Which Do You Want?
-SAFETY-
Heal your Anxiety
Manage your Emotions
Bring Healing to your Trauma
Feel Safe and Playful again
Find your way back to Trust
-CONNECTION-
Transform a Relationship
Reduce Conflict
Connect to Yourself
Connect to Others
Express Authentically Â
-POWER-
Find Answers, Clarity, or Direction
Accomplish a Goal
Break a Lifelong Pattern
Overcome Self-DoubtÂ
Find your Mission or Serve Bigger
If you want to change something about how you think, feel or behave, then somatic tools are a great place to start!
Somatic processes are centered in the body & in the nervous system, so they're able to get deeper than traditional talk therapy or other cognitive tools.
Hi, I'm James Mayfield Smith.  I'm a Somatic BreakThrough Facilitator.
I've been helping people move through emotional crisis & shift life-long patterns for the past 17 years.
In wizard-like fashion, I utilize web-based somatic tools.
The somatic processes we use are delivered in a fun, friendly format, but they began on a foundation of trauma-informed neuroscience.
From 2009 to 2011, I worked at Scientific Learning, a neuroscience-based software company focused on cognitive skills & executive function. From them, I learned the value of bringing research-based practices into educational programs.
On top of a good neuroscience-based foundation, we then utilize a large toolbox of mythic, imaginal, shamanic, and bio-energetic BreakThrough-focused tools.
Somatic tools are centered in the body & in the nervous system, so they get deeper than traditional talk therapy or other cognitive tools.
The somatic processes we use begin on a foundation of neuroscience.
In a previous career, I worked at Scientific Learning, a neuroscience-based software company focused on cognitive skills & executive function. From them, I learned the value of bringing research-based practices into educational programs.
On top of a good neuroscience-based foundation, we then utilize a large toolbox of mythic, imaginal, shamanic & bio-energetic BreakThrough-focused tools.
Some of the processes from this group of tools may feel a little “woo” at times, but they are built on scientific research & trauma-informed psychological principles. They are highly effective at accomplishing their goal. The testimonials below attest to this.
Time and again, we’ve seen big impact coming from our signature Somatic BreakThrough Dialogue process.
Over a thousand individual clients have worked with this tool to transform how they feel within and how they feel in the world.
Another thousand group & retreat-based clients have used these tools to:
- Find inner safety
- Feel & release anger, sadness or stuck emotions
- Feel connected again
- Release codependent patterns of thinking & feeling
- Repair anxious or avoidant attachment wounding
- Recover from narcissistic or abusive parenting
- Recover from childhood emotional neglect or low self-esteem
- Do the deep shame work that is at the root of addiction & self-sabotage
In a Somatic Breakthrough Dialogue journey, we guide you into naturally-induced non-ordinary states of consciousness.
In these states, with precision facilitation, you're able to engage in deeper work, connect to your inner wisdom, find your authentic voice & your deeper power.
Our online courses, BreakThrough Circles, retreats, live events, web-based BreakThrough facilitation & individual coaching all do one thing...
They help you to cultivate the inner BreakThroughs you need to:
- Manage emotions & anxiety
- Feel close & cared for in your relationships
- Accomplish your goals
...so that you can live as the gift you are more fully in the world.
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Why Work with Me?
If you want to release unwanted emotions, bring calm to your nervous system, and find inner peace, I can help.Â
I've been involved in transformational education and emotional development training for over 30 years.
My life history and personal initiations make me ideally suited to support your emotional healing.
 I have personally experienced and healed from:
- Physical and emotional abuse prior to age 3
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Emotional neglect & abandonment dynamics in early childhood
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Attachment issues, victim of bullying, and a high degree of insecurity
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Early lack of interpersonal skills and difficulty creating and sustaining satisfying friendships
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Low nonverbal communication skills, spatial awareness, and embodimentÂ
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Teen pregnancy, dysfunctional marriage in high school, and traumatic physical and emotional abuse from my deeply wounded young wifeÂ
The unmet needs from my early life circumstances required me to seek out transformation-focused work at a young age.
Yet even with all the personal growth work and training I did in my twenties, these unhealed emotional dynamics continued to haunt me and sabotage my relationships until my early thirties.
It took some traumatic acts of self-destruction to finally wake my ass up and get me committed to working through these unhealthy dynamics at depth.
In a time of vulnerability and deep grief, amidst the ashes of a failed marriage and early recovery, I stumbled into the world of breathwork, somatics, inner parts work, and structured psychodynamic processes that promised to transform the ways I related to myself and my circumstances.
Schedule a free 25 minute "Clarify Your Next BreakThrough" Phone Call!
You'll leave with a map for your growth. No pushy sales tactics or pressure...just good listening and highly-efffective BreakThrough tools, tailored to your needs.
Do you feel Anxious, Unhappy, Disconnected, or Stuck?
Your nervous system may be under alot of stress right now.Â
The stressors of modern life have harmful effects on your central nervous system and your emotional well-being. Â
These stressors cause your core wound energies to rattle, leading to frequent triggers and moments of emotional upset.Â
That's bad news for your relationships and your emotional comfort, but it's good news for your evolutionary development.
Let me explain...
(Read more to learn why NOW is the best time for inner work!)
The Secret to Rapid Transformation is the
BREAKTHROUGH MOMENT
1 minute video
BreakThrough Moments create
NEW POSSIBILITIES
1 minute video
And It Worked!
The emotional healing has been life-changing.
Like everyone, I'm still a work in progress and there's lots I'm still learning, but at age 48, my inner emotional life and outer circumstances are now radically different now than they were 15 years ago.
My nervous system has settled.
My attachment style shifted from avoidant..then to anxious...then to secure.
I feel deeply loved and cared for and my relationships are flourishing.
I'm no longer run by the fear, anxiety, insecurity, defendendness, narcissism, shame, addiction, and emotional immaturity that dominated the first half of my life.
And an unexpected benefit...
This work put the full-blown auto-immune disease I'd had for 20 years (since I was 12 years old) into remission...
...and it has stayed in remission for 15 years now.
I am able to hike, bike, and lead BreakThrough retreats, adventure trips and Wildman Gatherings, which I could never have done before.
Resolving inner conflict and repatterning unhealthy emotional dynamics creates an ideal environment for healing.
If you suffer from illness or disease, this work can optimize your nervous system for healing.
It calms the fight/freeze/fawn hide/run/collapse stress response that primates experience when they feel threatened.
This threat response is good for short-term situations requiring quick action but terrible when kept active over long periods.
Illness and disease trigger this response of the sympathetic nervous system and often keep it switched on far too long.
Somatic BreakThrough work stimulates your vagus nerve and activates your natural parasympathetic rest/digest/heal response...putting you into a calm, relaxed state, which is the ideal state for healing!
Thanks to many years of investment and training in this work, I'm able to bring master somatic facilitation to artists, healers, entrepreneurs, and change agents who are ready to cultivate BreakThrough moments in their lives.
But don't take my word for it. Scroll to the bottom of this page to hear from ten of my hundreds of clients who've transformed their lives using somatic BreakThrough tools.
WHAT TO EXPECT from Somatic BreakThrough Facilitation
2 minute video
What Causes Emotional Upset?
Most of us live with hard-to-reach, hurt feelings from our past. These unconscious negative emotions drive the problems we create in our lives.
The very young ways of being we develop in our early life continue to haunt us just beneath our conscious awareness, until we choose to discover and repattern these energies.
The traumatic or neglectful experiences from childhood get lodged in your body. They are relived within your central nervous system at times of high stress.
When a situation triggers past fears, nerve bundles clustered in the area of the lodged trauma get activated, causing us to feel the old emotions again. These are feelings we naturally try to avoid.
This avoidance of feeling specific sensations drives many of our sabotage behaviors. Getting to these energies in order to work with them in an effective, transformative way is a primary goal of this work.
BreakThrough Moments bring RESULTS
2 minute video
How Does It Work?
Life is lived from the inside-out. When we use somatic-based inner dialogue tools and structured bioenergetic processes to repattern our central nervous system to a place of safety, playfulness and joy, new possibilities emerge:
- We find the internal security we long for and a deeper sense of trust and possibility become available
- We find our inner connection to ourselves and begin to feel more at ease in our skin and available for connection to others
- We interrupt the internal dialogue and sensations of disempowerment within and discover new confidence in ourselves and optimism for our future
These BreakThroughs fundamentally shift how we experience our own felt-sense presence of ourselves. We begin to perceive our circumstances, our emotions, and our meaning-making in entirely different ways. From this new place, problems disappear and solutions show up in their place.
NOW is the best time to do inner work and emotional healing.
The generalized insecurity from COVID-19 and the failure of previously successful control-based coping mechanisms make these sensations more accessible.
If you have emotional or physical sensations occurring in your body, I can facilitate you towards a BreakThrough moment.
These sensations are the side door into your unconscious. Access to your unconscious ego defenses using non-ordinary states of consciousness allows you an opportunity to repattern your internal dynamics in more healthy ways that can unleash your true potential.
The individuals and organizations who thrive after a market contraction are those who spend the down market wisely optimizing for resilience and success.
This is GO Time. To THRIVE in 2021, NOW is the time to heal those pesky core wounds that still keep you fearful, disconnected, and disempowered.
You get to CHOOSE your medicine...
I recommend playful, gentle inner work that is highly transformative.
Why Lisa RECOMMENDS JAMES as a coach
1 minute video
Lasting transformation usually requires a BreakThrough moment at some point along the journey.
If you flounder and never get to the BreakThrough moments, you stay stuck.
But once you unlock the skills to consistently cultivate BreakThrough moments, you'll never have to remain stuck again.
I've created a checklist of the 13 most helpful somatic BreakThrough tools to use for emotional healing during this global pandemic.
I've added in a valuable toolkit that gives a simple explanation of the how to use each tool to nurture a BreakThrough moment.
If you want to learn how to consistently and reliably cultivate a BreakThrough Moment, download my Pandemic BreakThrough Tools Checklist & Toolkit. It's my gift to you.
If this work excites you, then register for one of our free web-based BreakThrough Circles on our events page or make an appointment to have a one-on-one phone or web-based conversation about your specific BreakThrough goals.
l'm honored to be an ally on your journey during this epic moment in human history.
Much Love,
James
Next Step -> Schedule a free 25 minute "Clarify Your Next BreakThrough" Phone Call!
Join our TRANSFORMATIONAL COMMUNITY
1 minute video
What Clients Say...
"James is an incredible coach! He has a keen way of listening, such that individuals are seen and heard from a deeper understanding of being. Beyond the patterns, into the root cause of constrictions, trauma, and wounds. We can only sit with others as deeply as we have sat with ourselves. James assisted me in the breakthroughs of various levels of fear, avoidance, childhood trauma and the relational space of intimate partnerships. I highly recommend his work as well as his counsel."
Dr. Jill Strom DC CACCP FASA
Author of The Cura Convergence: Healing Through Science and Spirit
"This process has changed the way I relate to my friends and family. I'm now communicating better. My daughter just had a baby and she asked me to come help, which is huge, because we haven’t had this kind of connection since she was 13."
Jenni StarShine Joerger
Artist / Writer / Activist for Survivors of Domestic Violence
"I’ve gotten great results with James as my coach. When we did somatic voice dialogue work, I noticed immediately that the pressure and weight I’ve carried in my neck was gone. It stayed gone and still hasn’t returned. And I'm a chiropractor!"
Dr. Zac Lyons
Chiropractor, Body Shaman & Soul Guide
"James’ skills help people to really sink in to find out what’s true for them and where their power lies."
Jeff Aicken
Builder
"I’m really good at being feminine and creative, but my ability to finish projects needed some work. Working with my masculine energy helped me learn how to get things done in the world."
Dr. Adina Ravenswood
Doctor of Pharmacy
"I’m feeling more at peace with my life and I’m definitely on the other side of the trauma."
Russ Greco
Founder & President at IMEDIADIRECT
"James does a superior job at holding space for deep healing. My struggle has always been honoring my own needs and boundaries while others pull for my attention. The techniques James uses enabled me to reclaim energy from very old wounds. I continue to use James as a resource and recommend his Breakthrough work to other highly empathic folks and those in the healing arts field."
Dr. Stephanie McGuirk
Doctor of Acupuncture
"A lot of times we’re holding onto emotional issues that we’re not even aware of. This process helps you tap into the core of things and what is not serving you so you can release it. It’s helping me alot and keeping me in a lighter place. I’m also finding a new way to connect with friends and families."
Carie Cave
Small Business Owner
"I came to James because I wanted some breakthroughs around childhood trauma and relationships. One of the breakthroughs I had is that I found some things my inner child didn't receive...things that are necessary. I was able to start giving these things to myself and as a result, now I'm able to face the difficulties of life from a place of stability, from a place of healing and strength."
Tim Ely
Artist, Yogi & Spiritual Seeker
"James never made me feel wrong for where I was or what I was dealing with. There was nothing that couldn't be put on the table. He made it easy for me to soften and drop into the space and really do some deep inner work."
Lisa Lola
Energy Healer
A Free Mini-Course for Sensitive Healers
who experience Anxiety, Overwhelm, Fatigue, People-Pleasing & Playing Small
& are ready to reclaim your CALM, your POWER & your FUN!
Get the
SOMATIC BREAKTHROUGH TOOLS
Checklist & Toolkit for $97 FREE!
Foundational Tools for Inner Work! Structured Processes that Hack the Nervous System to Reduce Anxiety, Overcome Triggers, and Transform Your Life from the Inside Out. Easy-to-Use Tools to Embody, Clarify, Cultivate Emotional Healing & Optimize your Nervous System for Growth
10th Annual
WILDMAN GATHERINGÂ Â
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Enrolling now for Sep 13-15, 2024
Asheville, NC
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