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Craniosacral Therapy. Somatic Healing. Embodied Exec Coaching.
 

Experience more wholeness, aliveness, and fulfillment in life, love, and leadership with master of the healing arts, Alison McAulay.

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Alison works in-person in Los Angeles and London, and virtually with clients all over the world.

Alison McAulay

"Our minds are only as useful as our hearts are whole."

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Alison McAulay

Client Reviews

What an amazing healer Alison is…the results of her work are so immediate that it blows my mind.

Choreographer

I finally feel like the person I was meant to be.

Mumpreneur

My fibromyalgia symptoms have reduced to almost nothing since working with Alison.

CEO & Father

The sessions were very powerful. Deeply clearing and on a level I haven’t been to before. 

CEO & Mother

It’s hard to explain how different I feel.​

Vice-President, Fortune 500

I was blown away by the alchemy of this process ✨✨✨ 

Entrepreneur

I don't say this lightly: Life changing!​

Elite Athlete

A soft yet gentle scalpel.

Coach & Facilitator

My nervous system feels
like it's been turned right down. I can see that I have been holding on very tightly for years.​

Author & Mother

How I Can Support & Serve You

I offer three different ways into my transformational work.  Although each is distinct in terms of how we work together, they are powered by a single and coherent understanding of how human beings heal, transform, and evolve into more whole-hearted, purposeful, energized, and creative versions of ourselves. 

 

My work starts with a simple yet profound insight: transformation can best be unlocked, encouraged, and accelerated by working with our innate wisdom, nervous system and psychology as one integrated system.

 

The three ways to work with me below can be experienced alone or integrated into a holistic journey of personal and leadership development.

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1. Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy

A gentle, hands-on, and non-invasive approach to profound healing that can effectively treat issues from overwhelm and chronic stress to the impacts of trauma.

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This is a tender yet powerful treatment that can work across all mind and body ailments and is beneficial for all ages. Gentle holding, without forceful manipulations or adjustments, creates a sense of safety and support, which allows the body to release stored tension, dysregulation, and shock to move towards lighter and brighter living.

 

People come to me to relieve chronic pain, anxiety, depression, sleep disturbances, hypervigilance, menstrual/menopause symptoms, and headaches—as well as experience deeper healing, recover from accidents and addictions, and accelerate the integration of altered states and psychedelic-assisted therapies. 

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Treatments occur in my homes in Los Angeles and London.

2. Integrated Somatic Healing (with EMDR)

I use a wide variety of treatment “modalities” customized around you and your unique challenges. The focus is always on supporting more wholeness, aliveness, and connectivity between mind and body.

 

Harnessing tools from movement therapy, EMDR, kundalini yoga, constellations, breathwork, voicework, visualizations, meditation, archetypes, voice dialoguing, and many more,  I intuitively sense what intervention(s) might support your growth, awakening, and healing in each session.

 

Integrated somatic healing is ideal for working with complex mind-body challenges such as stress-related issues (e.g., IBS, CFS, FM), PTSD, mood disorders, and developmental stage transitions. It is powerful for processing and integrating breakthroughs from altered states (e.g., dark retreats, grief, NDEs) and psychedelic-assisted therapies.

 

Sessions can be either in person or virtual, depending on your location and time zone.

3. Embodied Executive Coaching

I work with purpose-led entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, mumpreneurs, and senior executives to transform how they sense, feel, act, relate, interact, strategize, communicate, create, and collaborate. 

 

Going beyond traditional coaching, I incorporate somatic practices and transformational tools that rapidly develop self-awareness, increase emotional and relational intelligence, improve sense-making and decision-making, and embody profound changes.

 

I coach leaders to find and fully express their purpose, break through imposter and anxious hyperachievement syndromes, reduce feelings of chronic overwhelm, regenerate after burnout, transition into bigger roles, upgrade leadership power, and deliver more systemic impact.

 

Sessions are virtual and include WhatsApp support.

 

If you are interested in my work with leadership teams and company cultures, check out my firm Switch On Leadership.

After reading through my services, sense into which energizes and calls you most.

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You can either book a session directly or book a 15-minute discovery call with me to ask any questions and make sure there is a fit.

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If you're feeling too overwhelmed or exhausted to decide, I have developed a one-off 2-hour session to reduce fatigue and increase energy. I then work with you to choose the best way forward in the session. Email me for more information.

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Where Should You Start?

About Alison McAulay

Alison McAulay is a registered biodynamic craniosacral therapist, trauma-informed integrative healer (blending BCST, EMDR, Kundalini yoga, breathwork, voicing/sounding, visualization, movement, somatic bodywork, and other modalities), and embodied transformation coaching. She sees private clients in London and Los Angeles.

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A contemporary master of the healing arts, with extensive experience worldwide, Alison roots her holistic approach to healing/coaching in her own research and development. She has been co-developing Bio-Transformation® with her partner for over a decade.

 

BTT is a cohesive yet evolving theory and toolset for making lasting, positive change happen in individuals and in. It is underpinned by the latest brain and behavior science integrated with wisdom and practices from contemplative traditions and healing arts.

 

Complementing her long-term career as a clinician, Alison is the co-founder of Switch On Leadership, a global leadership development and executive coaching company that works with Fortune 500 companies like Intel, Unilever, and AbbVie. In her role, she has designed and facilitated transformational programs in Britain, China, Europe, and the USA. She has been interviewed by media outlets in Europe and the US and has published on trauma-informed leadership.

 

A serial regenerative entrepreneur, Alison set up a professional dance company in California (working with ILM), co-founded a progressive and parent-led microschool in the UK, a global digital wisdom and wellbeing media company. She worked in the CA State Prison system as a somatic therapist and was a lecturer in the Performing Arts & Social Justice program at USF.

 

She is passionate about helping people build more embodied, relational, and spiritual intelligence through healing trauma, grieving loss, and holding and supporting the natural process of developmental maturity.

 

Alison was an internationally-ranked US team gymnast before becoming a professional dancer and choreographer in Los Angeles and then San Francisco. After years of suffering from pain, craniosacral therapy helped her to become pain-free. Since becoming a trauma-informed therapist, coach, and healer, she has worked with a wide variety of clients, from elite athletes and performance artists to Fortune 500 executives and social entrepreneurs.

FAQs

  • In a craniosacral session, while you lie resting on a massage table, I move to different areas of your body. I use specific and gentle “holds—to release stored emotional and physical stress-to bring more balance, peace and groundedness. Sessions last 60 minutes with a short check-in and check-out.

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    In a somatic therapy session, you may be sitting in a chair, standing, moving, or laying down or all of the above. We may move from processing protective patterns or difficult memories using bilateral stimulation (EMDR) to revealing and integrating new aspects of yourself using voice dialoguing, breathwork, or movement for example. Each session ends with client sharing what came up so they can cognitively sense-make, upgrade stories and beliefs, and integrate on a psychological and physiological level.

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    Although the interventions might change depending on what is most fitting for your nervous system and state of mind, all the work sits within a single rigorous, evidence-based, and trauma-informed theory called Bio-Transformation, developed with my partner (a Cambridge-educated medic) over two decades, to transform suffering across the mind-body continuum.

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    You do not need to do much to prepare:

    • Wear comfortable clothing

    • Reflect on what you want to address in the session

    • Relax and enjoy

    • Sports, accidents and soft tissue injuies​

    • Back pain, headaches, migraines

    • Depression, stress, and anxiety

    • Chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia

    • Gastrointestinal problems

    • Pre-and post-natal issues

    • Menopause-related challenges

    • Developmental, attachment and emotional trauma

    • Reactivity, overwhelm and stuckness

  • There is no right or set answer here. The number of sessions you decide to do depends on what you would like to address, what conditions you are currently experiencing, what kind of adverse and traumatic experiences you’ve had in the past, and what you envision for yourself in the future.

  • Embodied executive coaching looks similar to conventional coaching—in terms of spending a session talking and working with me as your coach—but includes many more embodied and somatic practices and techniques.


    These include recognizing and utilizing physiological markers, working with somatic felt senses and sensations (what neuroscientists call “interoception”), exploring emotional landscapes, languages, and neural signatures, and tapping into one's innate wisdom.

  • Craniosacral therapy is not only safe but recommended during pregnancy, as it calms the nervous system of both mother and child. It strengthens emotional bonding which has the potential of being short-circuited due to pre-natal and birth stresses and trauma.

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    Somatic therapies can be less appropriate during pregnancy and menstruation so please advise me if either are present before each session.

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  • My partner and I have been working on an integrated and holistic theory to underpin our work in transformation for many years. He is a Cambridge-educated medic and theorist and practioner of individual and business transformation. We have called it Bio-Transformation (BTT).

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    We created BTT because no existing theory successfully integrates brain, behavioral, complexity, consciousness, and contemplative science into a cohesive framework. 

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    We scoured thousands of scientific papers across multiple domains while staying abreast of new research each year. We have woven relevant evidence and insight with ideas and ideals from futuring, innovation, storytelling, wisdom, healing and somatics, including my expertise in Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy.

     

    BTT is an original theory for unlocking concrete change in individuals and organizations as fast as humanly possible by working with, not against, biologies and cultures.

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    I use BTT to help structure my approach and ensure each client experiences a coherent method for healing and transformation. I may use a wide variety of different modalities, techniques, and practices but they are all there to serve a single aim: to encourage and unleash each person's inherent ability to heal past trauma, release existing stress, and move towards wholeness and nervous system health.
     

    By settling and regulating the nervous system, the impact of adverse experiences stuck in the body can begin to release and rebalance. As a result, we become more resourced, resilient, calm, connected and empowered.

     

    We also become aware of outdated perceptions, reactions, ways of relating and beliefs as well as protective habits. In their place, more adaptive and appropriate stories, thoughts, and actions can be cultivated.

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    Through the process of becoming embodied and present, we begin to trust ourselves and others more. We begin to tap into our wholeness, aliveness, freedom, creativity, joy, imagination. Our relationships often feel more authentic and reciprocal. Collaboration becomes possible and all team dynamics are workable.  

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    We find ourselves more stable, regulated, grounded, purposeful, strong, flexible, and courageous. From this foundation we evolve as leaders for ourselves, family, friends and organizations and we become stewards of our one shared planet. 

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    With the BTT approach, the transformation process arises from within the client, not from the outside by the practitioner. I work in a very co-creative way guiding the client toward their wisdom, genius and strengths so they are empowered to live, love and lead a transformational life.

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    • US Elite Gymnast

    • Contemporary Dance Teacher/Choreographer, LA/SF 

    • BA Liberal & Performing Arts, St. Marys College, California 

    • Biodynamic Craniosacral Training (2007-2009)

    • Registered Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapist (2009-): 5000+ hours

    • Adjunct Professor, Performing Arts & Social Justice Program, USF

    • Co-Founder of Switch On Leadership (2011-)

    • Co-Creator of Bio-Transformation® Theory & Practice

    • Kundalini Yoga Teacher Training, Amrit Nam Sarovar, UK & France

    • Executive & Embodied Transformation Coach. 5000+ hours. Fortune 500s.

    • Somatic EMDR Practitioner Training, The Embody Lab, Bessel Van Der Kolk

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