Meet Edvique Shaver | Brain spotting and Somatic practitioner

We had the good fortune of connecting with Edvique Shaver and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Edvique, is there something that you feel is most responsible for your success?
Looking back, I think the growth of my work has come from a combination of authenticity, curiosity, and a willingness to keep evolving. While I’ve trained in a variety of approaches over the years, the thread that connects everything I do today is helping people create greater safety in their bodies so healing can happen from the inside out.
I’ve spent years studying and training in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, mindfulness and meditation, Internal Family Systems, somatic practices, Brainspotting, trauma-informed coaching, expressive arts, and nervous system regulation. Those trainings have been invaluable, but what has shaped my work most deeply has been my own healing journey.
For much of my life, I was searching for answers. I understood many things intellectually, yet I still struggled with anxiety, chronic stress, emotional overwhelm, and health challenges. Like many people, I kept trying to think my way into feeling better. The knowledge helped, but it wasn’t creating the transformation I was looking for.
Over time, I realized that healing isn’t only about understanding our stories. It’s also about helping the body feel safe enough to experience and process them. I had spent years gathering insight, but true change began when I learned to slow down and listen to what my body had been trying to tell me all along. That realization changed everything about the way I work.
I became increasingly fascinated by nervous system regulation and the mind-body connection. I discovered that when people feel safer and more regulated in their bodies, insight becomes easier to apply, emotions become more manageable, creativity emerges more naturally, and meaningful change becomes more sustainable.
My work today integrates both professional training and lived experience. Depending on the person, that may include mindfulness, somatic practices, Brainspotting, intuitive art, nervous system education, or practical cognitive tools. Rather than forcing a single approach, I meet people where they are and help them discover what works best for them.
If there is one thing behind the success of my work, it is that I don’t teach concepts I haven’t been willing to practice myself. The tools I share helped me move from constantly managing life to being fully present for it. My hope is to help others reconnect with their own inner wisdom, create greater safety within themselves, and discover that healing is often less about becoming someone new and more about returning to who they’ve always been.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
My career wasn’t something I mapped out years in advance. Looking back, it feels more like a path that unfolded one step at a time.

Even as a child, I found myself noticing the person who seemed left out, overwhelmed, or quietly struggling. I was the kid who worried about people I loved, felt things deeply, and wanted to help. That natural curiosity eventually led me to Auburn University, where I earned a degree in Education and Psychology.

I began my career as a teacher, which felt like a natural fit because I loved helping people learn and grow. I often found myself especially drawn to the students who needed someone to believe in them a little longer. Over time, my professional interests expanded as people I loved faced struggles with addiction, mental health challenges, loss, and difficult life transitions. At the same time, I was navigating my own experiences with anxiety, chronic stress, health challenges, grief, and uncertainty.

Those experiences led me to explore healing from many different perspectives. Over the years, I pursued additional training in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, mindfulness and meditation, Internal Family Systems, somatic approaches, Brainspotting, trauma-informed coaching, therapeutic intuitive art, nervous system regulation, and other mind-body approaches. I worked in education, addiction recovery, mental health programs, correctional settings, and eventually built a private practice of my own. Every environment taught me something different about resilience, suffering, healing, and the remarkable ways people adapt in order to survive.

Working in addiction recovery was especially impactful. Both personally and professionally, I witnessed how much pain can exist beneath the surface. It taught me that suffering rarely looks the way we expect it to and that compassion tends to open doors that judgment never will. It reinforced something I continue to believe today: people rarely need more shame. They need understanding, safety, connection, and support.

One of the greatest lessons I’ve learned is that healing isn’t one-size-fits-all. People connect through different doorways. Some through education and insight. Some through mindfulness and meditation. Some through creativity and expressive arts. Others through nervous system regulation, somatic practices, or Brainspotting. My role isn’t to force a particular path, but to help people discover what allows them to feel safer, more connected, and more fully themselves.

The path certainly wasn’t always easy. Like many of the people I work with, I’ve had to navigate difficult seasons, uncertainty, and challenges I never expected. Yet those experiences deepened both my compassion and my understanding of what it means to heal. They taught me that healing isn’t about becoming a different person. It’s about reconnecting with who we’ve always been beneath the stress, fear, protective patterns, and old stories we’ve carried.

What sets my work apart is the integration of professional training and lived experience. What I teach today isn’t simply what I’ve studied. It’s what I’ve practiced, experienced, and continue to use in my own life.

What I’m most proud of isn’t a particular credential or accomplishment. It’s the trust people place in me. There is something profoundly meaningful about someone feeling safe enough to share their story, their fears, their hopes, and the parts of themselves they may have hidden for years. I have watched people survive things they never imagined they could survive, begin again after tremendous loss, and discover strengths they didn’t know they possessed. I consider it an honor to walk beside them.

If I want the world to know one thing about me and my work, it’s this: healing doesn’t require perfection. We are not broken. Often, we are carrying adaptations that once helped us survive. With curiosity, compassion, support, and the right tools, people can reconnect with themselves, find greater peace, and create meaningful change from the inside out.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Over the years I’ve had friends visit from all over, and honestly, some of my favorite moments aren’t the big attractions. They’re the simple ones.
We’d start a few mornings by the lake behind my house with coffee in hand as the sun comes up. Everyone talks about sunsets, but there is something special about a sunrise over the water. The colors seem softer somehow, and the lake slowly comes alive as the morning unfolds. Usually there are ducks gliding across the water and, if we’re lucky, a visit from a blue heron. Awkward in its walk and graceful in its flight, it’s hard not to smile when you see one.
We’d spend time exploring some of the North Georgia towns I love, wandering through bookstores, local coffee shops, art galleries, farmers markets, and the occasional antique store where every shelf feels like a treasure hunt. We’d probably make our way through Dahlonega and Blue Ridge, taking the scenic route, stopping whenever something caught our attention, and changing our plans more than once.
There would definitely be a dinner under patio lights somewhere, live music drifting through the background, good food on the table, and laughter that makes you lose track of time.
We’d spend a day in Roswell too. I’d take them to Roswell Mill, one of my favorite places. I’ve walked there more times than I can count and still find myself slowing down when I hear the water. The river winds through the trees, the falls tumble over the rocks, and for a little while the pace of everything seems to soften.
We’d spend an afternoon in my art studio with music playing, creating something, dancing a little, making a mess, and seeing where the day takes us. No expectations. Just creativity, curiosity, and fun.
And there would definitely be a game of pétanque. I was introduced to it a few years ago and have grown to love both the game and the community. At any practice you’ll find people from all over the world, and for a few hours it hardly feels like you’re in Georgia at all.
Some evenings would end around a bonfire with family and friends, telling stories we’ve all heard before and laughing at the same parts every single time.
When I think about the best week possible, it isn’t really about checking things off a list. It’s about connection. Good conversations. Nature. Creativity. Family. A little adventure. A lot of laughter. And paying attention to the ordinary moments that end up becoming the ones we remember most.
And if any of that sounds like your kind of week, you’re always welcome. Mi casa es su casa. 😊

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
There are honestly so many people, teachers, mentors, clients and students, friends, and even strangers who have shaped my path that it’s hard to name just one. I think when we stay curious and open to learning, teachers begin appearing everywhere. Sometimes through formal mentorship and training, sometimes through a book that arrives at exactly the right moment, and sometimes through a passing conversation or someone bravely sharing their story.

I’ve learned as much from the people I’ve met along the way as I have from any certification or training. The human experience itself has been one of my greatest teachers.

I’ve always been curious. Books, teachers, clients, students, mentors, and life experiences have all shaped me in different ways. Along the way, I learned something I now carry into both my life and my work: healing isn’t only about understanding ourselves. It’s also about meeting ourselves with compassion, curiosity, and presence.

For years, I believed that if I could understand my struggles well enough, analyze them, fix them, manage them, or ignore them long enough, they would eventually go away. Instead, I discovered that the more I resisted certain emotions, the more they seemed to persist. The anxiety, chronic stress, overwhelm, grief, and even some of the physical symptoms I experienced weren’t simply problems to solve. They were asking for my attention.

The greatest shift came when I stopped trying to fix every uncomfortable feeling and learned to sit beside it instead. To listen. To become curious. To hold space for what was there without immediately trying to change it. It was a gentle process, and at times a frustrating one. There were moments when I wanted to rush ahead, distract myself, or return to old habits of overthinking. Yet something remarkable happened in that slowing down.

The things that once felt overwhelming began to soften. The wounds I had spent years avoiding became easier to understand and carry. What I had viewed as obstacles slowly became some of my greatest teachers. Somewhere within the heartbreaks, losses, fears, and seasons I never would have chosen, I discovered pieces of myself I didn’t know I’d lost. What felt like breaking apart became a returning. And hidden within the emotions I spent years trying to outrun was a freedom I couldn’t have found any other way, a deeper connection to myself, to others, and to what matters most.

So my shoutout goes not only to the teachers, mentors, books, friends, clients, and students who have shaped my journey, but also to the heartbreaks, losses, challenges, and experiences that humbled me and invited me inward. The seasons I never would have chosen but that became some of my greatest teachers. The emotions that asked to be felt instead of fixed. The moments that reminded me healing often happens not through dramatic breakthroughs, but through presence, compassion, and the willingness to stay with ourselves when we’d rather run.

Every one of those people and experiences helped shape both the person I am and the work I do today, and for that I am deeply grateful.

Website: https://www.livingmynow.com

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