For the sensitive and neurodivergent:
A somatic path to self-sovereignty
You feel broken and burned out. Begin the deep, experiential work of reclaiming. It’s time to come home.
Psychotherapy virtually and in-person from Boulder, Colorado. Coaching virtually from anywhere.
Sara Loca, MA, LPCc
Welcome, brave one.
You see, feel, and process the world differently: Sensitive, ADHD, Gifted, Autistic, AuDHD, HSPs, process sensorial data differently, neurodivergent, and neuro-spicey.
You’ve experienced interpersonal harm through chronic invalidation, neglect, abuse, and gaslighting from parents, caregivers, peers, intimate partners, and social structures.
You may be moving (hoping to move) through a life-altering identity transition: beginning or leaving student life, quarter-life crisis, family planning, matrescence, or parentrescence.
You aren’t okay. You’re used to it.
A mind that doesn’t stop: rumination, never ending meta-cognition loops, mentally checking on hyper-drive, imagining all the possible scenarios, or thinking through the future.
An inner-critic who doesn’t “do” vacation: An evolved and omni-present self-critic who used to keep you safe and now engages in destructive tear downs on the daily. Leaving you frozen or compulsively trying to make it better.
One-way or unfulfilling interpersonal relationships: Whether it’s intimate or superficial, connection feels painful or difficult. You could be counter-dependent.
Exhaustion from self-abandonment due to fawning and masking: people pleasing as a nervous system survival strategy like fight, freeze, or fight that works, but leaves you empty.
Uncertainty about when you are in burnout and what you need to get out: which means asking different questions for sensitive and neurodivergent individuals.
Chronic doubt and mistrust of your intuition and perspective: Particularly where responsibility lies and moving into existential loops on truth.
Disassociation: The overwhelm of your
Diagnostic label clients carry in: GAD (anxiety), PTSD, complex PTSD, MDD (depression), OCD, ADHD, autism, and sensory processing disorder.
The Work:
Our journey is to weave through the interactions between the complex PTSD, emotional neglect, maltreatment, and abuse, and the way your mind-body sees and processes the world around you by:
SOMATIC MAPPING
We stop treating your anxiety as a thought and start treating it as a signal. We learn the language of your body, identifying where your "broken narrative" lives so we can finally let it move through you.
IMAGINAL HEALING
We use your creative, vivid "spicey" and “sensitive” brain to go back to the parts of you that felt neglected or misunderstood. We provide the protection and validation you needed as a child, re-parenting your younger self in the spaces where they felt invisible.
EXPERIENTIAL SELF-TRUST
We don't just talk about boundaries; we practice the feeling of them. In our sessions, you get a safe space to take off the mask and experiment with what it feels like to be truly seen—and truly safe.
Coming back to your body and the way you engage with your world.
Building or doing some maintenance on your safe emotional home
Reconnecting to the intuitive core of you-ness that’s been waiting.
The Result: Self-Sovereignty
Self-sovereignty isn't about being "fixed." It’s about being at home in yourself.
It’s the moment you stop apologizing for how your brain works or the way you experience the world and start trusting your own capacity to navigate the world.
It’s moving from "what is wrong with me?" to "how do I want to live?"
Ready to stop "thinking" and start being?
Hi, I’m Sara.
I’m not a "smile and nod" therapist.
If you’re looking for a clinical robot who hides behind a clipboard, we might not be a fit. When we work together, you’ll see my real facial expressions. You’ll feel my genuine curiosity. We will share real feelings, real laughs, and—when needed—real silence. I show up as my whole, authentic self because that is the only way I can ask you to show up as yours.
I am a Self-Sovereignty Architect.
I specialize in that complex, beautiful intersection where a different brain or culture meets a difficult past or overwhelming future. Whether you were told you were "too much," "not enough," or just "wrong," I am here to help you untangle those layers. We don't just look for insight; we look for nourishment. Moving beyond the "broken narrative" and into a body that feels like home.
In Italian, there’s a phrase I hold close: “Forza tesoro!” It means “Strength, my treasure!” or “You can do it, dear!” It’s a call to the resilience that is already inside you, even if it’s currently buried under years of people pleasing and exhaustion.
Let’s build a life that actually fits you.
All belong here. ♡ Therapy is LGBTQIA+-affirming, poly-affirming, sex-positive, anti-ableist, anti-racist, and culturally sensitive.
My specialties: “I’m broken” narrative instigators
-
![A person holding a pink mug with the phrase 'doing okay' printed on it in white and orange letters, wearing a beige quilted jacket.]()
Chronic People Pleasing
It’s not just people pleasing, codependency, or masking. It’s a learned self-abandonment in response to a relational threat. It’s a chronic fawn response.
-
![A person standing in water, facing away from the camera, wearing a yellow raincoat.]()
Trauma Therapy
Trauma reorganizes you and your view of the world. It’s chronic PTSD, Complex PTSD, emotional abuse and neglect, childhood trauma, abandonment trauma, perinatal period trauma (family planning, pregnancy, and postpartum), and sexual trauma.
-
![A woman with short black hair sitting on a mustard-colored sofa with matching pillows, in a room with wood-paneled walls and a potted plant in the background, illuminated by a wall-mounted lamp.]()
Quarter-life Crisis
A life transition and identity crisis that happens in your 20s. You feel stuck, overwhelmed, and lost. You want to craft your own path, but you aren’t sure how to start. Who am I? What do I want?
-
![A picture of a parent playing with their infant's hand while laying in bed.]()
Perinatal Transitions
Family planning, pregnancy, and postpartum can spark a life transition and identity crisis. Finding you in the chaos and isolation is not happening. It’s hard to settle into your way of doing the parenthood.
-
![Holistic Approach to Anxiety and Depression]()
Anxiety and Depression
You keep cycling through periods of anxiety and depression. Go beyond the labels and discover the roots of the issue. Find a holistic perspective of what’s perpetuating the cycles and address the various roots.
Offerings
-
Psychotherapy
You are based in Colorado and want to meet in-person or virtually with a licensed professional counselor candidate.
-
Coaching
You are interested in virtual meetings from anywhere in the world or in-person in Colorado.
Cultivating self-sovereignty.
Rebuilding trust through authentic connection.
A core tenant of wellness is connection to self and the world around us. Authentic connection is in and of itself deeply healing. This is a part of what makes psychotherapy so impactful - getting to engage in a nourishing attachment relationship. I truly delight in the uniqueness of each person who comes through my practice, and connect authentically in sessions. We will laugh, cry, and feel together.
Finding you with somatic and experiential therapies.
Knowing yourself isn’t enough. Feeling yourself is where aliveness sits. We play with bodily sensations, movement, and role-playing in sessions to help you understand the interoceptive map that is you, as well as initiate big changes for your body, soul, mind, and life. My approach is rooted in Body-based Gestalt, Somatic EMDR, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, Somatic Dialoging, IFS-informed Parts Work, and Polyvagal theoretical concepts.
Strengthening resiliency with self-compassion and mindfulness practices.
Savoring who you are truly and letting your life build around it brings meaning and fulfillment. But it’s a process that will inevitably face storms of challenges. If change is coming out of anywhere but love, it won’t be strong enough to weather the storms. Learning to let your attention shine all parts of you with care and affection is a deeply courageous act that leads to a well of resilience.
Clarifying your needs with systems lenses.
You are living in a series of systems that significantly impact your wellbeing: intergenerational inheritance, culture, -isms, family of origin dynamics, medical systems, and more. Neuro, LGBTQIA+, spiritual, cultural, racial, disability -affirming lenses clarify your actual needs, as well as bring to light more of your resources. Without looking through this lens, you may be trying to change the thing that could be your pathway to thriving.