About the Coach
I believe in our ability to heal our wounds inside of loving, nonjudgemental relationships. I believe in our ability to choose what to do with the lives we’ve been given. I believe that loving, relating, thinking, feeling, or processing differently than the mainstream dominant culture is not the burden they would have us belief, but a profound gift. Who you really are is not something to shy away from, but the key to living a life of ease, joy, and meaning.
I honor the lineage of healing methodologies and teachers that inform my work, including the Strozzi/generative somatics lineage in which I’m trained, Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy, Virginia Satir’s work on coping stances, trauma-sensitive yoga, my known and unknown ancestors, the ocean, the earth, and the eternal practices of stillness, dance, singing, shaking, and seeking the divine.
When I’m not practicing or coaching somatics, I can be found cooking with my chosen family, knitting and purling, listening to a D&D liveplay, gazing at the clouds, or visiting with the land.
Hi! My name is Denise Windytree (she/they). I grew up on the prairies and lakes of Ojibwe and Dakota land in Minnesota. My ancestors are British and Scandinavian. I moved south in 2021, following the roots of my maternal family who lived in rural Georgia.
I spent the majority of my youth disconnected from my body. Living from my mind was my best skill for protecting myself from the pain of growing up in a culture of shame, isolation, and supremacy. Add being queer and neurodivergent (and not knowing it) to the mix, and you won’t be surprised that I struggled for many years to understand who I was and why my relationships were hurting me so much.
My journey back into my body began when I starting seeing a therapist who happened to practice somatic therapy. (I had no idea what that meant.) For the first time in my life, I experienced the sensations in my body as emotions with important messages for me. I found that these emotions could move, shift, and release if me and my therapist paid attention to them. Finally feeling the emotions that trauma froze inside me opened the door to experiencing peace in my body in the present.
As I continued to befriend my sensations, I also slowly reclaimed my agency and my ability to set boundaries and seek out people and places who celebrate my sensitive queer self. I could see beyond the shame, conditioning, and illusion of who I “should” be and become the person I actually want to be, the person I am beneath the shallow options the world gave me.
This is why I’m a somatic coach: to pass on the gift that was given to me.
Ready?
Each of my coaching relationships begins with a free 45 minute discovery call. We’ll discuss what brings you to somatics, how you want to change, and my style of coaching to see if we’re a good fit!
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