About Somatic Coaching

Your Guide, Kate Carson

Some problems can’t be solved by thinking harder about them.

In 2012, it all fell apart. I was eight months pregnant when my beloved baby girl, Laurel, was diagnosed with severe brain anomalies. She received a poor prognosis for a short life of profound suffering.

I chose to end my pregnancy at an abortion clinic in Boulder, Colorado. I’m saying that I traveled 2000 miles to kill my daughter inside of my womb because it was the best I had on mercy. I would do it a million times if I had to, and every single time, it would blow me into a zillion tiny, razor-sharp pieces.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have any good somatic support at the time. I had to figure this out on my own by trial and error. I kept trying to piece myself together like a puzzle from all those tiny brittle shards.

If anyone could make the pieces fit, I could. I’m a scientist and an engineer. I know how to solve problems. I repeatedly tried to build back my old self from the wreckage. It never worked. The pieces wouldn’t fit. Right at the center of my shattered self was this enormous, cumbersome dead baby, and there was just no fixing a dead baby.

Then, I tried a different approach.

When I finally stopped fighting it, my body knew what to do: soften all the tiny fragments of myself like so much clay until I could mold myself back together into something new, right around the reality of my dead baby. Get soft enough and big enough, and even this fits.

I began to feel intense emotions, one by one, as though grief was splitting me into a room full of colorful characters. It’s not pathology; it’s a natural response to trauma to feel fragmented like this – parts-work is a glorious tool.

Internal Family Systems (IFS) uses this strategy extensively, and ancient tantric traditions led to trauma-healing this way for millennia before any modern therapy. My body delivered this strategy in the absence of any formal learning. I learned it again from teachers later.

Connection is essential.

After my body and its intuition, my peers are my most significant source of wisdom and support.

I’ve volunteered as an admin at Ending a Wanted Pregnancy since 2012. I continue to learn from other TFMR mamas even as I hold the space. I welcome and witness almost every member we’ve seen in the past decade and have heard thousands of TFMR stories that hold space for all the grief that unfolds from them. I do not get tired, and it does not get old because it aligns with my purpose.

Through all the absolute devastation of the loss of my baby, there have been some gifts, like purpose. I am here to build connections and break down taboos around reproductive loss, especially abortion. It is hard enough to lose a baby or end a pregnancy. It is much harder to learn to trust and love yourself in a world that wants to isolate and punish you.

Everything I do: my profession, my volunteerism, my activism, all fuel love and connection in the face of taboo.

Training and Experience

My university education is in science (chemistry and physics), with a graduate degree in biochemical engineering. I have worked in labs as a scientist and in the classroom as a math and science teacher.

I am an activist storyteller for abortion rights and have published with Yahoo, Elle, The Guardian, and USA Today. After volunteering in baby loss space for many years, I was certified as a VITA coach in 2021 with additional specialization in Life Transitions and Relationship Transformation.

My approach is a combination of all this lived experience. Science has given me a deep curiosity as well as many different angles to understand a process of coaching that can sometimes feel downright mystical.

Engineering gives me a strong focus on my clients’ results: I want you to reach your goals. Teaching has given me deep creativity and flexibility in communication. Activism fuels everything I do with passion, and VITA brings powerful somatic tools that really work.