Claire Williams - The Body Knows: Claire's Story of Choice, Coercion and Somatic Healing

Content note: This episode touches on abortion as part of our guest’s personal story. Our conversation is really about the body’s response to trauma, nervous system protection, and the different ways healing can look. All experiences around pregnancy and loss are deeply personal, and this conversation isn’t about telling anybody what they should or shouldn’t do.

In this brave and long-overdue conversation, host Heather is joined by Claire Williams of Claire Sophia Coaching — a yoga teacher and somatic trauma therapy practitioner — who shares her story publicly for the very first time.

If baby loss is a taboo subject, Claire points out, abortion and termination are more so. And her story isn’t the one people expect. In her mid-20s, married, buying a house, outwardly happy, Claire was in a relationship that involved infidelity, coercion and gaslighting — and she had kept much of it from family and friends. When she discovered she was pregnant, her mind reeled, but her body simply knew. It was, she says, the first time she really trusted her own instincts and knew her own no.

Losing her husband, her home and her baby in the space of weeks, Claire went through the clinic process alone at 25. She describes a sterile, clinical environment, being asked repeatedly to justify her decision, no leaflet and no mental-health support — and the one question she does remember: did she want it to appear on her GP record? In other words, did she want to keep it secret.

Now in her 40s, Claire speaks honestly about grieving a life she might have had, and about how this has only recently begun to surface — because her body finally feels safe enough to look at it. She and Heather also explore her work in depth: what somatic healing actually is, how it differs from talking therapy and coaching, and why she believes the somatic approach is the next big wave in healing.

Key Topics Covered:

• Why abortion remains even more taboo than baby loss, and the shame around it
• A coercive marriage behind an outwardly perfect life
• The first time Claire trusted her body and knew her own no
• Losing husband, home and baby within weeks
• Going through the clinic alone at 25 — and being asked to keep it off her record
• Grieving, in her 40s, the life she might have had
• Why the feelings surfaced only once her body felt safe
• Somatic healing explained: the bottom-up, body-led approach
• Therapy is the past, coaching is the future — somatics is the present
• Titration, slowness, and why the nervous system can’t be rushed
• Community and being witnessed as a missing piece in healing

“Your body knows the way, even when you feel lost.”

Connect with Claire: Claire Williams — Claire Sophia Coaching, Yoga Teacher & Somatic Trauma Therapy Practitioner Website: clare-sophia.com Instagram: @iamsophia