Why Women Deserve Somatic Approaches That Honour Their Body, Cycles and Lived Experience
A woman’s body is not simply a smaller version of a man’s
I’m often asked why my work centres women.
There are many reasons for this, including my own story, my lived experience, and the women I've had the privilege to accompany on their own beautiful journeys.
But at its core, I deeply care about and believe in women.
I believe that when women heal, grow, take a stance for what they believe in, the world heals in some ways too, and it becomes a little more harmonious.
We touch our families, communities, and work differently. We leave a different legacy - simply by who we are being.
I also know the pain and challenges women carry intimately - and I believe that women deserve to have their experiences taken seriously.
Not pathologised or minimised.
Not squeezed into models that weren't created with us in mind.
Many coaching approaches are based on the assumption of a one size fits all model.
Assuming that what works for one nervous system and one body will work for all.
But women’s bodies aren’t just smaller, more delicate versions of men’s.
Our bodies are influenced by different hormonal rhythms and relational factors. And while each of us experiences these cycles and life stages in unique ways, many women experience nervous system fluctuations that mirror these hormonal shifts.
We are also profoundly shaped by centuries of cultural conditioning, by the expectations we’ve internalised, and by the way the world meets us.
If we ignore these realities, we overlook the ways in which our nervous systems work, and we risk bypassing the heart of our experience:
The places where we feel the deepest disconnection.
The deeper reasons we burn out.
The imprints we carry in our cells that inform everything we do.
Women deserve approaches that recognise and honour the intelligence of their unique bodies, rhythms, and lived experiences.
4 Ways Women’s Nervous Systems Are Generally Different / Tend to be Unique
While we explore how women’s nervous systems are generally unique, I want to acknowledge that we all have unique experiences which shape who we are and how our nervous systems perceive the environment we are in.
So the differences outlined below aren’t rigid, universal, always applicable rules (because there are variations and exceptions), there are key themes that research and lived experience highlight:
1. For women, regulation pathways are often more relational
Most frameworks assume that there is a linear path to regulating our nervous system.
But for many women, the nervous system shifts out of a protective state when we have a sense of connection: a warm voice, a grounding presence, or soft eye contact. When safety is felt with someone, our capacity to self-regulate and come back to our ‘homebase’ on our own, expands.
For other women - especially those of us whose nervous systems learned that connection might be unsafe - regulation will generally happen first through having space, feeling a sense of choice, or grounding in our own body. Healing begins with learning that our own presence is safe, which over time can pave the way for more ease in connection.
In both cases, the body is orienting toward safety.
The pathway is simply different.
Relational safety tends to matter more for women because of both our biological influences and our lifelong social conditioning toward connection and attunement.
2. Our hormonal cycles influence our state and our capacity
As women, we live in a cyclical internal landscape, which constantly shifts and changes.
Our estrogen and progesterone levels fluctuate through our cycles and life stages, and these shifts influence our nervous system state. They impact our sensitivity to stress, our energy levels, our sense of capacity and bandwidth - how we meet the world.
This means that the same stressor can feel very different depending on where we are in our menstrual cycle, and which life stage we are navigating.
The same situation can feel manageable in one phase, and overwhelming in another.
Being aware of our own internal fluctuations can be profound.
It helps us move from pathologising our experience and wondering if something is ‘wrong with us’ to understanding and normalising it. It invites us to meet ourselves where we are, with more compassion and care.
It can also help us to find pathways to inner stability that honour our inner landscape, to navigate these inner tidal waves with more ease.
We stop perceiving these fluctuations as problems but as opportunities to harvest the innate wisdom and insight that each phase or life stage has to offer.
3. We often sense safety through relational signals
For many women, our nervous systems track subtle relational cues. Our bodies pick up shifts in tone, mood, expression, and emotions quickly - often before our mind articulates what’s happening. When we are relating with someone and the connection feels uncertain or misattuned, our nervous system responds as though safety is at risk.
So we can feel grounded and stable when we are alone, but activated when we sense tension, ambiguity, or when we feel misunderstood or unseen in a relationship.
It isn’t because we are pathologically ‘oversensitive’, it’s rooted in our neuroception. Our nervous system is sensing cues of unsafety in the environment we are in and is responding accordingly - by protecting us from what it perceives as a risk.
Being aware of this means we can add a layer of discernment to our neuroception and if appropriate, let our body know that although the situation might be uncomfortable, it is actually safe.
4. We are socially conditioned towards self-sacrifice for belonging
From a young age, many women learn that belonging is earned by attuning to others (at the expense of attuning to ourselves).
We are taught to be easy, agreeable, available, selfless. When this is repeated often enough, it becomes somatic: our body automatically moves toward fawning, over-functioning, collapsing, or holding everything together, sometimes at great personal cost.
These are wise adaptive strategies we have learned to protect our sense of belonging and to orient towards safety.
Our body will always choose belonging over authenticity when it believes they are in conflict - but with awareness, we can unwind these patterns and choose differently.
We can partner with our nervous system to expand our capacity to reclaim our voice, inner authority, sovereignty and choice.
How Practitioners Can Support Women with Somatic Wisdom
Women deserve to be supported in ways that honour their beautifully layered system and innate body’s intelligence.
To support ourselves and other women as practitioners in ways that honour our cyclical, hormonal, biological nature, our approach needs to include:
Not only focusing on self-regulation but restoring relational safety
Offering deep attunement through presence, pacing, our tone of voice, eye contact, and nonverbal cues
Ensuring that we offer agency, space and choice - and no pressure to open up or share
Working with our cycles and lifestages and acknowledging how they impact our capacity, energy, state and generally how we meet the world
Gently unwinding the habits of self-silencing, self-sacrificing and over-attunement to pave the way for more sovereignty
In Conclusion: Why Centring Women in Somatic Healing and Coaching is Key
These are some of the reasons I choose to centre women and our unique experience in my work.
Because our systems are multi-layered and cyclical, and working with these layers facilitates transformation by honouring how women actually experience the world.
For decades, somatic models and nervous system research were built primarily on male physiology. We’ve been expected to fit into frameworks that were not designed with our bodies, our cycles, our relational wiring, or our lived experiences in mind.
But it’s important to remember that as women, we are not a variation, an emotional extension, or a more sensitive version of something else.
We are shaped by different biological rhythms.
We are socialised into different relational roles.
We navigate belonging, safety, and identity in different ways.
When we make space for that difference without diminishing or pathologising it, we open the doorway to a return to wholeness, vitality and sovereignty.
Healing or transformation stops being about simply managing symptoms, it becomes a process of reclamation. Of returning to our own body, truth, and our internal authority.
This is what helps us truly meet the heart of women's experiences, and paves the way for new ways of being, living and leading.
How Can I Support You?
If you are an existing or aspiring practitioner who desires to support women somatically, in ways that honour our lived experience, body’s wisdom and nervous system wiring, The Wisdom Within™ Somatic Practitioner Training might be the pathway you have been looking for.
It’s a professional somatic training that weaves together the wisdom of the feminine body, the intelligence of our nervous system, and nature’s regenerative path to transformation.
If you would like to be compassionately witnessed and gently guided in your personal healing and expansion journey, I offer bespoke 1:1 somatic coaching. Together, we will meet what is present in your system, gently unwind what no longer serves you, and craft a path towards more emotional freedom, wholeness, and sovereignty.
If you enjoyed this article, you might also like:
Understanding the Mind–Body Connection and How to Shift Old Patterns by Working Somatically
The Somatic Path to Women's Empowerment: How to Cultivate the Inner Conditions for Growth
3 Ways Somatic Coaching Is Different From Traditional Coaching Approaches
