Kelly Alessandro Lazzara

Experience

I began practicing somatic movement in 2019 via the Feldenkrais Method®. In 2022, I became a certified Somatic Trainer certification in Physio-Mentale Entwicklung (PME), an ISMETA and USABP-approved program.

I teach somatic movement and human body education primarily in two settings: in small-cohorts spanning multiple weeks and in 1:1 therapy sessions.

I have worked with over sixty clients exploring chronic pain, limiting perspectives of the body, anxiety, fear of death, athletic skill development, as well as working with couples and groups to promote healthy and healing touch and interaction.

My education and teaching style includes curriculum in anatomy, physiology, evolutionary biology, sound healing, and Buddhist psychology.

Additionally, I have incorporated somatic practices with hundreds of clients while working as a personal trainer, group fitness instructor, and soccer coach.

Years of persistent bodily pain led me to somatic movement via the Feldenkrais Method® in 2019. With no preface to what I was getting into, I booked an appointment with Tara Eden in Chiang Mai. Seated on a flat, cement ledge with my feet on the floor, I began to explain to Tara that my glute med and quadratus lumborum are in pain because they are being overused since my VMO is dormant and causing other muscles to work harder. Listening intently to my words and body language she paused, nodded, and replied, “Everything you’ve said is valid. It’s just not what we’re doing here right now.” What could we be doing? I felt very curious and I could sense that Tara was curious too, albeit her curiosity seemed to have more direction and optimism than mine did. Again, what could we be doing? Isn't understanding the anatomy and state of muscle coordination not the most accurate and important way to diagnose musculoskeletal pain? How can you tell me that’s all valid but it’s not what we’re doing here? What is this!? I was curious.

At this point in my life, 40 of every 60 seconds, my attention was fixated on how uncomfortable I was in my body. My body usually felt tight and in pain. I wasn't aware of it at the time, but the fear of never finding solace were crux of the issue. I was in a loop of sensing pain in the body, that pain triggering the emotion of fear, and the fear triggering physical expressions that would create more tension and impede healing.

I was working a full-time job in technology while simultaneously running my own men's fashion business. I was shelling out thousands of dollars for business class tickets on international flights only because I couldn’t bear the thought of sitting for that many hours. I’d load up on 800 mgs of ibuprofen before every soccer match and training and marijuana became a prerequisite to any comfortable night of sleep. Checking out seemed like the only solution. I was trying my best to heal myself. Thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours towards physical therapy, acupuncture, massage, specialized personal training, sound healing, psychedelic therapy, and more were not helping me. All of these modalities I just mentioned, I personally believe can be, and were for me, tremendously healing. They weren't exactly what I needed at the time.

What I needed was an experience in my body that felt safe. I needed the mindset of curiosity, compassion, and exploration. I needed to step outside of the sensory-emotional-sensory-thought loop of pain-fear-tension-desperation that had consumed my experience and image of myself for well over 1,000 mornings, afternoons, and nights. 

“Sense your sit bones,” Tara said. “Um…,” I indicated back with a facial expression. “The bony things you feel that you’re sitting on.” Ok, got it. I could sense them. There was some sort of cue to be aware of my skull in space; how its position moves the spine and changes the pressure distribution between the sit bones. The Feldenkrais Method® is a lot about exploring subtle movement within the range of where the movement feels elegant, fluid, creamy, and easy. There’s an emphasis on refining the most subtle of movements and not expanding too quickly out of them. So I was getting a lot of cues like, “try less”, “easy”, “nice and easy”, “gentle”, and “move so little and so slowly that if I were standing ten feet away from you, I might not even know that you’re moving.” It’s really effin’ interesting and explores that space where thought, the intention to move, meets the actual physical expression through the body. And my mind and body were BLOWN AWAY!

I sensed my own body in a new way for the first time in years. I’d found moments of new ways to organize my body in space that felt more fluid, nicer, they were easier than before. Some intrinsic reward system like, “getting the hang of something” for the first time was active. Without even realizing it, I was enthused, appreciating the intelligence of and sensations in my body. I wasn’t thinking at all about pain or discomfort and the possibilities of this kind of experience felt infinite. Afterall, I was barely moving my head around while sitting down. If you’d like to try this kind of practice for yourself, here’s a video I’ve created you can follow along to. The practice went on for another 45 minutes with lying on the floor, rolling around, walking, and moving mindfully from sitting to standing. I was in my body, I was curious, I was finding new things, and the possibilities felt unlimited. 

My new teacher and I hugged, scheduled another session for two days in the future, and I rode my rented scooter to a nearby waterfall. I knew I’d experienced something special and that this was just the beginning. Oh, all of my pain didn’t magically disappear after that! The seeds of possibility by way of first-hand experience had been planted. I knew, with certainty, that within the body there is information on how to heal much of my pain. What I didn’t know was a method for how to get there.

Somatic Origin

Somatic Education: Physio-Mentale Entwicklung

Three years after my first somatic movement experience and a decade into a computer-based career, hours on end of sitting, repeat injuries, and never feeling quite enthused about the abilities of my body or the work I was doing, it was time to switch things up. I wanted to work with movement and humans. Somatics felt interesting.

I wasn’t sure exactly what I was looking for, but I wanted to explore the world of somatic movement. I reconnected with Tara, we did some work together, and through her guidance I found the International Somatic Movement Education and Therapy Association (ISMETA) website. It’s a great resource for finding registered somatic movement educators and therapists across a variety of methods all around the globe. Through this resource, I discovered Physio-Mentale Entwicklung (PME), or Physio-Mental Development in english.

PME has inspired and expanded my abilities to understand and trust the wisdom of the human body. The training incorporates anatomy, evolutionary biology, coaching training, buddhist psychology, dance, logic, physiology, and the studying other somatic methods.

PME and the work of its founder, Dieter Rehberg, are the heaviest influence on my style of somatic work. It’s a client-centered method that utilizes touch, movement, language, and perception training. “The procedure of the method is to trigger and accompany the process of physical and mental self-organization and self-development through a mindful and compassionate dialogue. A helpful and healing process is created through mindful and compassionate perception. Self-regulation arises through trust in the wisdom of the body in an open “somatic dialogue” with oneself or with a (professional) counterpart.”

PME is the foundation to all of my offerings. Why? Because the method has an unwavering commitment to empower the client to find self-regulation. As a somatic coach practicing PME, I do not give advice nor do I suggest my ideas to the client. Instead I have the pleasure to serve as a mirror and an amplifier of the client's own personal process as best I can through sensitive observation.

In 2022, I completed 250 hours of education for my Somatic Trainer certification. I am now under supervision from Dieter Rehberg while I pursue becoming ISMETA Registered Somatic Movement Therapist via PME's Advanced Somatic Training.