Background
+ Experience
My background traces a journey animated by creativity, movement, psychology, natural health and somatics.
Over the course of the last 20 years I have communicated my knowledge primarily through aesthetic endeavours. This provided opportunity for business ownership, curating products, programs, books, choreography and many experiences that found resonance with clients on a stylistic and sensory level.
The means of creating these products, services and spaces essentially came as a result of seeking a merger with my lifestyle and livelihood, drawing upon my artistry, education and a growing philosophy.
For the last two decades I have shifted through multiple mediums, awakening this field of creativity through a process of “listening” — sensorially and energetically.
In this time, I’ve come to relate towards a wellspring, one we each carry within, and one that has infinite applications. One that can simply be turned on in the presence of ourselves and amplified through the presence of each other.
In the ten years after university I taught in the field of movement while styling, consulting and marketing in the natural foods industry.
Early within this time I found myself drawn into the world of somatics.
At the time this was a vague term, one that I could only define as a gentler, inclusive and more invitational approach to instruction. One that seemed to open doors of introspection and inquiry. One that often provoked emotional release followed by a profound sense of knowing that transcended rationality.
This process I was working with intrigued me as it brought me into contact with the present moment in ways that meditation and other focus activities could not. As a person with various challenges at that time related to focus, attention and emotional regulation, I had stepped into a place that was beginning to resolve my personal material in tandem with that of my clients.
Somatic practice was fringe when I found it. It was still dismissed as somehow being less of an approach, weak or “woo” by colleagues that were more traditional in their routines. However this quality of relating to the body was so profoundly resourceful, that it settled in as my signature style.
I came to define “somatics” as more than just a technique—it was also a living philosophy based upon a quality of listening through all of the senses. It offered a means of learning and understanding the self through the body, through direct experience.
In a world where many of our attempted treatments and solutions force things under labels and into boxes, to relate to experience “somatically” is to engage with the world in a way that honours the wisdom of the body, its innate intelligence and the relationships with the systems it is connected to — and how it all interrelates.
My exploration of somatics became a thread woven through all my creative endeavours, guiding my approach to movement, healing, creativity, relationship and business.
In 2016, I opened The Parlour Studio, a design and retail shop that offered an immersive oasis.
Listening through the cues of beauty and the space itself, I curated an environment in collaboration with many artists, to create a retail experience that invited exploration and connection on a sensory level. It was through my devotion to this space that I fell into a relationship with a deeper process of presence, and rooted in a constant routine based upon somatic inquiry, this tiny shop blossomed.
I followed the signals in my system, and found coherence with the intention to strike accord between the space, products, customers and myself.
It was a flow state and a growth period. I had to orient myself in a way to keep up with it, in order to greet tens of thousands of people annually and facilitate thousands of transactions, while designing, managing and merchandising.
This was where I was able to test all that I had learned, outside of a studio or clinic. It was the most practical and stylized real life exploration and experimentation of all of the tools and knowledge that I had gained to that point.
After navigating 2020 as a small business owner, my lease came up and I made the difficult decision to close the following spring in 2021.
The tone had shifted. The room which once felt expansive and served to connect to the community and world at large, felt as though it was closing in. A room that I had once asked what it wanted to be, seemed to be letting me know that it was time to move on.
Those years with the studio had served to prepare me for what came to be an unanticipated sabbatical. I had traveled quite a bit over the years, taking various trainings and exploring product design abroad. Some of which would begin to unfold into the next chapter.
I sought out clarity and a new depth with my creative process. While it took some months to gather direction, I began to step into a transformative and integrative period of re-education in somatic practices grounded in counselling psychotherapy.
Much of the time spent in study was in Mexico. In the presence of new found teachers and the surrounding culture, I found a renewed sense of understanding.
I devoted my time to studying Spanish in person, with counselling and Somatic Experiencing online (with Canadian and American cohorts) while working occasionally on creative projects.
It was a time that held me in my own healing process, coming to terms with the changes in my life, as well as helping me to cultivate the beginning of the practice and practicum. It was a time where I was able to immerse myself into experiences that showed me a reflection with cultural differences, mostly in a quality of relating — and that there is more available to us, between each and everyone one of us at any given moment.
Presently I have returned to living in British Columbia, a place that has been both nurturing and influential to my personal journey.
I am working with a practice of private clients while exploring my love of nature, photography and fine art.
Where ever we’ve met, thank you for joining me along the way. I look forward to sharing The Somatic Method with you and supporting you in living in connection with your true source and spirit of being.
- Jessica
