How Sonja Works: A Clinical Approach to Emotional Healing

In my practice as a coach specializing in emotional healing and food recovery, I've developed an approach that combines compassion, insight, and practical guidance. Based on neuroscience and attachment principles, my work helps clients navigate their emotional landscapes while transforming their relationship with food. Here's a glimpse into my methodology:

Creating Resonance

At the heart of my approach is resonance - that magical moment when a client feels truly seen and understood. I create this by:

• Reflecting back their experience: "I hear that when he doesn't respond emotionally, you feel rejected and alone."
• Validating emotions without judgment: "That feeling of rejection is completely understandable given what you're experiencing."
• Offering compassionate presence: Staying present with difficult emotions rather than rushing to fix them.

Resonance creates safety, allowing clients to explore painful feelings that might otherwise remain hidden.

Digging Deeper

Surface-level solutions rarely create lasting change. My approach involves:

• Moving beyond behaviors to underlying patterns: Rather than focusing just on food or relationship behaviors, I help clients see the emotional patterns driving them.
• Connecting present triggers to past experiences: "This feeling of rejection might connect to earlier experiences where connection felt uncertain."
• Exploring the body's wisdom: Recognizing that our nervous system responses contain valuable information about our needs.
• Uncovering the parts of ourselves that need attention: "There's a part of you that feels rejected right now, even while another part knows he cares."

Reframing Perspectives

Transformation often begins with seeing situations differently. I help clients:

• Question automatic interpretations: "That's your interpretation of what he's saying to you, not necessarily the reality."
• Recognize their biases and projections: "We're all putting words in his mouth - let's notice that."
• Understand others' limitations with compassion: "He has decades of training in suppressing emotions - this isn't about you."
• See their own role in relational dynamics: "You're pushing his emotional buttons, which is actually helping him grow."
• Find the gift in challenging situations: "You're stretching him and gifting him with gentleness by allowing him to be himself."

Building Practical Skills

Insights alone aren't enough. I provide concrete tools for my clients:

• Crafting authentic "I" statements: "I'm feeling rejected right now" rather than "You're rejecting me."
• Creating space for others' process: "Give him some time to think about it."
• Asking for what they need directly: "Is there a way for you to express how you feel about me right now?"
• Practicing self-validation: "This is just a part of me that feels rejected, but I know he cares."
• Finding alternate ways to meet needs: Suggesting a card to express feelings when verbal communication is challenging.

Highlighting Strengths and Resources

I help clients recognize their existing resources by:

• Acknowledging their growth: "You've already come so far in how you handle these feelings."
• Celebrating their wisdom: "You already know so much about what works for you."
• Identifying their values: "Your compassion shines through in how you're approaching this."
• Cataloging evidence of care: Having them list all the ways their partner shows care, even if it looks different than expected.

The Neuroscience Foundation

My approach is grounded in neuroscience understanding:

• Nervous system regulation: Recognizing when clients are in survival mode versus connected presence.
• Polyvagal insights: Understanding how perception of safety or danger affects our capacity for connection.
• Attachment patterns: Seeing how early relational blueprints shape current expectations.
• Bridging emotional and physical experience: Connecting emotional triggers to physical responses, including food behaviors.

The Transformative Process

The journey I guide clients through involves:

1. Awareness: Recognizing patterns and triggers in the moment
2. Acceptance: Making space for feelings without judgment
3. Alternative perspectives: Seeing situations through new lenses
4. Action: Trying new responses to old triggers
5. Integration: Embodying new patterns until they become natural

Through this process, clients not only heal their relationship with food but transform their capacity for authentic connection with themselves and others. The alarmed aloneness that once drove compulsive behaviors becomes a signpost pointing toward deeper healing and growth.

Schedule some time with me to see if we are a good fit! Let's do this healing thing together! Discovery Session with Sonja