Today we spoke.
And it almost didn’t happen.

Our appointment was at 1:00 pm.
My client was on a ski hill.

From the very top of the mountain, they made the call, their friends in disbelief “you’re going to go talk to your trauma coach HERE?”

They shared that they had had thought about cancelling, but decided to keep the session because they wanted me to see them at their most free because maybe “we could work with that.”

Oh. Indeed we can. And will.

But the lack of freedom and presence…

… PTS will do that to a person.
It can create a kind of confinement, keeping someone inside a narrow space of what the body and mind perceive as safety through control.

But not today.
Not for this one.

We spoke about flow state.
About the feeling of freedom.
About knowing that this part of the self exists, even when other parts feel closed down.

“What do I do now?” they asked.

“Pick a handful of pine needles,” I said.
“Tell the tree thank you. Give it a hug.”

And they did.

“Now take a giant whiff of those pine needles,” I said.
“Notice where in your body you feel it.”

“Everywhere,” they said, eyes welling.

This.

They put the pine needles in their over heart pocket, zipping them up, keeping a hand in place.

“What now?” they asked.

“What are you noticing?” I asked.

“Joy,” they said.

“Oh hello, joy,” I said.
“I missed you. Thanks for coming.”

They laughed.

Then cried.

“I thought this was gone,” they said.
“I’m so happy to be here. Not just on the hill, but on this call, at this moment, in this body, and in this life.”

This is the return.

Welcome back, my friend.
Welcome back.

It doesn’t have to be complicated.

In Gabon they say “malembe malembe.”
Slow. Slow.

Because sometimes we outpace ourselves.
And much like Peter Pan and his shadow, we have to move slowly enough, intentionally enough, to sew it on and stay together.

It was a good day.

The real problem is the assumption underneath most of those programs.

They assume all nervous systems begin in the same place.

They assume the body is a machine that can be reset with the same sequence of steps. Thirty days. A protocol. A formula.

But nervous systems don’t work like that.

They are living, adaptive systems. They fluctuate constantly.

Your nervous system is responding to sleep, stress load, hormones, blood sugar, inflammation, relational safety, the environment around you, and the entire history your body carries. It changes throughout the day. It changes throughout the month. It changes across seasons of life.

And yet most nervous system programs are designed for the statistical middle of the population. The imagined “average” nervous system.

But there is no average nervous system.

There is only the one inside the body you’re living in and every body is different. For good reason. Different experiences, different priming, different dispositions.

This is why some people follow every step of a nervous system reset and feel better, while others feel overwhelmed, frustrated, or like they are somehow failing the program (and they’re not, btw… that’s just judgement and more on that at a later time).

The program was never built for the complexity of your system - everyone’s system across the board.

Take breathwork for example.

For someone who is chronically collapsed or living in a dorsal shutdown state, activating breathwork can be energizing and helpful or could also send them into the oblivion of a dissociative state.

For someone already running hot in a high sympathetic state, the same breathwork can feel like pouring gasoline on a fire or it could put them to sleep.

Cold exposure is regulating for some bodies and deeply stressful for others.

Long meditation helps some people settle. For others, stillness amplifies the noise already happening inside their nervous system.

The tool isn’t wrong.

The timing might be.

Or the starting point.

Or the assumption that everyone should do the same thing.

This is one of the strange paradoxes in the nervous system wellness world right now. We are talking about the importance of individuality and safety while prescribing standardized regulation routines.

Regulation is not a universal protocol.

It’s a relationship.

A relationship with the body’s signals in real time.

The shift happens when people stop trying to “complete” nervous system programs and start learning the language of their own physiology.

The subtle signals.

The change in breath.

The tightness in the chest.

The way the body leans toward movement or stillness.

The way energy rises or drops.

Nervous system work becomes powerful when it turns into literacy.

When someone can feel the state they are in and choose a tool that actually meets the system where it is.

Sometimes the nervous system needs activation.

Sometimes it needs slowing.

Sometimes it needs movement.

Sometimes it needs laughter, sunlight, food, or the presence of another human being.

The goal was never to follow the protocol perfectly.

The goal is flexibility, it’s what we are trying to create overall.

A nervous system that can move between states and find its way back to stability.

Not because it followed a 30-day reset, but because the reset was tailored to the system.

And what a magnificent system it is.

🧡🧡🧡🧡

-Katie

I’m grateful that this space exists as a place to share my thoughts, my experience, my expertise, my heart and soul.

To say this has been a long time coming is an understatement. The time is now.

Recently I made the decision to place my LCSW license inactive. It was something I had been considering for a few years. Therapy simply wasn’t feeling like my lane anymore, and if I’m honest, I had grown tired of renting my credentials.

There was a clearing happening in my identity. A part of my professional story that had served me well for a long time, but that I could no longer fully inhabit.

So it had to go.

Something else was calling, and it wasn’t being subtle.

Over the last seven years my work has taken me deep into the psychedelic space, particularly with Iboga(ine) and 5-MeO-DMT.

I’ve had the honor of being initiated into the Bwiti tradition. It’s a beautiful and humbling world to be part of.

When I initiated and went through my rites of passage, something in me changed. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to put my fingers on it, nor do I want to. It’s more like the place where the breath lands goes deeper, like roots.

Maybe that’s the becoming of my name, “Osambi” the tree where warriors go to heal… but more on that later.

Being in this liminal space also makes certain forms of professional standing feel… well… confining. As though I was standing in a doorway I couldn’t get through.

So I “ohhhh yeaaaah’d” it like the Kool-Aid man and here I am.

I found myself wanting more freedom. Freedom to explore ideas. Freedom to speak openly about the intersections of trauma, consciousness, spirituality, neuroscience, and expanded states of awareness without feeling constrained by the expectations of a profession that no longer fully reflected the work I was actually doing.

So here we are.

There’s so much talk, but still a limited understanding of the consciousness of trauma and the intersections of mind, body, spirit, and subtle energy. There is a lot that’s misunderstood, and to be honest, there is still much for all of us to learn as we expand the edges of what we thought we knew, only to discover there is always more beyond our current understanding.

And in this space we blend science and woo, which turns out to be not so wooful after all … because … science.

I’m here to share what I know, what I’m learning, and what is absolutely blowing my mind at the intersections of our conscious being… all of it.

I work in one of the most challenging and beautiful spaces that exists. The in-between world of transformation.

And with the most beautiful and driven humans on the planet.

Where the dissolution of the storied being turns into goo, a space that begs for the imaginal cell to grace us with its presence.

It’s an often painful and curious space where my community lands when stripping the stories of their being becomes necessary.

Layer by layer the weight falls away until the question emerges:

“Who am I now?”

Even more…

Who could I become?

Am I willing to create?

Do I believe I have a choice?

The potential.

Oh, I see the potential.

Your potential.

But in order for you to see it, the blinders must come off.

In my realm we blend emerging science, thousands of years of cultural knowledge, and the full spectrum of our humanity, sometimes (usually) with the help of states of expanded consciousness that help us remember, become, and be.

So if you’ve found yourself here taking a little lookey-loo around these pages, here’s what you can expect.

You can expect reflections on psychedelics and healing.

You can expect explorations of this glorious biological and energetic system that we are.

You can expect to read a little bit about yourself too, as what is shared may resonate.

You may have lightbulb moments where something finally clicks. You may feel completely activated. Or it may not land at all.

All of that is welcome here.

On these pages I will be kind.

On these pages I will practice conveying words from my heart, not just my mind.

On these pages I will share what resonates for me, and hopefully for you too.

To my community:

Thank you for teaching me.

Thank you for trusting me.

Thank you for being you and creating ripples of authenticity and love back into the life you are living.

To watch you rise is a gift.

My heart is forever grateful to have had the opportunity to sit with you in your most stripped-down version of who you are.

And what a beautiful place to begin.

I’m glad you’re here.