Somatic Coaching with Owen Marcus
What Is Somatic Coaching?
Somatic coaching is a body-based approach to growth and transformation. Unlike traditional coaching that focuses on thoughts and strategies, somatic coaching begins with the nervous system. It recognizes that stress, trauma, and old patterns live in the body as tension, breath restrictions, and unconscious reactions. Change becomes possible when you learn to feel and work with these embodied patterns—rather than just talk about them.
My Path Into Somatic Coaching
More than thirty years ago, before “somatic coaching” was even a term, I was helping men slow down, notice their bodies, and connect sensation to emotion. I discovered early on that men often carried unprocessed experiences in their physiology, shoulders tight, breathing shallow, jaw clenched. When those physical defenses softened, emotions surfaced, and genuine connection became possible.
That simple but radical shift—leading with the body—changed everything. It became the foundation of my work, first in men’s groups, then in training others to facilitate growth, and now through my coaching and through MELD, our global men’s community.
Why Somatic Coaching Is Effective
Somatic coaching is powerful because it works where change actually happens: in the nervous system. Here’s why it’s effective:
- Resets the Stress Response
Chronic stress keeps the body locked in fight, flight, or freeze. Somatic practices help you return to a regulated baseline.
- Reveals Hidden Patterns
Old beliefs and emotional defenses show up as posture, tone, and movement. By bringing awareness to them, you gain choice.
- Creates Authentic Connection
When you can relax your body and open up, relationships transform. Somatic coaching shows you how to connect with yourself and others in real time.
- Integrates Mind and Body
Insight without embodiment rarely lasts. Somatic coaching weaves intellectual understanding with lived experience.
How I Work With You
Every client and every group is different, but the process always starts the same: slowing down and paying attention to what the body is telling us.
I use practices such as:
- Breath awareness and regulation to shift state.
- Micro-movements and posture tracking to uncover unconscious defenses.
- Relational feedback so you can feel how others experience you in the moment.
- Somatic dialogue, asking not just “what do you think?” but “what do you feel in your body right now?”
This is not abstract theory. It’s practical, experiential, and immediately applicable to your daily life.
Somatic Coaching for Men
Men in particular benefit from this work. Many of us were taught to suppress our emotions, to live solely in our minds, and to conceal our vulnerability. That separation often creates stress, leads to failed relationships, and fosters a sense of emptiness, even when outwardly successful.
Somatic coaching gives men a way back:
- To reclaim their own body as an ally.
- To feel deeply without being overwhelmed.
- To connect vulnerably and authentically with others.
It’s why I designed the MELD Method and why MELD’s programs integrate somatic practices at their core.
From Individual to Collective Growth
What began decades ago in my early groups is now part of a global movement. Somatic coaching isn’t just about fixing problems; it’s about building a life of coherence, connection, and contribution.
In one-on-one coaching, we create the safety and clarity for you to discover what your body has been holding and what it’s ready to release. In groups, we amplify this process through community, allowing the nervous system to learn that it can relax, open up, and connect with others.
Begin Where Somatic Coaching Began
If you’re searching for where somatic coaching started and how it continues to evolve, you’ve found it. What was once radical, men healing by feeling, is now recognized as essential.
This is the lineage of my work, and it serves as the foundation for the coaching I offer today.
What exactly is somatic coaching and how does it differ from traditional talk-therapy or goal-setting coaching?
Somatic coaching developed out of somatic therapy, which developed out of the need for a change that was more than cognitive, more than top-down. The approach really got traction back in the 70s with Ron Kurtz, who later developed Hakomi therapy. It further evolved into somatic therapy and somatic coaching, influenced by Peter Levine and his Somatic Experiencing approach.
All these approaches, be it somatic psychotherapy or somatic coaching, are grounded in the body — specifically the nervous system, the posture, micro breath, all the effects of the body’s reflection of what’s happening physiologically. We were often trained to believe that if we could think harder, we could fix a problem. But unfortunately, our emotional and relational challenges are much more than cognitive problems. If that were the case, we’d all be living very successful and happy lives.
The core of somatic coaching is to help the person feel, experience, and sense. And then from there, accept that experience or sense and allow the body to initiate the shift.
Why is somatic coaching especially effective for men, and what are the typical body-based patterns you observe in male clients?
I started developing somatic coaching several decades ago because I saw that the traditional way of supporting people was very limited. The top-down or more cognitive or analytical approach would help people understand their problems. But the understanding would only produce so much change, and that change would not be sustainable.
What I noticed from my trainings and all my clients was that when they could connect to their somatic experience or physiology, they’d start to connect to their stress behavior. They’d start to feel that tension in the body, and with that, they’d be able to release that tension. And with that, retrain the nervous system. So not only are these clients releasing stress and creating more capacity to connect to themselves and to others, they’re actually, through neuroplasticity, retraining the nervous system — or, more appropriately, resetting it back to a more natural default.
In our culture, particularly for men, we’re often told, directly and indirectly, that our emotions are something we should avoid and that our minds are the way to create change. And that’s true if you’re designing a bridge or maybe writing code — your cognitive functions will be the leader. Yet for happiness, emotional connection, satisfying relationships, and less stress, we need to go beyond our mind and engage our body.
One of the things I realized first with myself and then with my clients is that if you ask most men what they feel emotionally, they will try to find the quickest way out of the room. Yet if you ask us what we feel physically, we can usually respond, and at least we will not be scared or resist. And as we connect to what we feel physically, we connect to our bodies. As we connect to our bodies, we naturally begin to relax. And as we relax our bodies, we start to connect to our emotions in a very natural way. From there, it becomes easy to talk about our emotions because we’re feeling them, and we’re feeling them because we’re feeling our body’s stress response.
What is the step-by-step process of your somatic coaching work (individual or group) — what happens, when, and what changes?
My step-by-step process of coaching individually or in group is really not a step-by-step process. It’s true that when I train men, coaches, and therapists how to use this, as with any training, we’re going to start with a more linear approach. But quickly, we shift from a step-by-step approach to really connecting first to your own experience — somatically, emotionally, intuitively, and certainly intellectually, but also to the person or people you’re working with.
Like any good athlete who really knows his sport, not obviously just cognitively but embodies those skills, he’s not thinking when he’s dribbling the ball or running down the field with the ball. He is in the moment in his body, and he is responding to what happens in each instant. And that’s how I train coaches, and that’s how I work, using all the principles and skills in what becomes an intuitive process.
A few key principles: we slow down our awareness, but really our physiology, as we shift that stress response from a hyperarousal to a more relaxed state. We often do that by connecting to our body. One of the most common ways is just to be aware of your breath. That takes us out of a threat response and into a more parasympathetic, or rest-and-digest, response, which is what should really be our default.
Obviously, the core of all this work is predicated on creating an emotionally safe space. We all know this intuitively — that we will not relax or open up if we don’t feel safe, or it’s a lot harder. So when we feel we’re in a safe space, we drop our defenses. We’re able to connect to what we feel physically and emotionally, and then communicate those experiences. The core of what I teach people, and I certainly hope to do with my clients, is create that emotionally safe space where whatever’s happening for them in the moment is accepted.
How does somatic coaching produce lasting change — what shifts internally that make exterior life, relationships, and leadership different?
People come to us because often they’ve tried other approaches, maybe a more cognitive approach, or maybe they’ve read about what’s happening, or they’ve talked to their friends. And they’re all valid approaches. Usually, they’re focused on getting the insight, understanding what’s happening. And that’s often a good start. But real change needs to be embodied. It needs to be more than just our minds.
We all know, and indeed research has shown, that our physiology, our stress response, is the first thing that happens. We know if we touch something hot, we move our hand away before we even realize it cognitively. Our body knows. And that phenomenon holds with everything. Our body responds first.
Polyvagal theory teaches us that 80 percent of the nerves go from the the organs in our trunk up to the brain. So our core nerve in our body is telling our brain way more than our brain is telling our body. When we can tap into that, we have a massive advantage over other people who are still trying just to understand their situation.
When we can utilize the body and connect to what’s happening, we’re connecting to the nervous system and helping it regulate, which is to say we’re helping it slow down, leave the stress state which is a waste of a lot of energy, produces a lot of tension, and has us not be present or not have full access to our cognitive or executive functions. We literally are less smart when we’re under stress.
How does your work with somatic coaching integrate with community, group work and relational dynamics (beyond "me in a room") — and why is that component important for men's growth?
Someone once said that it’s your biology, stupid, playing off of Clinton’s famous statement about it’s the economy, stupid. It’s our biology or our physiology that really is the foundation of everything else. As we evolved to be humans, we were biological organisms before we had any intellectual abilities, and that is always true. We just keep building on what we had previously as we evolved, and so our biology is foundational.
That’s also true when we look at relationships. The science of polyvagal theory and co-regulation tells us that we are hardwired not just for survival but for connection. As human beings, this is true with most mammals; we need social connections. We need a herd, a tribe, a pack, not only to feel safe but also to feel connected.
What happened to many of us is that we did not have what therapists would call secure attachment when we were young, at least enough of it. That secure attachment, feeling like we’re accepted for who we are, sets up or trains us to co-regulate or harmonize with that parent’s nervous system. That experience teaches us how to self-regulate, how to relax our own nervous system. Without enough co-regulation or secure attachment, we didn’t learn how to self-regulate well.
The beauty of the work we do in our men’s groups and trainings is applying the principles and skills of somatic coaching at a larger, relational, and communal level. Precisely what happens is that we get to experience, learn, practice, and embody what we didn’t get as kids around secure attachment and co-regulation. In these group settings, we learn how to self-regulate and how to help another person co-regulate or self-regulate. We activate our hardwiring around using social connection to decrease stress, increase security, and increase happiness.