3 Ways Somatic Coaching Is Different From Traditional Coaching Approaches

A Guide For Practitioners

Somatic approaches are increasingly talked about, yet they can feel obscure or hard to distinguish from more traditional or cognitive ways of coaching. 

In this blog post, we look at how somatic coaching might differ from more traditional approaches, and explore 3 ways in which somatic coaching can help facilitate deep transformation.

1) We guide our clients out of survival and into inner stability first

Many coaching approaches ask clients to leap into new beliefs, behaviours, or bold visions from the get go. 

But when we are in a state of survival, stress, or dysregulation, our body is using all of its resources to simply get through the day. 

It doesn’t have the capacity to open to new visions, desires, or even see a possible path forward, because the part of our brain that enables these capabilities has come offline.

You might have experienced this if you have ever felt stressed, anxious, or depleted and burnt out - and tried to think creatively about the future, or solve a problem right in front of you. 

This is why, in somatic coaching, we start by creating a foundation of inner stability before guiding our clients to envisioning big visions, behaviour shifts, or new beliefs. 

We begin by resourcing. 

We co-create a relational field where enough safety is felt. 

We see stabilisation as a path to transformation. 

It gives our body and nervous system the breathing space and safety needed to soften and gently open to the possibility of change. 

2) We hold a transformational arc lightly

Most coaching journeys are designed around linear arcs and structured step-by-step processes. These can be really helpful for practitioners to orient the journey - but when held onto too tightly, they actually interfere with the client’s own unfolding rather than facilitating it. 

In somatic coaching, we drop the idea of ‘one-size fits all journeys’ and hold the transformational arc lightly. We focus on attunement, because we know that what works for one person, one body, one nervous system may overwhelm another.

This looks like:

1. Trusting our client’s organic, somatic intelligence, and letting it reveal what it is ready to reveal

We move at the pace of the client’s nervous system rather than imposing a pace or process that is misaligned and takes us away from being present to what wants to unfold. 

2. We don’t push, force or hustle for transformation 

We hold the work softly, and avoid assuming where someone “should be” at this stage of the journey. We listen to the body’s signals, knowing that safety and readiness look different for everyone.

We let go of agendas and the need to lead the client somewhere specific. 

Instead, we hold space for them to lead themselves, from within. We offer a stable, compassionate, attuned presence rather than following a pre-determined plan.

Our focus isn't on ticking off milestones but on practicing trusting what’s unfolding, at a pace that is genuinely sustainable.

Ultimately, it's about presence, attunement and trusting our client, their process and their capacity. 

It centers our client, not us.

3) We shift from pursuing rigid goals, to facilitating emerging transformation

Letting go of rigid goals can feel challenging as a practitioner because we often feel that checking off goals validates the potency of our coaching skills.

In my experience, what does reveal the potency of our work isn’t the goals we check off but the felt transformation our clients experience in the relational field of our spaces. 

In fact, to a great extent, it’s about ‘forgetting our work’, and deeply attuning to the client’s inner unfolding. 

To be deeply present with another, and for the other to feel this compassionate, unrushed, and open attunement is incredibly rare and transformational in our fast-paced, hurried, forward-moving and overwhelming world. 

This perspective changes how we see ourselves and hold space for our clients as practitioners. Here is what I mean:

1. From this point of view, our role as practitioners is to create the conditions for our client's nervous system to feel safe enough to soften the protective patterns that are keeping them stuck, and to let it show us (at its own pace), what needs to be met. 
   
   This is where the somatic magic and alchemy happen - in meeting what emerges and giving it space to simply be, without the need to control, shift, transform, or make it go away. 
   
   What emerges is almost never what we could have imagined and without orienting towards emergence rather than a set path or predetermined goals, we would silence, dismiss and entirely miss the gold. 
   
   It is the difference between leading a client through a 3 point envisioning process and resourcing the client, before simply listening to what arises. A whole new level of intelligence comes online (our somatic intelligence) and often offers entirely new and unexpected possibilities that our cognitive mind alone cannot fathom.
   
   

2. As we meet protective patterns, our role is to guide our clients lightly to tend to and compost the somatic imprints (in the language of Dr. Sarah Coxon), that live within our body, and are driving the behaviours our clients wish to shift. 

   As these patterns soften, they naturally open space for new, more expansive ways of being to emerge. 

It’s not about fixing or controlling, but holding space for what is emerging.

In the Wisdom Within™ Somatic Coach Training, we don't 'dig' for what’s wrong but hold the possibility for regeneration.

Influenced by regenerative approaches, including the work of Dr. Sarah Coxon, we don't dig and search for what's wrong, because our natural tendency to marinade in this ‘what’s wrong attention’ (which is very human and very normal!) can inadvertently keep us stuck in cycles of fixing, healing, or self-improvement that never feel complete.

If, like me, you have experienced being pulled into an endless healing / transformation vortex, you might know how exhausting it can feel, how it might even erode our capacity to be with life, and how it can rob us of our natural ability to sense joy, awe, pleasure, gratitude or simply what is okay or right in our life - even in the midst of difficult circumstances. 

So, in the Wisdom Within™ Somatic Coach Training, we aren't trauma-centered (although we are trauma aware), we are regeneration oriented instead. 

We work with what is emerging and trust in the intelligence of our body to guide us towards regeneration. 

We hold the process with gentleness and curiosity, trusting that what’s ready will naturally arise. 

And we resource our clients through joy, pleasure, nature, and a radical trust in possibilities.

We meet our clients in the wholeness and wisdom that is always within.

For Coaches and Practitioners Who Want to Work Differently

Whether you are a new, aspiring coach looking to root your practice in something deeper, or an existing practitioner sensing that cognitive tools are no longer enough for the spaces you desire to hold, this work may be what you have been searching for.

The Wisdom Within™ Somatic Coach Training equips you to meet your clients where they are, to guide from a place of presence and attunement, and to co-create the conditions where meaningful and sustainable change emerges. The place where somatic magic unfolds.

If this resonates, you can find out more here and book a no-obligation, no pressure connection call with me here , where we will explore together whether this is a good fit and the right next step for you. 

The Wisdom Within™ might be the missing piece to elevate your practice and deepen your impact.