Sensitivity is the mother of true power.
Not power in a conventional sense, but the power to actually claim one’s life as one’s own.

- Zhenevere Sophia Dao -

I come to this work weaving multiple storylines as a somatic coach and educator, a bio-cultural and social anthropologist trained in evolutionary ecology and a bodyworker. I also come from multilingual lineages and of being a translator between cultures, that I embody not only through actual litteral languages but also through bridging different worlds and modes of knowing like I did as an academic between natural and social sciences, and like I am doing through TaraSoma between somatics, social justice and regenerative leadership. In my work as a coach, educator and consultant, I hold welcoming spaces for individual, relational and collective change rooted in the healing wisdom of our bodies and the regenerative teachings of the natural worlds and the diverse ways it has informed human cultures across the globe.

I also come to this work rooted in lineages of erasure – of peoples forced out of their identities, cultures and languages, and always defined by what they are not. My ancestors were indigenous to North Africa and Bretons, but also colonial European and Middle Eastern. While they don’t show on my skin, their dualities live in my body, as does the legacy of violence passed on across generations of poverty and erasure, and the imprint of growing up in a dictatorship. It has been a tumultous journey to become the peace my ancestors couldn’t imagine, and it will be the rest of my life’s mission to reclaim the voice and choice lost, re-membering, re-pairing and re-worlding a legacy of aliveness.

To get to this peace, I was guided by many teachers, and in the last few years, by mentors who model more the better futures I aspire to. My enskillment journey spans modern healing approaches and somatic modalities, psychology and spirituality, as well as academic and non-academic ways of knowing. You can review my educational history, influences and credentials by clicking on the button below.

Mission & Values

Mission

TaraSoma is born from a deep longing to remember and repair. To build a better legacy than the one passed on to me, personally, and beyond me, to give voice back to the untellable, the unhearable and the silenced, and all the treasures that they hold.

A revolution is needed, and there is a revolution brewing. Everywhere around this precious and wounded world, simple acts of honouring are sprouting – honouring the land of the body and its tremendous intelligence to keep us alive; honouring the ligneages of survival and creation that birthed us, and their memory archived in our soma; honouring that diversity is not just merely a fact of Life, but the guardian of its resilience over billions of years; honouring that each one of us is culture-making, and as such, can make our cultures more life-giving and life-including. In the way of the bees and the ants and the hummingbirds, we too can become legions of aliveness.

So, let’s re-member, re-pair, and re-world!

Values

TaraSoma is anchored in the indigenous Thriving Life paradigm, and in the regenerative principles of interdependence, diversity and reciprocity.

Being over Doing

Brave over Safe

And over Or

Practice over Perfect

Choice over Should

Background, Influences & Credentials

A lifelong student of somatics, complex trauma (developmental, cultural and intergenerational), I have received training in multiple related discplines, in both university and less formal settings, most importantly in applying a decolonial and social justice lense to the notions of knowing, learning and healing. As an academic for 20+ years, I can state with confidence that I have received far more value from dedicated teachers working outside of the institution than within it. The educational background, and ‘credentials’ listed below are meant to offer you a sense of the trainings and influences that shape my work, to check for both resonance and trust-worthiness. While I continue to decolonize myself from the notion of credentialism – that there is only one respectable or valid measure of one’s competence and knoweldge-ability, I also honour all the knoweldge sources and ligneages that have paved my path, and acknowledge the significant amount of privilege and access that has allow me to engage in this multifaceted learning journey.

Engaging the awareness of the body and fore-fronting its knowing – Somatics – is at the heart of my practice and work. I see the body as our native homeland, from which we have become exiled through generations of somatic acculturation and possibly, developmental trauma. As the first the first site of oppression, it is also the first site of liberation. But more than that, it is the vehicle of Life, and the repository of its regenerative wisdom. – all at once a compass, a teacher and a change agent.

My somatics and embodiement curriculum is framed by both a trauma and resilience lens, and a social justice anti-oppressive lens. I am certified as an IFS (Internal Family Systems) informed practitioner, Holistic Life Coach and Mind-Body Practitioner, a Principle-Based Partner Yoga and E-RYT Yoga Teacher, and a Level II Usui Reiki practitioner.

I also hold certificates in:

the Power of Embodied Transformation with Coaches Rising (ongoing)
Systemic Trauma in Couples Therapy with Akilah Riley-Richardson at the Academy of Therapy Wisdom.
Integral Somatic Trauma Therapy with the Embody Lab, directed by Nkem Ndefo, Arielle Schwartz and Scott Lyons
Principles of Collective Trauma Healing with Thomas Hübl at the Academy of Inner Science
Bilateral Stimulation and Sensorimotor Expressive Arts Therapy with Dr. Cathy Malchiodi at The Trauma-Informed Practices and Expressive Arts Therapy Institute

Embodied Anti-Racism in Therapy with Francesca Maximé at the Academy of Therapy Wisdom
Embodied Social Justice with Transformative Change, directed by Reverand Angel Kyodo Williams, Dr. Sarà King and Dr. Rae Johnson; with an Embodied Social Justice Leadership depth track directed by Staci K. Haines and Rusia Mohiuddin.
Embodied Conflict Resolution with Kai Cheng Thom at the Embody Lab
Cross-Cultural Compassion in Clinical Practice with Deran Young at the Academy of Therapy Wisdom.

Part of my influences, non certifying are:

Regenerative Activism with Advaya
We will dance with mountains with Bayo Akomolafe
Jack Kornfield’s Masterclass in Interactive Guided Meditation
Non-dual Therapy – New Paradigms in Healing &Self-Realization with Georgi Y. Johnson
Embodied Activism with Nkem Ndefo and Dr. Rae Johnson
Soulfulness, Culture and Liberation in Mind-Body practices with Dr. Shelly P. Harrell
Organic Intelligence with Steve Hoskinson
An Embodied Approach to Attachment Theory with Maureen Gallagher
Introduction to the Resilience Toolkit with Nkem Ndefo
the Power of Awareness with Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield

I am also trained in several bodywork modalities and have been immersed in the study of several movement and art-based contemplative practices for the past decade. Growing in my felt sense of how power over dynamics shape and hurt our soma as well as their unlearning to move both individually and collectively towards modes of power with and within is an essential part of my training, and ongoing.

As for my academic credentials, I hold an M. Sc. in Evolutionary Biology (2001), a PhD in Linguistic Anthropology (2004), an MA in Human Rights Law (2008) and a BSc in Psychology (2021). In my 20+ year academic career as a bio-cultural and social anthropologist at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), I have researched and taught a variety of subjects ranging from linguistic diversity to the dynamics of collective trauma witnessing, the intersections between social bodies and practices of well-being, and alternative ways of knowledge-telling. You can visit my ORCID site for a complete overview.

Sensitivity is the mother of true power. Not power in a conventional sense, but the power to actually claim one’s life as one’s own.