About Me — so glad we’ve crossed paths

My background is as a meditation teacher, and somatic nervous system work was a natural evolution because, from my perspective, it is the same work of building capacity for presence. In genuine contemplation what stands in the way of inner spaciousness is what needs to be processed.

What shapes us lives in perception: in the implicit sense of self and other through which we experience the world. The body is the vehicle through which this is expressed or braced against. When that perception cannot fully be realized, it organizes around protection. This work creates the conditions for that protection to soften and for the presence and capacity to meet it to emerge.

My approach is fundamentally developmental: grounded in modern neuroscience, refined with psychosynthesis, and deepened by timeless contemplative wisdom, refining perception and meeting unconscious material wherever it lives: breath, posture, tension, emotion, connection, and identity.

My work is contemplative but also deeply personal. I know firsthand the experiences of disconnection and chronic pain, and I meet each person with the presence and care I once needed myself. My death doula work has been among my greatest teachers; it is where presence, which is another word for surrender, is most fully demanded and most fully given.

I weave three dimensions of the self: the personal, interpersonal, and transpersonal, opening the capacity for deeper connection with ourselves, others, and life itself, and moving beyond endless fixing of the past into renewed inspiration.

I live in New York City, I don't belong to any one method or tradition, and I center a deep respect for the complexity and potential of what it means to be human. I love to support others in building the capacity for presence, our own manyfold complexity, and a life lived from the inside out, so experience can move through us. I’m glad we’ve crossed paths.

—Susan Reis