About

Hi, I’m Sonia Lee.

I build nervous system and emotional capacity for high-performing individuals, leaders, and organizations who refuse to trade long-term sustainability for short-term performance.

I work with leaders across the full nervous system lifecycle, from post-burnout reconstruction to burnout preventionto high-capacity optimization.
The goal is sustainable leadership that doesn’t cost the body.

For over thirteen years, I have trained, led, and built trauma-informed care systems inside high-demand environments. I have worked alongside individuals navigating depression, anxiety, addiction, betrayal, and complex trauma. I have trained leaders and facilitated hundreds of trauma-care and capacity-building groups across diverse organizational contexts.

I understand both:

• the internal experience of sustained stress and overload
• and the external systems that quietly extract from capable people

My work integrates:

• Somatic nervous system regulation
• Narrative-focused trauma care
• Protection pattern awareness
• Capacity architecture for leaders and organizations
• Structured emotional integration

This work was not developed in theory alone.

It was shaped inside institutional environments where performance was constant and capacity was not protected. I witnessed what sustained override does to intelligent, capable people. I experienced what it costs when regulation is absent and expectations remain high.

That experience clarified something essential:

Regulation is leverage.
Capacity must be intentionally designed.
Sustainability is built, not hoped for.

WHAT I BELIEVE

Stress responses are not weakness.
They are data. Ignored data becomes costly.

Burnout is not a grit problem.
It is prolonged override inside systems that reward output more than regulation.

High-capacity individuals do not collapse because they are fragile.
They collapse when safeguards are absent and when the systems they operate within quietly drain capacity faster than it can be restored.

When internal regulation tools are underdeveloped and structural support is weak, even strong leaders reach their limit.

I do not help leaders become softer versions of themselves.

I help them become regulated, embodied, and structurally supported versions of themselves.

Strength does not require self-erasure.
Leadership does not require depletion.

WHAT I DO

I work upstream of burnout and collapse with:

• Individuals
• Leaders
• Organizations and systems

For individuals, this work takes the form of 1:1 Capacity Coaching and structured cohort experiences that restore internal stability, decision-making clarity, relational strength, and sustainable output.

For organizations, this work is capacity architecture:

Designing internal, relational, and operational safeguards so growth, leadership, and mission do not require extraction.

I help leaders and teams:

• Stabilize nervous system response under pressure
• Identify and shift protection patterns such as freeze, fawn, and over-functioning
• Strengthen boundaries without aggression or withdrawal
• Increase clarity and decision quality during stress
• Interrupt inherited relational and organizational dynamics that drive burnout
• Expand capacity without reliance on override

When teams understand how stress moves through individual nervous systems, shapes team dynamics, and influences the narratives behind decision-making, performance shifts from reactive to sustainable.

WHY THIS WORK MATTERS

When capacity is not protected, override becomes normalized.
When override is normalized, burnout becomes predictable.

Burnout is predictable.
Burnout is also preventable.

With intentional structure, regulation, and design, capacity expands without extraction.

Individuals can succeed without constantly having to negotiate their own safety.

Leaders can carry responsibility without abandoning their bodies.

Organizations can grow without eroding their people.

This is not a wellness initiative.
It is operational, internal infrastructure.

EXPERIENCE & FORMATION

Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology
Master of Divinity (Pastoral Counseling)
Certification in Narrative-Focused Trauma Care
Advanced training in hypnotherapy and trauma-informed somatic methodologies and trauma-sensitive practices.

Founder, Land of the Living

My Chinese and Spanish heritage help inform my cross-cultural lens on dignity, survival, resilience, and systemic impact within complex environments.

MY INVITATION

If you want strength without collapse…

If your organization is high-performing but quietly depleted…
If your leaders are carrying more than your systems were designed to hold…
Let’s build capacity that cannot be extracted from.

Sonia Lee 李索尼婭
Nervous System Architect
Trauma-Informed Leadership & Capacity Consultant