SOMATIC THERAPY
The body—as archivist and healer—can guide you into your true sense of self.
(RE)CONNECT WITH YOUR BODY
We live in a society that encourages us to disconnect from our felt sense of being. If you learned to push past your pain in order to survive, you might especially struggle to notice what is happening inside. Somatic therapy can help you feel into the wisdom in the body that guides the healing process. Through sensations, movement, mindfulness, and breath, you can learn to be more present, access greater capacity, and deepen your sense of self. Somatics is all about relationality, in that it holds your connection to yourself and others as sacred.
WHEN THE BODY DOESN’T FEEL SAFE
Complex and relational trauma contribute to patterns of tension in the body, in that we learn to brace for impact. The body might be telling you about its experience through feelings of:
Confusion about your emotions and body awareness
Fear or suspicion of the sensations in your body
Lack of control, panic, or overwhelm when triggered
Dissociation (feeling outside your body or far away)
Urgency, a sense of racing or moving too quickly
Tightness or tension
Agitation, irritability, or defensiveness
Hypervigilance, or high alertness for perceived threats
Inability to relax or sleep
Distraction (media, sex, substances, shopping)
Overwhelming nightmares or emotional flashbacks
Fear of what might happen if you revisit the trauma
Worry that there’s just “too much” to tolerate
Freezing or shutting down when faced with traumatic memories
trauma & the body
Try as we might, we cannot think our way out of trauma. Trauma came in through the body and, with guidance, it can find its way through the body. When we experience trauma, our usual ways of connecting with our bodies get disrupted. It’s like having a map that suddenly has missing or obscured parts.
Somatic therapy can help calm your body enough to restore that inherent self-connection. We can be guided into our inner wisdom by returning to the first ways we experience ourselves and the world—through sensation, breath, movement, and touch.
“IT’S THROUGH OUR BODIES THAT WE EXPERIENCE AND ENGAGE LIFE, AND IT’S IN OUR BODIES THAT WE HEAL.”
Prentis Hemphill
what to expect with somatic therapy
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Somatic therapy can include mindfulness, breathwork, and grounding.
In practice, this could look like noticing sensations in your body and seeing how you feel as you notice them. I might invite you to pay attention to the characteristics of your breath—Is it tight, shallow, short, or deep? Does the breath come easy or does it get stuck?
To strengthen this awareness, I might ask you to notice what happens when you focus on the sensations. Does the sensation get bigger, smaller, or stay the same? Do you notice any parts that are curious about the sensation? Are any parts scared of it?
We will spend as much time needed to create trust in the body. It’s your process—you get to set the pace and limits.
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We practice noticing triggers without immediately trying to change or fix them. By doing so, we come to learn what is being communicated through the body. Maybe it’s I don’t feel safe. Or This is too much.
When we are triggered, we often rush to react. We shut down, we demand, we appease, we withhold. With anxiety, we usually attempt to avoid or bypass the feelings because they’re so uncomfortable. We might choose to distract through media, shopping, substances, sex, or sleep. Some of us dissociate because we can’t tolerate the sensations any longer.
With somatic therapy, we give the body a chance to express its needs around safety and security. We listen and practice meeting this need through movement, breath, or touch.
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When we follow a sensation, we trace it back to unnamed or uncovered emotions, memories, and images that help us understand our internal experience with insight and clarity. What was unknown becomes known.
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When the body is scared or wants to hide, we can find ourselves setting boundaries that feel more like walls than self-respecting limits. Being able to learn the body’s needs allows us to create boundaries from a place of love and intention instead of fear and control.
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When we process trauma through the body, it starts with bringing attention to an area of concern or distress, such as a headache, muscle tension, or tightness.
To be with the sensation, we use body awareness skills, grounding, and/or conscious breathing.
When the body feels like it has the space and resources it needs, we listen for the memory that the body holds about what happened.
We allow the body to complete the urge or movement of what it wanted to happen. For instance, if the body wanted to scream but couldn’t, then it might have developed a knot in the throat. We then give the body an opportunity to scream.
In doing so, we make space for the blocked sensations to release, freeing up space in the body to return to its equilibrium.
For interested clients who are appropriate candidates, I offer EMDR therapy as a way to further process trauma, while continuing to use somatic techniques and practices from Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy.
“Healing is a reminder of what we already are and what we have always been part of.”
Resmaa Menakem
uncover the resilience of your body
Our bodies have always known what they need in order to heal. If you feel drawn to learning about the body’s wisdom, book your free 30-minute consultation video call.