Abby Ilardi
I'm a therapist who performs on stages.
A novelist who reads neuroscience papers for fun.
An artist who is obsessed with the psychology of creativity.
My name is Abby, and I'm a clinician, somatic practitioner, and multidisciplinary artist working at the intersection of creativity, psychology, and the body.
I've developed two original methods for this work: SomaSong, a somatic voice practice that uses the voice as a path to embodiment and embodiment as a path to authentic voice; and Creative Terrain, a framework for understanding creative blocks, creative capacity, and the conditions required for creativity to thrive.
Underneath both is one question I keep returning to, in many forms: what happens when creativity, self-expression, and aliveness go underground — and what does it really take to bring them back?
My approach spans mind, body, and the structures we build our lives around, drawing on clinical training, somatic practice, and my experience as a working artist.
I'm currently writing my first novel.
.png)
Regulate to Create.
Create to Regulate.
Most creative blocks aren't about discipline, talent, or willpower. They trace back to deeper conditions: a nervous system stuck in overdrive, a mind running old protective patterns, an environment that's quietly starving your creativity, attention fractured in too many directions, a lifestyle built around everything except the conditions creative work actually needs.
Creative Terrain is my framework for mapping those conditions and rebuilding what's missing. It works across mind, body, and the structures of your life — because creative thriving isn't one thing. It's a system.
And the system is bidirectional. When the conditions are off, creativity goes underground. But the reverse is also true: creativity, practiced in the right way, can regulate and restore the very conditions that make it possible. That loop is at the heart of everything I teach.
For voice-specific work — a practice grounded in the same insight about the body and creative expression — see SomaSong.
SomaSong®
Mind. Body. Breath. Voice.
SomaSong is the somatic voice practice I developed for people whose voice — literal or expressive — has gone tight, stuck, or scared. Performers with stage fright. Singers who freeze. People with complicated relationships to their own voice. And anyone who wants to use their voice as a nervous-system tool.
It's grounded in the same insight as Creative Terrain — that voice and body, like creativity and body, exist in a bidirectional loop. But its method is specific: a structured somatic-vocal practice that uses the voice as a path to embodiment, and embodiment as a path to authentic voice.
SomaSong is also where I've been quietly building an audience on YouTube — free singing meditations, humming practices, and somatic-vocal tools you can use anytime.
I'm at work on a literary novel about people who fall in love with an idea — of a person, of a place, of an imagined future — and what’s left after the illusion breaks. Found family, a small New England island, an herb shop, and a moon that occasionally winks back.
Alongside the novel, I write essays on creativity, the body, and the work of returning to ourselves. A Substack of new essays is forthcoming.
Writing
Work with Me
Several doorways into the same body of work. All 1:1 work is virtual. Inquiries welcome.
-Creative Terrain Coaching. Work with the framework directly — diagnosing the root causes of your creative blocks and rebuilding the conditions for thriving creativity. For artists, makers, writers, performers, founders, leaders, and anyone whose work depends on original thinking and creative aliveness. → [Creative Terrain]
-SomaSong. The somatic voice practice I developed that combines vocal work with nervous system regulation and embodied practice. For singers looking for somatic tools to help them rediscover their authentic voice and for anyone looking to use singing as an embodiment practice.→ [SomaSong]
-Yoga & Somatic Movement. Private and small-group yoga that blends traditional asana with somatic techniques and trauma-informed practice. For people who want to use somatic yoga as a tool for the nervous system, self-exploration, insight, the creative process, or as ongoing somatic care alongside other work. → [Learn more]
-Embodied Devising. Collaborative theater-making as creative aliveness, expression, and community. Devised theater workshops and classes regularly held in Lawrence, KS, but available for travel.→ [Embodied Devising]
-For Organizations. Retreats, workshops, keynotes, and consulting for companies, retreat hosts, arts organizations, and facilitator trainings. On creativity, the nervous system, and what creative thriving actually requires. → [Inquire]
*Please note-- while I do maintain a small psychotherapy practice, SomaSong, The Creative Terrain, Embodied Devising, and all coaching and consulting services are separate from my clinical practice and are not considered psychotherapy.
About Abby
I've trained extensively in trauma, somatics, and the body — as a Licensed Professional Counselor, somatic therapist, yoga instructor, functional nutrition counselor, and embodied arts facilitator. I've also spent much of my life in rooms where people make things: theater rehearsals, dance studios, writing classes, music practice rooms.
I built my work at this intersection because I kept noticing the same thing: the artists I knew were struggling with their nervous systems and lives, and the people doing nervous system work weren't talking enough about creativity. Someone needed to connect the dots.
So I started building. I created SomaSong because I wanted a way to regulate the nervous system that actually felt creatively alive — not like another thing to optimize. I developed Embodied Devising because I believe making things together can be as healing as any conversation. And I built Creative Terrain — the framework — because once I started looking, I saw the same patterns again and again in the artists, leaders, and quietly-stalled people I worked with: it wasn't about willpower. It was about conditions. And conditions can be changed.
I work with creatives of every kind — writers, musicians, founders, performers, designers, leaders — who want to reconnect with work that flows.
Creativity is also a foundational part of my own life. Alongside this work, I'm a performer and artist, and I'm at work on my first novel. I know the magic of creative flow, and I know the agony of creative blocks of my own. I'm not just a clinician who likes to talk about creativity — I'm someone who has lived inside the creative process and built the tools I wish I'd had.
