Mountain Bike Therapy for Trauma and Anxiety
Outdoor Experiential Therapy for individuals
Outdoor adventure changed my life. I believe in the power of facing challenge at the right pace and how putting ourselves at the edge of comfort helps us build confidence, resilience, and expands our ability to work with stress and fear. Through mountain biking, you can process and heal from trauma and anxiety experientially. You can build a stronger connection to your body, work through old protective patterns that no longer serve you, and learn to relate to triggers and the threat response in a new way. Connecting with nature also helps us feel grounded and more present than we usually are in the hustle of daily life.
Mountain Bike Therapy/Coaching is also for mountain bikers who are feeling fearful or anxious while riding or for riders who have experienced an accident on their bike. In these sessions we work the edges of your comfort zone or ‘zone of resilience’ in order to help you work through fear in a way that keeps you joyful, present, and grounded. We do that by working on the MTB skills needed for various features, practicing 'titration' in order to work up to riding more challenging features, processing thoughts and feelings that arise, and by building tools for nervous system regulation.
Along with being a Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor, I am a Professional Mountain Bike Instructor (PMBIA Level 1). In these sessions I teach you mountain biking skills at the pace that works for you, and incorporate therapeutic activities into these experiences utilizing the Trauma Resiliency Model (TRM) and somatic techniques such as resourcing, titration, and pendulation. Adventure therapy experiences are crafted for you and your needs. We will also talk about transference and how these experiences can relate to and be utilized in your daily life.