About Me
Cultivating Capacity in Complexity
Hi! I’m Tanya
I’m a Somatic Experiencing practitioner and training assistant, and a medically retired physiotherapist. I also live with the realities of chronic illness, disability, neurodiversity, and the long impact of gender-based violence.
For more than 25 years, I’ve worked with people who are trying to build meaningful lives in systems and relationships that asked them to become smaller, quieter, more compliant, or less fully themselves.
Sometimes that looks like starting a business after years of being told you’ll never be good enough. Sometimes it’s speaking after being silenced, reconnecting with a body whose needs were ignored, or learning to trust yourself again after years of self-doubt and survival.
How I See This Work
I don’t believe healing means pretending the world is safe when it often isn’t. Our nervous systems respond intelligently to the realities we’ve lived through.
At the same time, I believe people need more than survival.
I also have seen in myself and my clients, that with enough support, care, gentleness, and encouragement, it becomes possible to grow capacity instead of living entirely in protection. To have more choice. More steadiness. More connection to yourself. More room for creativity, rest, ambition, pleasure, grief, and meaning. And more meaningful impact.
My work is not about pushing through or becoming endlessly resilient. It’s about creating the conditions where your body no longer has to carry everything alone.
My Approach
I recognize that our bodies carry more than just our own experiences; they carry our histories, our lineages, and the relentless pressure of a world that demands more than we have to give. I am committed to a practice that is feminist, anti-capitalist, anti-oppressive, and anti-ableist, as well as queer, trans, neurodiversity affirming, and body-positive. I work to honour your whole reality, not just your symptoms.
Training
Three year Somatic Experiencing Professional Training Certification program 2022-2025.
A degree from Queen’s University in Rehabilitation Medicine, where I studied adult learning and community based rehabilitation, as well as the physiological and psychological impacts of stress and trauma
Post graduate training in sensory integration – the science of how our bodies use our senses to regulate our physical, mental and emotional well being
The Feminine in Coaching – a foundational introduction to Soul Based Coaching
Numerous yoga teacher and yoga therapy training programs, with a love for supporting people to listen to their own bodies and hearts
Foundational Ayurvedic education and body work mentorship including Wise Earth Ayuveda’s “Japa Meditation and Vedic Chanting” and “Women’s Health and Spirituality” with Maya Tiwari, exploring the power of aligning with nature’s cycles while honouring your own inner wisdom
Several sound healing trainings, exploring sacred sound traditions from around the world, including Tom Kenyon’s Sound Healing training
Hundreds and hundreds of hours in practice, sitting at the feet of great teachers – gurus and people in crisis, reading great books and listening to great audios.
Years of working with coaches, both as a client and as an employee.
