I Recognize This Pattern Because I've Lived It—And Mapped My Way Out.
The Missing Foundation: Why Your Protocols, Specialists, and Therapies Haven't Worked
Dr. Heidi Roberts, PT, DPT
Licensed Physical Therapist | Somatic Practitioner | Author of The Sitting Disease
For 19 years, I worked at the intersection of orthopedic assessment and human performance optimization. I treated athletes, executives, and high-performers—people whose bodies had to function under sustained demand.
I was also one of them—operating in constant override until my nervous system escalated to crisis. After breast cancer forced the conversation my body had been trying to have for years, I spent five years systematically unwinding the patterns I'd been trained to ignore.
That lived experience of reorganizing my own dysregulated nervous system is what allows me to identify these patterns in other high-achieving women before they reach the crisis point I hit.
Why These Symptoms Won't Resolve
You might be experiencing:
Sleep architecture breakdown — Despite exhaustion, sleep becomes increasingly unreliable or non-restorative
Chronic tension — Your jaw, neck, or shoulders hold tension that your body won't release
Gut dysfunction — Digestive issues your doctor can't explain despite normal test results
Pelvic floor dysfunction — Urgency, leaking, pain, or tension despite normal imaging and "do your Kegels" advice
Getting sick frequently, especially when traveling or stressed
Antibiotics and supplements that used to work don't anymore
Skin expressing what your system can't resolve (Shingles, hives, eczema, unexplained rashes)
Energy, mood, and weight fluctuation are treated as separate issues rather than connected patterns
Hormonal management (birth control, MRT/HRT, ALL the weight loss/gain programs) since teens or early adulthood
Accumulating pharmaceuticals without improvement in underlying function
Labs that come back "normal" while you feel progressively worse
The growing suspicion that treating symptoms individually is missing something fundamental
You're intelligent enough to recognize that your body is trying to communicate something.
You're ready to learn ITS language rather than overriding or masking every signal. You wouldn't ignore your child's distress signals—why ignore your body's?
Why Nothing Has Worked (And What's Actually Missing)
You've done the work. Therapy for years. Specialists who ran every test. Protocols you followed perfectly. Medications that helped temporarily but stopped working. Supplements, dietary changes, pelvic floor PT, hormone optimization.
Here's what no one told you: You were trying to build on a dysregulated foundation.
When your nervous system is stuck in survival physiology, nothing else can integrate. Your body literally cannot metabolize the medication, process the therapy insights, or hold the gains from protocols—because it's operating in a state where survival trumps healing.
It's not that those things don't work—it's that they can't work without the foundational nervous system regulation that enables integration.
Every intervention you've tried has addressed symptoms downstream of a dysregulated autonomic nervous system.
You weren't missing willpower. You weren't doing it wrong. You're not protocol-resistant. You were missing the prerequisite.
What Physical Therapy + Somatic Experiencing® Training Gives You
Here's what two decades of practicing physical therapy give me that most somatic practitioners don't have:
(1) Diagnostic assessment capability. I can identify compensation patterns, read movement dysfunction, and pinpoint where your system is holding tension, usually before you're consciously aware of it.
(2) Precision in intervention and sequencing. I identify what's observable in your posture, breath mechanics, and movement patterns, then create targeted interventions that address nervous system patterns in the sequence your system can integrate—without pathologizing normal stress responses.
(3) Clinical credibility with the medical system. When your doctor says "everything is normal," I can bridge the gap between lab results and lived experience. I speak both languages.
How? Because I've mapped this territory from the inside.
But physical therapy and pattern recognition alone don't address nervous system dysregulation. That's why I've spent five years training in Somatic Experiencing® and other somatic modalities—to systematically learn the methodology I was simultaneously using to reorganize my own nervous system.
What you get is an assessment with a sequenced intervention where clinical rigor meets embodied practice.
What’s Being Said…
"Heidi is a true healer who guided me through a transformative journey of resolving deep-seated trauma stored in my nervous system. Her profound understanding of the body-mind connection allowed me to navigate through layers of emotional distress with a newfound sense of clarity and resilience. What sets Heidi apart is her unwavering commitment to her craft and her ability to hold space with empathy and understanding." — Kelly
Evidence-Based Nervous System Work. Integration, Not Alternative Medicine.
I'm Not Anti-Pharmaceutical. I'm Pro-Integration.
I'm not anti-pharmaceutical. I'm still on Tamoxifen for ongoing cancer prevention. I honor medical intervention where it's appropriate. Some women need psychiatric medications. Some need hormone replacement. Some need ongoing medical management.
What I offer is integration support: the nervous system work that makes medical intervention tolerable, reduces pharmaceutical dependence where possible, and addresses what medication cannot address.
I'm addressing the gap conventional medicine can't fill: restoration of your body's self-regulatory capacity.
Clinical Nervous System Work Informed by 19 Years of Assessment Training
You've spent thousands—maybe tens of thousands—on interventions that treated individual symptoms without addressing why your system can't hold the gains.
Antidepressants that work for six months then stop. Therapy insights that don't translate to behavioral change. Hormone optimization that doesn't restore energy. Pelvic floor PT that doesn't resolve urgency. Gut protocols that don't stick.
This is what happens when you try to fix dysregulation symptoms without restoring your nervous system's regulatory capacity.
This isn't talk therapy. It's not wellness coaching with breathing exercises you've already tried.
This is clinical nervous system work—targeted recalibration informed by diagnostic assessment.
What makes this different isn't the credentials—it's the integration. PT diagnostic precision + Somatic Experiencing® (SE™) methodology + five years systematically rebuilding my own dysregulated nervous system. I've mapped this territory both professionally and personally, so I recognize patterns that most practitioners miss.
I help you:
Recognize what your nervous system is actually doing (not what you think it should be doing)
Distinguish between activation states your body can resolve vs. patterns where it's stuck
Build bottom-up regulation capacity (the foundation that makes top-down interventions effective)
Release chronic holding patterns—tension in your jaw, shoulders, hips, and pelvic floor that creates a state of constant bracing instead of grounded presence
Restore your system's ability to downshift after stress instead of staying locked in survival physiology
Interrupt the cascade from nervous system dysregulation to progressive immune/hormonal/digestive dysfunction
This is a session series with measurable outcomes:
Restoration of sleep architecture
Reduction in baseline activation (you're not constantly braced)
Expansion of your window of tolerance (minor stressors don't derail you)
Access to decisive action without mental negotiation
Increased resilience and nervous system flexibility
Physical ease in your body—jaw unclenches, shoulders drop, breath deepens without effort
This is the work your doctor isn't trained for, traditional talk therapy wasn't designed for, and your PT doesn't have time for in a 45-minute insurance visit. This is the prerequisite that makes everything else you've tried—or will try—actually work.
The end goal isn't calm. It's sovereignty.
The ability to respond from choice rather than a conditioned reaction. To set crystal clear boundaries without explanation or justification. To know what you need and act on it without seeking external permission.
I work with women who value process over outcome and are genuinely curious about what's happening in their bodies. This isn't quick-fix territory. This is embodied learning that restores capacity you may never have developed—or that you lost decades ago.
Results don't come from knowledge—they come from a session series with intention and progression, shaped by what emerges for you specifically. Not a predetermined program. Not aimless exploration. Structured enough to create change, responsive enough to follow where your nervous system actually needs to go.
Author of "The Sitting Disease"
Before COVID and cancer, I spent over a decade running Motion Therapy, my concierge wellness practice—working with people in their homes, workplaces, and recreational environments. That direct observation of how what's simulated in the clinic transfers—or doesn't transfer—to daily life gave me a recognition most clinicians don't develop. My concierge PT practice, onsite workshop facilitation, and teaching are at the core of this book.
What I understand now that I didn't then: Movement dysfunction is often downstream of nervous system dysregulation. You can't "fix" posture or compensatory patterns without addressing the autonomic activation keeping them locked in place.
My current work integrates what I know as a PT with what I've learned through SE training and personal system restoration. It's a more complete picture of linked mental-emotional-physical-spiritual patterns and how bodies break down—and how they can be rebuilt from the nervous system up.
If you're ready to address the foundation that makes all your other interventions actually work, let's talk.
I work with a limited number of clients. This is intensive, personalized nervous system work—not group programs or cookie-cutter protocols.