Life Coaching
Coaching can empower you to untangle your problems, and develop the wisdom and skills to move from where you are now to where you want to be in your life, work, and relationships.
“Our mind and body are connected and to live well we need to learn have a relationship with both”.
Dr Angelica Attard
Somatic life coaching is for you if you want to:
Get to know yourself more deeply
Feel more connected to yourself and your body
Release tension and stress in your mind and body
Be more present in your life and relationships
Cultivate resilience and strengths that are within you already
Rediscover what gives you joy and meaning in your life
Feel less lost or stuck and gain clarity on where you want to get to in the future
Be your authentic self and access your creativity and freedom of expression
Address your blocks so that you can achieve your goals
Regain balance in your life, work, health and relationships
Develop the skills to cope effectively, regulate states of stress and to overcome hurdles that are coming in the way of your visions
What is Somatic Life Coaching?
“Somatic Life Coaching is a form of mind and body coaching where we work with the whole of you: your thoughts, emotions, behaviours and body sensations. This can lead to transformational change”.
Dr Angelica Attard
The word ‘Somatic’ comes from the Greek word ‘Soma’ which refers to the body. We live in a very mind-driven world that overemphasises our ability to think, analyse and reason our way through life. Our thinking mind is an incredible part of being human, and not the only part. According to Polyvagal Theory (Stephen Porges, 1994) 80% of the nerve fibres in the ventral vagal nerve relay information from our gut to our brain. This means that there is a large source of information being generated within our body that influences how we feel, our habits and behaviours, without us even realising.
In somatic coaching we learn that if we listen closely enough to the body, we will hear that it is communicating with us all the time. Our body is an incredible source of intuitive wisdom that can shed light on our needs and desires:
Our back hurting may tell us we need to move
Tension in our chest may tell us that we are afraid
A sinking feeling in our stomach may reflect disappointment
However, our belief systems and the demands in our life can be louder, causing us to glitch over this somatic information. The cost of this? We end up living in a way that is opposite to what we need and what makes us happy. Ever said yes to doing something when deep down you didn’t want to do it?
“I bring the best of psychology and coaching to each session we have together”.
Dr Angelica Attard
Through my lived experience of receiving therapy as well as my professional experience offering therapy to clients for over 10 years, I treasure how therapy gives us a chance to take deep dives to heal old emotional wounds in order to allow growth in the present. I have also come to celebrate the unique role that Coaching has in supporting our healing and maintaining our well-being by deepening our wisdom and resources so that we can flourish and grow.
My calling towards Coaching, and particularly Somatic Coaching, happened organically. The journey started with my own realisation that I had become disconnected from my body. I now see that this started a long time ago when even as a child, societal rules and expectations unintentionally taught me to push through, to prioritise what I ‘should do’ and to ignore signals from my body. This allowed me to build persistence, discipline and determination to strive and achieve incredible things. At the same time, I drifted away from what I wanted and desired deep down, and it left me stressed and unhappy.
Something in me knew that I needed to connect with my body again and this started an ongoing process of in-dept personal growth work. I learnt to re-listen to my body’s messages when it was warning me about something or encouraging me to move towards something. This helped me to understand my emotional needs and to meet these needs. Along the way the creative part of me which was buried away, started to flourish again and today I am a psychologist and somatic coach who plays the drums and I love it! My personal journey continues and through my offering of Somatic Coaching I would love to help others experience this too.
My coaching approach is one where I bring my psychology and coaching worlds together. I draw on my life experience as a fellow human being, and my sessions are grounded in evidence based psychological models including Compassion Focused practices, mindfulness, and Acceptance and Commitment Coaching. I integrate this with my ICF accredited training in Somatic Coaching that I have received from The Somatic School in London, UK.
I am here to see you, to hear you, to celebrate you. And to empower you to do the same for yourself.
Somatic life coaching offers us a beautiful formula:
Learning the language of our emotions and body
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Working with our thoughts
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Developing wisdom about our deepest needs, learning skills to regulate our nervous system, and living fully as our authentic selves.
Interested in more?
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Coaching sessions are 50 minutes long and take place online via the Zoom platform. Coaching sessions are a protected and safe space where you can talk freely and where you will be deeply listened to. What we work through in coaching sessions is unique to you. We start each coaching session by clarifying what topics and themes need our attention. We will then explore these topics in various ways: we understand and make sense of your problems; we pay attention to your body and what it is communicating; we identify your values, strengths, and unmet needs; we experiment with different exercises and ideas to help you reach your goals. At the end of each coaching session, we review what ideas and practices you may want to take away with you and try out in your life immediately.
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We are currently offering special discounted coaching packages. Contact us on enquiries@libratum.co.uk for more information.
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Therapy
People seek therapy when they are experiencing emotional distress in their present life which is having an impact on their ability to function and cope. This distress may manifest in the form of anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, meaninglessness in life, physical health problems, relationship problems, trauma etc. The person may recognise that these are long standing issues and may want address them so that they can feel better, cope better and improve their well-being. In order to achieve these goals, the psychologist and client take a deep dive into the person’s past to develop a thorough understanding of what has contributed to and what maintains a person’s struggles in the present. Time may be spent working through and healing old wounds from past memories or experiences that are keeping a person stuck in unhelpful patterns of thinking and behaving. This can alleviate a person’s suffering and free them up to find helpful ways of coping in the present so that they can build a life for themselves that is in line with their values. Click here for more information about therapy.
Coaching
When people seek coaching they are usually already in a place where they feel relatively stable in their life, are functioning and coping well with the ups and downs of life and are not experiencing undue turmoil from past issues. However, they are experiencing problems or stressors in their present life that are coming in the way of them achieving a goal or vision for themselves. This may leave them feeling stuck, unmotivated, low in mood, anxious, lost, and unsatisfied in different areas of their life such as their hobbies, relationships, work and health. There is a mismatch between where they are now and where they want to be. In order to address this, coaching focuses on making sense of and untangling the problems in the present, building resources, skills and insight that supports a person to move forwards and take steps to reach the goals and visions they have for themselves and their life. As part of this process coaching does acknowledge the impact of person’s past on their present, however the spotlight doesn’t remain on the past for long. Compared to therapy, coaching tends to be shorter in duration and people can achieve their goals over a shorter period of time.