Shaelyn Cataldo
Holistic Therapy, Somatic Healing, and Expressive & Creative Arts Facilitation
Hello and welcome! I work with clients who struggle to cope with anxiety, depression, grief, relational challenges, and trauma. I will help you identify where pain keeps you from ease, connection, peace, and feeling fulfilled in life.
I bring 20 years of experience working with and walking beside individuals and families in struggle. I take a humanistic, integrative and trauma-focused approach that blends Person-Centered Therapy, Somatic Healing, Attachment Theory, Expressive Arts Therapy, and Internal Family Systems to support you in reconnecting with your body, emotions and your inner wisdom.
It takes tremendous courage and vulnerability to look within, and you don't have to do it alone. Together we will support you to break the patterns that keep you from the life you desire, develop new coping strategies, grow your comfort setting boundaries that honor you, and learn ways to nourish yourself from the inside out.
I aspire to help you live more authentically, return to a state of wholeness, and reclaim a sense of aliveness by first becoming aware of how the past lives inside of you creating disconnection and present-day stress. You will be supported to heal at the ROOT for lasting change.
YOU BELONG HERE
At the heart of my work is the belief that your relationship to yourself serves as the foundation for meaningful and intimate connection with others and the world around you.
Unlike traditional talk therapy which may focus on surface issues and provide short term comfort, my holistic approach dives deeper for long-term healing. I do this through 1:1 therapy, coaching and group workshops.
A message from me to you:
We're likely a good fit to work together if:
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You are feeling stuck in life or find yourself struggling through a life transition.Feeling stuck often means you are at a threshold of change. Change can feel hard or overwhelming as it brings up so many emotions. My role is to serve as your guide providing support, helping you develop internal resources, and offering you strategies to cope with life changes more effectively. You will gain greater clarity and direction in your life through our work together.
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You identify as highly sensitive, an empath, or neurodivergent.I specialize in helping clients identify and accept their own sensitivities, needs, and differences. My work will address any shame you may have related to your particular needs while anchoring you with tools to effectively care for those needs in a practice of compassionate self-partnership.
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You have a complicated relationship with your body and/or food.I use a somatic approach to help my clients get to know their bodies through a process of compassionate self-study. Together we'll explore your unique relationship with your body, food, care and receiving nourishment. This often reveals harmful core beliefs. I will support you to identify and heal from harmful beliefs so that you can change behavior patterns leading to a greater sense of ease, peace, wellness, and freedom in your body and with food.
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You struggle with perfectionism, people pleasing or pretending everything is okay.I refer to these as the 3 P's. Most of my clients struggle with at least one of these. These behaviors patterns often take root in childhood as an attempt to take care of you however at some point in adulthood they begin to create barriers to connection, flow, ease, peace, pleasure and intimacy. We refer to these as maladaptive coping strategies. In our work you will be support to disrupt these patterns and build new coping strategies that support you to live more fully and freely as your authentic self.
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You are highly self-reliant or hyper-independent which makes you prone to resentment, burnout, or overwhelm trying to do everything on your own.Self-reliance and hyper-independence protects from discomfort, disappointment, and possible rejection. Through our work together you will learn to choose and better tolerate discomfort over resentment and overwhelm. This includes the discomfort of asking for help, setting a boundary, or being perceived by others in your full humanity. Cue fear of being perceived as needy, weak, lazy and the list goes on....
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You are trying to break cycles in your family and parent yourself or your children differently than you were raised.Self-parenting is self-partnership. This often requires unlearning patterns from childhood and developing new coping skills that honor your needs, desires, values and boundaries. Parenting is hard. Parenting is even harder when you did not have a template for secure attachment in your own childhood. I am deeply invested in supporting my clients to identify what was missing from your childhood and attend to these unmet needs today. This is healing. Pendulum parenting is giving your kids everything you never had. This is reactive. Here you will be supported in a parenting strategy that is responsive to both your needs and the needs of your child(ren). This is true cycle breaking.
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Cognitive based techniques or talk therapy haven't worked for you.My clients often begin working with me after trying talk-therapy and wanting something more. Somatic healing is a top down approach that explores the mind-body connection to healing. This is particularly effective as memory and trauma are stored in the body. I use techniques that drop you out of the story of your life and into your body to better understand how your lived experiences affect you.
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You have unresolved issues stemming from childhood that are causing you present day relationship issues.“We repeat what we do not repair” is a wonderful quote by Christine Langley-Obaugh that gets at the heart of how early life experiences affect present life experiences. Working with me offers you a space to explore and repair childhood wounds.
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You are a new parent seeking emotional support to care for yourself and your new baby.Becoming a parent is a significant milestone that is different for everyone. I offer therapeutic space to explore what's arising for you and to help you build internal and external resources to feel more grounded, sturdy, and nourished in your new role. I am actively working towards my Perinatal Mental Health Certification to offer the highest quality care to you during this vulnerable time.
