Meet Michelle Rousseau
Somatic Therapist, Holistic Health Coach, Personal Trainer & Yoga Teacher
I grew up as an athlete, so it was natural that I followed a path to learn about all things related to the body and wellness when I stopped playing competitive sports.
I completed my masters degree in 2017 in the Depth Psychology & Somatic Studies program at Pacifica Graduate Institute in California. I’m a certified somatic therapist with Somastery Therapeutics. I offer this modality on its own and I also weave this technique into my coaching sessions to help my clients become the best versions of themselves by helping them release negative emotions and limiting beliefs that are stored in the body.
I hold a 200 hour, and 500 hour yoga teacher certification through Yoga Alliance. I trained in 2014 in Goa, India in the Ashtanga tradition and in 2016 in the therapeutic /Viniyoga in California. I often fuse these styles to create a strong yet customized practice for my private clients. I teach in a way that challenges students to find their strength while also accessing the innate healing powers of the body.
In addition, I am a certified personal trainer through the American Council on Exercise, as well as a certified women's fitness and nutrition coach through Girls Gone Strong Academy. I enjoy teaching fitness classes as well as working one on one with clients and find so much fulfillment helping women (and people of all genders) get strong and feel confident.
I am a firm believer that the soul lives in the body and that we can connect to and experience joy through mindful movement. I encourage my clients to cultivate a relationship with themselves through mindfulness and embodiment. I believe life should be lighthearted but should also continually be a facilitator of self-reflection and personal growth.
I also believe that a healthy life is within reach for everyone. I offer somatic therapy, personalized somatic-based virtual coaching sessions as well as personal training and yoga to help you achieve your health and wellness goals. My core beliefs and values are centered around the mind-body connection, and I specialize in helping clients identify and release unconscious patterns and belief systems in order to create and maintain healthy habits around exercise and nutrition (and life). This is how they begin to live their life as the most vibrant versions of themselves.
Somatic Therapy
What is Somatic Therapy?
The somatic therapy I practice, Somastery Therapeutics, is a modality that uses different forms of awareness that helps to teach the nervous system how to regulate in order to safely guide the client to places in the body where there is stuck survival energy/ stored trauma to help digest and release it.
Survival energy gets stuck in the body when something prevents the nervous system from completing its survival-based response to an event or situation. The outcome is typically known as post-traumatic stress which impacts the brain, the mind, and the body. Typically, this kind of stuck energy is responsible for the different, and very often limiting, beliefs and feelings we have about ourselves, and for the ways in which we then interact and react with the world.
In these sessions we will work to identify your desired outcome, how you want to feel/be, and then begin to find where there is resistance to that desire. We will use this somatic therapy modality in order to resolve whatever energy is stuck that is causing that resistance so you can create new beliefs and behaviors that align with who and how you desire to be in the world and in your relationships.