Meet Jill

Jill guides people in how to naturally relieve stress and tension by rebalancing their nervous systems through somatic, breathing, meditation, and sensory brain-based practices. In other words, re-establishing coherent functioning of the main control system for the body and mind, the brain. When our nervous system is reset to a more relaxed pace, life becomes easier. This is what she wants to pass on to you - a greater enjoyment of life and living.

How Jill Discovered Somatics
After surfing and car accidents she suffered from the effects of whiplash, a twisted hip, and nerve compression in her shoulder and neck that greatly impacted her day-to-day activities. In search of pain relief, she explored a wide-range of modalities including osteopathy, naturopathy, chiropractic, acupuncture, physical therapy, massage therapy, and Rolfing. While there were slow improvements over several years, she continued to experience ongoing discomfort.  Jill found a reference to Somatics by Thomas Hanna in the bibliography of a book. Reading Somatics proved to be very eye-opening! To verify if what Hanna wrote about was true, she signed-up for hands-on Somatics sessions and started practicing a daily home movement program. What she discovered was how quickly she could release physical tension and how that alleviated the pain in her shoulder and increased the range of motion in her back, hip, and arm. It was also very effective in reducing a constant full-body sense of tension. She can now walk, sleep, and sit without discomfort. The release of chronic physical tension has also improved her energy, grounding, and sense of relaxation. What she really enjoys about practicing Somatics is the ongoing and cumulative improvements that enable her to pursue a lifelong interest in health and well-being.

How Jill Got Started With Breathing Retraining
Dysfunctional breathing started early in life with childhood trauma giving rise to anxiety and shallow breathing. Although learning pranayama techniques during meditation courses helped somewhat, her breathing continued to be sub-optimal. Later in adulthood it became evident that she was over breathing (breathing too much), sighing a lot, and experiencing a sense of not being able to get enough breath. To understand more about breathing she learned the Buteyko method and gained some benefit but it wasn't until she came across behavioral breathing that she found the answers to truly improving her breathing. Once she understood her poor breathing habits she was able to create new and better breathing habits. Regular practice helped to calm anxiety, exercise became easier and more enjoyable, and effortless focus and attention increased. She is very passionate about retraining breathing due to the many benefits associated with it such as eliminating panic, reducing anxiety, normalizing blood pressure, clearing brain fog, and increasing energy.

Jill's Meditation Explorations
Both her parents were meditators and she became a teacher of Transcendental Meditation in her early 20s. She spent time in India and Thailand and participated in a four-year retreat among other meditation courses. She maintains a regular practice of meditation and has explored many different techniques and traditions. Her choice is secular meditation free from a particular lifestyle or philosophy. Teaching and practice focus on brain retraining utilizing different styles of meditation to effect different outcomes. There is something for everyone when it comes to meditation, whether it's a more formal practice of mindfulness, a way to reduce ADHD and stress, a movement-based practice, intuition, or as a path to spiritual awakening.