and never tire of exploring the Chugach Mountains and exploring the Prince William Sound surrounding Valdez. 

 

I love to dance, I participate in both ballet and contemporary dance.  I love to ski, hike, bike and to be outside.  I am also a bee keeper, and you will often find me foraging for wild plants of the land and sea.

yellow kayaks on prince william sound snowcapped mountains
woman smiling next to glaciar
woman in hat with fishing gear on boat with snow capped mountains behind her
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