Online Somatic Group Coaching
Affinity Circles
Small. Facilitated. Somatic. Virtual. Open worldwide.
For adults who are done carrying everything alone and ready for something that actually feels like community.
No spam. One email when the doors open.
We were never meant to heal alone.
Humans have always healed in circle. Not in offices. Not alone in front of a screen. In circle, where being witnessed was just part of how life worked. Where grief had a container. Where the body could move and sound and speak without being managed into something more acceptable.
That got fragmented somewhere. What once happened naturally, the ritual, the shared grief, nervous systems in actual proximity, got dispersed and repackaged. Sold back in pieces through religion, medicine, self-improvement. We got very good at working on ourselves in isolation.
A lot of us still feel quietly, persistently alone in it.
That ache is not a personal failing. It’s a rational response to deprivation. The container got smaller. The need didn’t.
What got hurt in relationship needs relationship to heal. Not more insight about it. Actual experience of being held inside it, by other people, in real time.
Not a support group. Not a class.
Affinity Circles are small, facilitated online somatic groups that meet in recurring cohorts. They’re not support groups where you take turns and hope for the best. Not classes. Structured relational experiences, held containers where your nervous system can learn something new because other nervous systems are present.
What makes a circle different from solo work or a workshop is the field. When a group of people enter shared presence and stay with it, something becomes available that no individual practice can replicate. Patterns that have resisted years of inquiry become visible, not through analysis, but through the lived experience of being met inside them.
What each session includes
- Somatic grounding so your system can arrive, not just your head
- Community agreements around consent, presence, confidentiality, and repair
- Attunement practices that bring nervous systems into the same room even across time zones
- Guided reflection and theme-based work through the CREATE spiral
- Facilitated sharing at your own pace, never pushed, always witnessed
- Space for what usually doesn’t have space: grief, longing, joy, the parts you’ve been managing for years
- Integration before you leave, so you go home with something landed, not raw
A six-session arc, built on the CREATE spiral.
Affinity Circles move through a six-session arc built around the CREATE framework. Each session opens a different direction. The second time through it hits at a different depth because the group has more shared field between them.
Connect
Attuning to yourself and the shared group field.
Recognize
Seeing your patterns within and between, without fusing with them.
Explore
Getting curious about what’s been hidden.
Align
Values, body, and voice pointing the same direction.
Take Rooted Action
Moving from your nervous system, not your wound.
Embody and Evolve
Living the changes, not just knowing them.
More solo work probably isn’t what’s missing.
You’ve probably done a lot of work on yourself already. Something is still not moving and you’ve started to wonder if that’s just how it is for you.
It’s not.
An Affinity Circle might be right for you if you’re navigating:
- Burnout, chronic overwhelm, or the sense that you can’t keep living like this
- Relational patterns, people pleasing, withdrawal, reactivity, that you understand but can’t shift alone
- Identity-based stress, including the weight of moving through systems not built for you
- Grief, transition, or a season that’s shaking your usual coping strategies
- A longing for community that actually feels real
- The persistent sense that there’s more range available to you than your current life is asking for
Small by design.
per session
sliding scale, per session
no commute required
Circles meet in small recurring cohorts. Spots are limited by design. That’s not scarcity tactics, it’s what makes the container actually work.
The facilitator’s job isn’t to direct what emerges.
It’s to hold the shape so the river can move with power rather than flood.
Each circle draws from Somatic Experiencing, IFS, polyvagal-informed pacing, relational repair skills, and circle practices developed through Heart IQ work with Christian Pankhurst. Affinity Circles is Erica Johnson’s own synthesis of these frameworks, not a licensed protocol.
This work is informed by Peter Levine’s Somatic Experiencing, Bessel van der Kolk’s research on trauma and the body, and Richard Schwartz’s Internal Family Systems model.
A well-held online circle is genuinely regulating.
A lot of people find they can be more present from home, without the performance layer that comes with walking into a room of strangers.
Being in your own space means you can use your own grounding supports: a familiar chair, a weighted blanket, a cup of tea, whatever your system actually reaches for. And for people navigating disability access, scheduling constraints, or distance from in-person options, virtual removes barriers that have nothing to do with readiness.
Affinity Circles are open to adults worldwide. In-person circles in Colorado are in development but not yet scheduled.
Questions about circles
Join the waitlist
Affinity Circles aren’t open yet. Add your name and you’ll be the first to hear when they are.
No spam. One email when the doors open.
Not sure if group or individual coaching is the right fit?