A candlelit apothecary: brass candlesticks with beeswax candles, bundles of dried sage and lavender, amethyst, an ink pot with a feather quill, and a rolled parchment scroll set against shelves of herb jars

Somatic Shadow Integration

An evidence-grounded program for working with the body's shadow. Polyvagal-informed, parts-aware, attachment-literate, AuDHD-friendly. Built on real clinical scaffolding, not vibes.

What this is

Not a course. A practice. The work is body-first because the patterns this addresses live below language. The frameworks underneath are the same ones a good trauma-literate therapist would recognize, named in plain English. Nothing borrowed from teachers without credit. Nothing dressed up in mystical vocabulary to sound deeper than it is.

Descriptive, not diagnostic. The tools here are a starting place for the work, not a clinical assessment.

What it's built on

Polyvagal theory & the window of tolerance

Porges, Siegel, Dana

How the nervous system moves between safety, mobilization, and shutdown, and what brings it back.

Internal Family Systems parts work

Schwartz

A way to meet the protective parts of you that are running the show, without trying to silence them.

Adult attachment theory

Main, Johnson, Levine-Heller

The relational shape your nervous system learned in the household you grew up inside.

AuDHD-specific nervous-system literature

Murray, Hull, Pearson; DERS, MAAS, BAQ

Sensory load, masking burnout, demand-avoidance, monotropism. Treated as architecture, not exception.

Start here

The Pattern Inventory

A short, honest look at where the same shape keeps showing up in your life. The tool maps your answers across eight life domains and surfaces the throughline. Free. About ten minutes.

Take the Pattern Inventory

Free tool

The Practitioner Referral Network

A curated directory of trauma-literate clinicians. For when the next move is clinical pairing, not group work. Still filling it in.

Browse the directory →

What's coming

  • The Shadow Lab. The membership container for the slow group practice. One tier. Monthly or annual.
  • The Rope & Shadow Retreat. An annual weekend, eight to twelve participants, by vetted application.
  • More tools. A Window of Tolerance personal map, a daily receiving check-in, an AuDHD embodiment starter pack, and a public library of her writing.

A small note

Nothing here replaces a therapist, a doctor, or a crisis line. If a pattern lands hard, the next move is co-regulation, not analysis. The Practitioner Referral Network exists for that.