Meet Chanel Vysohlid, Your Somatic Experience Therapist
“As a Somatic Experiencing therapist, I believe that behind every symptom and treatment-based strategies lies a human longing to feel safe, seen, and connected. We are biologically wired to belong, and when that need goes unmet for long enough, shame takes root in the body’s ecosystem. This shapes how we move through threat and protection. By tending to these deeper social and emotional needs, we support the body in completing old survival patterns and return to regulation.”
-Chanel
Our story
First, nice to meet you. I'm Chanel, and your healing is my work.
I'm devoted to helping people reconnect with themselves by attuning to the wisdom of their bodies, growing capacity for the relationships that shape them, and meeting the protective patterns their nervous systems have learned to carry.
Depending on where you meet me, you may know me as a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, Clinical Supervisor, Breathwork Facilitator, Regenerative Practitioner, or mentor. My work draws together years of clinical training, nervous system education, attachment theory, somatic practice, and an intuitive understanding of what it means to be human.
My approach is grounded in research and education, and equally shaped by a client's direct body experience - and something that doesn't have any easy explanation… Call it instinct. Call it the wild intelligence every body carries, whether or not we've been taught to trust it.
I've learned the long way that transformation can't always come from insight alone. We can understand ourselves deeply and still find ourselves circling the same patterns. Somatic work has shown, through decades of research and centuries of embodied wisdom, that lasting wellbeing is cultivated through direct experience in the body -within relationships and environments that have the capacity to hold it. These practices have gained mainstream attention in recent years, but they're often flattened into a trend, stripped of the depth that gives them their transformative power.
My Path Into This Work
My journey here was not linear.
For nearly two decades, I lived with an eating disorder and addiction while searching for answers through countless practitioners, therapists, modalities, and approaches. Alongside my own healing, I also worked professionally in field of addiction, disordered eating, personality disorders, and mental health - including my time as a clinical counsellor at Cedars Recovery Centre.
Both experiences, personal and professional, pointed to the same truth: insight and the desire to change matter, but they don't always reach where the pattern actually lives.
I've met so many people who are remarkably self-aware, who can name their history, their wounds, their patterns in precise detail, and still find themselves repeating the same protective responses toward themselves, the people they love, or life itself.
I was one of them.
For years, I searched for the thing that would finally make me feel whole. It wasn't until I found somatic work that healing began to feel different. For the first time, my body wasn't something to overcome or control, it became part of the conversation. I began to feel safe in my own body. I found choice where there had only ever been survival. I rebuilt my relationship with myself through somatic awareness, self-trust, and integrity - reinforcing new pathways with every practice.
That experience changed the way I understand what it means to be well, and it continues to shape how I support the people I work with today.
My Approach
Five principles sit at the core of my work as a nature-led, relational Somatic Experience Therapist:
1) Lasting change requires a new experience within the nervous system because we can't always think our way out of patterns formed through unavailable or unattuned relationships, survival, and adaptation.
2) I believe healing happens in relationships. Many of our deepest wounds and insecurities occur with others, which means many of our repairs need to happen through safe, attuned connection.
3) I believe nature is one of our greatest teachers. The natural world shows us again and again that regulation, resilience, and regeneration aren’t things we force - they’re natural processes that unfold when the conditions are right.
4) I believe there is no such thing as a hopeless case. The human body, mind, and spirit hold an extraordinary capacity to heal, adapt, and evolve.
5) I believe I truth
This is one of the hardest realities to get on board with at first, and the one that changes everything. Not spiritual truth. Not “your truth,” the personalized version we’re all taught to reach for now. It’s the truth of what’s actually here. What’s actually happening. And what wants to happen next for us.
Multiple truths can exist at once, and this work builds the capacity to hold them both. We work with what’s real, not the story about what’s real or the version that’s easier to be with. Truth becomes what your body already senses before language forms around it.
“What Chanel offers goes far beyond traditional talk therapy. It’s transformational, full-body healing work. In just six sessions, I’ve learned more about true healing than I have in my entire life. I feel lighter, more balanced, and at peace in a way I’ve never experienced before. Chanel’s intuition, sensitivity, and genuine care create a safe space to be fully seen, supported, and guided through deep emotional work. If you’re ready for real results you can both feel and see, this is exactly where you’ll find it.”
- Trinity Searle
Our philosophy
If you are here, you belong.
What It Is Like to Work With Me
No two people are the same.
I don't believe in applying a one-size-fits-all framework to a deeply contextual and nuanced human being. Instead, I work with the pace of the body, and the person actually in front of me. Every session is collaborative, responsive, and shaped by what is present in the moment.
Whether we work together through therapy, supervision, mentorship, or group spaces, my intention is never to tell you how to navigate your life, your work, or who you should become. It’s to help you reconnect with what has always been there - the wild wisdom beneath the survival patterns, conditioning, and roles you learned to carry so well that you forgot they were ever roles at all.
I care deeply about the people I work with and the lives they’re building. Pouring into others while remaining devoted to this work is a deep part of who I am. I know that many of the people I support are also the ones who spend their lives holding everything and everyone else.
They are the caregivers. The leaders. The helpers. The ones others rely on without a second thought.
They deserve a space where someone is deeply invested in them, too.
The joy and heart of my work is creating therapeutic and healing spaces where people feel deeply seen, understood, and met. For many, that experience alone begins to transform the way they relate to themselves, their relationships, their patterns, and, ultimately, the world around them. When we're met by another, the nervous system starts to experience possibilities it didn't know were available.
Being deeply seen can also be tender. As new ways of relating begin to emerge, old protective patterns and survival responses may surface, and the body doesn’t always reorganize quietly. Sometimes healing feels messier before it feels more spacious. We honour the pace your system can integrate, rather than the pace you think you should be moving
Who is Chanel’s work for
The people I tend to support are often the ones who hold a lot.
The sensitive souls. The leaders. The entrepreneurs. The practitioners, healers, helpers, and bodyworkers. The mothers and fathers carrying the weight of their families. The people others instinctively turn to.
I work with those ready to move beyond dogmatic healing, symptom management, and cognitive understanding - into a deeper, more embodied sense of safety, resilience, and alignment. This work is for people who've done some of the inner work, through traditional therapy, personal development, or years of self-reflection, and still sense there's another layer waiting underneath.
You may carry significant responsibility, hold the expectations of others, or feel deeply committed to creating meaningful change in your life, your work, or the world around you.
This isn't about quick fixes. It's for those ready to peel back what family systems, culture, and conditioning have layered over the body's own intelligence, and to build the courage to move toward the unknown, toward a life integral to you, not a performance of one.
This is for those longing for safer, honest connection, and a compassionate but truthful lens - one that helps you meet yourself and your circumstances with more clarity, agency, and possibility. If this is you, you're welcome here.
My greatest privilege is witnessing people remember (or discover for the first time) who they are beneath everything they were taught they had to be. It’s an honour I never take lightly.
The Lineage of my experience and teachings
I have been in full time somatic practitioner and in private practice since 2022, though my own personal journey with this work began in 2005. Over the years, I’ve been fortunate to learn from mentors, teachers, and professors who are pioneers in their industries. Their guidance has shaped my forward-thinking approach to somatic work and this profession.
I don’t follow fleeting healing trends, nor do I subscribe to practices that may sway the public's understanding of their own body intelligence. Instead, I am committed to staying true to the core principles of somatic work, always challenging the status quo to ensure that the healing process remains grounded, authentic, and empowering.
Embody Lab Somatic Attachment Therapy Training: Certified Attachment and Relationship Therapist
Inner Relationship Focussing Training with Founder Ann Weiser Cornell
Regenerative Alchemy Somatic Training with Founder Dr Sarah Coxon
Dr Sarah Coxon: Nature-led Somatic Mentor and founder of Regenerative Alchemy
Pause Somatic Coaching: Certified by Sam Skelly, Mentorship by Laurie Ann and Marci Nikirk
Dr John: Mentor at Cedars Cobble Hill Addiction Treatment Center, My role as a Clinical Counsellor.
Canadian School of Natural Nutrition and Functional Medicine: Certified, RHN
The Academy of Breath: Ava Johanna Certified, IFB
Dr Ellen Domm: Mentor, Internal Family Systems
Richard C. Schwartz: Founder of Internal Family Systems, teachings and learnings
Peter A Levine: Founder of Somatic Experiencing, teachings and learnings
Institute for the Psychology of Eating: Marc David, Certified, Mind Body Nutrition and Eating Psychology.
Octopus Gardens: Certified, Yoga Alliance 200hours.
Stephany A Brown: Reiki Level 1,2,3, Certified
Diederik Wolsak, Gad Sprukt, Saskia Wolsak, Fed Wilberts, Dawn Green, Sean Smith: Mentors and learnings, Choose Again Facility and Intensive Retreat Center, Spiritual based practices for early childhood trauma.
Experience
Over 2000 hours of somatic coaching, clinical therapy, case management, breathwork and facilitating.
Other Education and Experience
BCIT and Capilano University: Business Management
Various Soul-Led Business Communities: Mentorships Susan Francis and Makenzie, Founder of Love your Mondays
Pro Merita Academy: Yoga and mental health for young athletes, Director
What I’m just good at! (no certification or education needed)
The ability to quickly recognize default patterns, exiled parts, and shadows -our hidden and suppressed power and shame.
I’m pretty witchy! I sense, see and understand others' pain, emotional needs, gifts/talents, and potential. I do this through my own felt sense, often with little to no dialogue needed from the person.
I recognize the gaps often missed in mental health and wellness spaces. By assessing what needs to come first, I honour the natural rhythm and essential steps required for true, sustainable well-being.
Creating a space where others feel safe enough to be their most vulnerable, messy, and authentic selves-even those who are typically more stoic or guarded. I’ve found that this is how many of my clients are able to move through some of their biggest challenges.
Offering a fresh perspective-one that challenges the societal norms and conventional ideas of healing that many aren’t able to see. I see the truth and magic in things, and when this information is shared by someone you can trust, it can feel like a year of therapy and a sense of freedom.
Instant recognition of patterns inside relationships between individuals. I can create effective ways to communicate that creates harmony so my client is seen, heard and validated by their partner.
Identifying where cognitive therapy falls short, and understanding what’s needed to help clients move past stuck patterns, behaviours, or difficult relationships.
I’m very comfortable working with issues related to food, body image, binge eating, bulimia, and “root causes” around addiction. I understand these struggles deeply, having experienced them myself. My approach is empowering, and I know these challenges often affect highly sensitive, creative, and emotionally intelligent people. I want to offer perspectives that move beyond the clinical or dogmatic approaches often used.
My Lineage
Daughter, Sister, Granddaughter to Carla, Mendel, Lauren, Sophie, Dorothy, and Milan.
I was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, and am deeply rooted in a rich heritage that blends Cheque Republican, Russian, and Chinese ancestry. Each branch of my family has shaped who I am today, and I carry their stories, traditions, and wisdom with me as I continue to grow and learn.
I am mom to fur baby Archie and horses Vito and Spirit.
How I run my business
Somatics is my full-time work, grounded in a soul-driven commitment to integrating embodiment into addiction, therapeutic, and spiritual spaces. Beyond these settings, I work directly within communities to support safety and stability in bodies affected by systemic conditions.
This choice to step outside of private practice is deeply rooted in what felt integral and aligned for me. The growth of all my ventures has been intentional, sustainable, and always centered on people before profit.
Everything you read here is written by me. My words, my message.
When it comes to my therapeutic practice, I’m, for the most part, a one-woman show. That said, I’m blessed with incredible support from a few like-minded, female-led entrepreneurs and practitioners who help me create structure for client experiences and co-facilitate workshops and collaborative offerings.
My own embodiment is at the heart of this work. I navigate my businesses and support my clients from an aligned, regulated, and creative space. As a nature-inspired practitioner, I bring the same principles into how I run my business. I move with the rhythm of the seasons, creating and launching new services when the time feels right-just as nature calls them forward. I honour the need to slow down and pause when Mother Earth invites me to do so. I dance with the cycles of the moon and my own feminine rhythm, allowing these natural flows to guide my work.
I know that to be truly effective in what I do, I must remain a student. That’s why I consistently invest in spaces that support the ongoing expansion and refinement of my skills and craft.