About Me
Hello, welcome to my website. My name is Ali McNair and I’m a certified Somatic Practitioner, qualified in Somatic experiencing.
The thing that has always interested me most since childhood is human nature. I would endlessly explore the question of How To Feel OK, ( or How On Earth To Start Feeling OK), and at some point in early adulthood it became more about How to Heal and Become Whole. I’ve explored this through various paradigms; Buddhist meditation and ethics, dance, body work, Nursing, Medical Herbalism , and tripped over myself trying to find it in relationship and parenting.
Some of these pointed the way, some deepened ( continue to deepen ) the question. But the recurring themes were the body, wholeness, connection.
In my early work with people’s bodies and their suffering, I could see that something, the main thing , was missing. Holistic routes offered something more, but when I first found Somatic Experiencing (SE) as a way to make my feelings more manageable, I knew I had hit home and , finally I had found a thing that engaged all of me. SE gives a route to inhabiting ourselves and our lives.
Like many of us, I was born into some tricky family dynamics. One thread of which was my dad having an affair when my mum was pregnant with me. My role in the family became mitigating her resulting devastation.
I quicky saw I could change her emotional states for the better with my compliance. I could also get approval, praise and attention for seeing and filling-in all the emotional gaps, and for causing no trouble.
I barely experienced myself at all, my attention was on scoping for what needed to happen next, what I needed to say and do to keep the quicksilver equilibrium in balance. Roll on a few years, my dad left, my mum’s mental health continued to falter, I doubled down.
Naturally this segued into my adult relationships. As a toddler all this had been a very smart move, keeping my mum this side of sane ensured my survival, but it left me a stranger to myself.
I felt like a very scary empty space.
After being stuck for some long years years in self destructive behaviours, I stumbled into meditation and conscious movement practices, (Gabrielle Roth’s 5 Rhythms), and began little by little to see that the emptiness wasn’t inside of me, the emptiness was how far away from myself I was. Pretty much all my feelings felt scary, because pushing them away had been my survival strategy. I found that moving my body on the dance floor gave me some relief, and a way to connect to my experience. I wanted more. I’d done talk therapy and had a sophisticated understanding of all the “why”s, but they weren’t helping.
Dr Peter Levine who founded SE says that “Trauma is not what happens to us, but what we hold inside in the absence of an empathic witness” and when I was fortunate enough to find SE, this exploration positively impacted my life like nothing else I have found. My overwhelm lessened, I could negotiate for myself rather than crumble or lash out at any difference of standpoint. I had more choice, more ease, more flexibility.
SE works by first building safety and resource so we can gently and slowly begin to feel our way back in to ourselves and to show up with whatever is happening in the moment. Incomplete responses to traumatic events & survival strategies learned in early life can be renegotiated and completed. This frees up energy and appetite for life. Our lives look much more do-able when we are not clinging on to a version of reality with one hand, while desperately trying to hold our feelings at bay with the other.
So I quickly realised I wanted to share this with other people and embarked on the three year training. I feel passionate about helping people feel safe and growing from that place.
I live with my family in Radstock, Somerset, UK, and practice SE online and in person from my back garden cabin and on retreat in Devon.
“The Guest House
This being human is a guest house, Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of it’s furniture, still treat each guest honourably, He may be clearing you out for some new delight
The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.”
Jalaluddin Rumi