A bit more about me, just so you know you're in safe hands:

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My name is Maja and I'm the founder of Bodhi Somatics.

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My background includes 30yrs of personal practice and over a decade of teaching, and my work weaves it all together. Mindfulness, movement, breath, creativity and contemplative study.  At the heart, it’s about helping people to hear, notice or interpret the signals our body is communicating - especially when those signals feel distant.

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I know first-hand what it feels like to sit with discomfort and not know what to do with it. I also know what it feels like when something finally shifts and settles.

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That’s what I bring into the room with me.  

 

Not only training -  although there has been a lot of study and training too - but an ongoing personal relationship with the practice.  I don’t position myself as a healer or therapist, or as someone who “fixes” others. What I offer is a grounded and supportive space, along with practices that invite greater awareness of the body, nervous system and patterns of experience.

 

From there, insight and self-understanding can emerge gradually.  The process itself belongs to each person, unfolding in its own way and in its own time.

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I draw inspiration from somatic experiencing (Peter Levine), polyvagal theory (Stephen Porges), Hakomi therapy (Ron Kurtz), and other bioenergetic and body-oriented traditions, as well as my ongoing personal practice and teaching yoga and mindfulness traditions

 

My own path into this didn’t start as a “career choice.”  It emerged organically through my own practice, observation and noticing what supported and balanced my body and mind. It was only later that I realised there was already a name for what I was working with: Somatic.

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My own practice has changed and grown over time - but what has stayed constant underneath it all is a curiosity about what it means to be human, and how to live a life that feels balanced, easy and connected - with everything that comes with that.

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A large part of my formal training was movement in the form of various methods of yoga, and a three-year immersion in Buddhist Psychology and therapeutic practice through ITZI (International Therapy Zen Institute).  It was an intensive period of study and practice – a bit like a 3yr long self-retreat.  Looking closely at the body, how we move, function and develop postural habits.  Looking at attention, thought patterns, attachment and how we respond in relationships. It was demanding but incredible, and it changed the way I live, listen and work with people.

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I’ve immersed myself in different contemplative traditions over the years - TM, Vipassana, Zen, mindfulness practice - not as identities I hold onto, or religions, but as a way processing and of learning to pay attention to where I am.   And how I respond to my environment and the people in it as I move through my days - and that always underpins how I work with people.

 

I’ve continued to study - more recently contemporary psychology and further anatomy.  Also breathwork and how to incorporate a more advanced trauma-sensitive approach in my teaching.  Over time, my own practice and also my teaching has become less about ‘doing’ and 'results' and much more about noticing what is actually happening - breath, tension, holding, collapse, aliveness, sensations and how and where I feel when I move.  And that's the basis of what somatic means.

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What emerged for me is a more integrated approach to somatic experience. In practice, that means I come into the room to co-regulate: My calm and balanced nervous system helps create the conditions for you to soften into awareness - and perhaps move into calm and balance too.

 

I always welcome and work with whatever arrives in the room: someone who can’t quite land in their body, someone who is holding a lot without realising it, someone who feels pain, grief, flat or overwhelmed or constantly switched on. And helping to balance that, slowly and carefully, without trying to do anything too quickly. ​

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I work from my studio, Amandari, a small, private space in Greyton.  Although you can practice somatics anywhere, ideally the space you are in helps support the process.  Over time, Amandari has become a very calm and peaceful space, perfect for Bodhi Somatics.

I look forward to meeting you.