Marian W. Thompson, LCSW, SEP

06/15/2026

I love this quote by Esther Perel— the way we're always changing, sometimes faster than our relationships can keep up with.

In long term relationships, a lot of what we argue about isn't really the dishes. It's about safety, autonomy, growth and whether there's still enough "us" worth fighting for.

Swipe through for a few questions that I see come up again and again.

And feel free to reach out to learn more about relationship counseling.

06/03/2026

06/03/2026

Notice: are you in your body right now?

Can you feel where the chair meets the back of your legs? More than one place? Can you press into the cushion behind you or the floor beneath you?

Can you feel yourself... wriggle?

In Somatic Experiencing, one of the things we're always tracking is stillness. Not the peaceful kind — the frozen kind. The zoning out or leaving-the-room-without-leaving kind.

Freeze was an old, wise strategy that helped you survive when you needed it.

But you're here now. And a tiny wriggle can start to remind your system of that. It can bring you back home — to your body, your greatest resource. It's been here the whole time, waiting for you.

That's the work. Not fixing you. Helping you stay in connection — with the room, with me, with yourself — even as we touch into the hard stuff.

If you understand yourself really well but still get derailed — the anxiety before a hard conversation, the shutdown when you need to show up, the burst of rage that hurts the people you love most — somatic work might be the missing piece. I have a few openings for 1:1 sessions this summer.




(Just a reminder that these posts are educational context only - not a substitute for professional support.)

05/22/2026

Just wrapped up a week in Houston as a practitioner assistant at Somatic Experiencing Advanced 1. Here I am with a few of the wonderful women on the assistant team.

Sometimes I scroll Instagram and see people promising to "reset your nervous system," and I find myself wondering about their training.

What I am sure of is this: for six days the SE students here at Advanced 1 spent their mornings in lectures, their afternoons watching demos, and then were invited to choose a single piece of unresolved material from their lives and work with it all week in small practice groups.

What I witnessed was students learning so much about themselves — and about each other's nervous systems. The content of what happened to someone was rarely the focus — it was what their body was still holding that guided the work. This is what it actually looks like to learn to make space for, contain, track, and hold another nervous system.

I am so honored to assist with these trainings. ❤️

05/15/2026

Back in Houston for the week — my hometown! — assisting at the Advanced Somatic Experiencing training. There's something really special about seeing colleagues and students from the first two years in Austin along with other students and assistants from around the country.

I keep learning just as much from the students as I do from the material and our amazing trainer, Dave Berger.

Exhausted doesn't even cover it, so I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking.

05/13/2026

The drop in your stomach when you hear you partner's disappointment The numbness you've learned to live with without ever asking what it's protecting you from.

Somatic attachment work helps you turn toward those places so the deepest healing can happen.

04/28/2026

Your body has been waiting for permission to say something. 🦋