Anne Lepelaars is a somatic trauma psychologist and pleasure coach who works with people whose nervous systems are on constant high alert: leaders, crisis workers, survivors of sexual boundary violation and those living & working in conflict zones.

She shows how avoidance, overwork, and scrolling steal our capacity for pleasure, connection, and fun. Drawing on a decade of frontline experience working in Afghanistan and Iraq, Anne teaches embodied practices to metabolize emotions, energy, and stress, so fight, flight, and freeze stop running the show.

Her work blends nervous system science, emotional alchemy, and radical pleasure, helping participants reclaim their capacity for life, joy, and real self-care (not the small and annoying 'you should breathe more' fixes, but pleasure states that expand the capacity of the nervous system and actually sustain you in times of chaos). 

In her workshop, she’ll share the practices she uses to survive - and even thrive - inside the chaos of humanitarian work, so participants can stop riding the rollercoaster and start steering their own lives again.