In a nutshell, somatic therapy relates to the body. Whether we are experiencing stress, joy, anxiety, or safety, it’s an experience that lives not just in our minds, but in our bodies as well! For example, when you feel stressed, you may notice that your shoulders rise up to your ears, or maybe your stomach tightens or your jaw clenches. When you experience joy, you may notice your belly feels relaxed and different muscles lose their tension.
When we experience trauma, the body responds as well. Gabor Mate put it well when he said, “Trauma is not what happens to you, it’s what happens inside you as a result of what happens to you.” Somatic therapy allows us to include the body in healing so that we can experience freedom outside of what happened to us in the past. We do this by building safety to feel through difficult emotions and sensations, which allows us to feel more freedom and room inside of ourselves.
Somatic therapy shows us how we are not broken humans needing to be fixed, but rather mammals with intelligent bodies, nervous systems, and survival instincts that brought us to where we are today. All of our experiences tell a story about what is happening now, about what happened to us in the past, and about our community and family experiences both presently and historically. Sometimes the ways we are organized based on our history can cause pain, and we can learn how to form an allyship with our body in order to understand what wisdom it is imparting in every moment.
There is a common saying, “You can’t heal what you don’t feel.” When we disconnect from our feelings, they don’t just go away. In fact, many studies show the correlation between stress, trauma and long term negative physical health outcomes, including early death. One study that clearly shows this correlation is the ACE Studies (Adverse Childhood Experiences), which Nadine Burke Harris speaks about in a Ted Talk I have linked below.
Childhood trauma isn’t the only factor that contributes to physical health. Systems of oppression including white body supremacy, the patriarchy, and capitalism, which contribute to poverty, climate change, and inter-generational trauma and many other forms of trauma, impact many systems in our bodies both individually and collectively. The toll that chronic stress takes on the body from working many hours with too little sleep, from experiencing misogyny or chronic poverty, from micro and macro racial aggressions and generations of oppression, is immense.
This stress can contribute to depression, anxiety, chronic pain, inflammation, addictions, heart disease, auto-immune diseases, IBS, etc. Trauma also impacts the DNA expression in our children, and this can be traced through at least 14 generations, so many of our symptoms might even be inherited from the struggles and hardships of our relatives that continue to persist within our bodies.
I first became a therapist because I wanted to help people. What I found when I began working in community mental health is that people make perfect sense- their depression, anxiety, chronic pain, obsessive tendencies, addictions, inability to sustain relationships, etc. has everything to do with reacting to and coping with systems that are rooted in oppression. Because of this, a lot of my focus when I work with people is to help them understand that their symptoms are messengers and allies, not problems to be “fixed” or solved.
For example, I noticed that my stomach felt tight and heavy the other day, almost like there was a rock in it. When I slowed myself down and stayed with it, I saw an image in my mind of somebody who I was in conflict with. From this image I was able to connect to my need for a boundary- a need I had not yet expressed to this person.
The longer I stayed with the sensation and the need, the more I was able to connect to my life-long struggle with setting boundaries, and how this stems from my childhood where saying “no” or protesting my parents’ behavior was simply not allowed. I could also connect to the bigger picture of how this protest-squashing energy lives within our culture and within misogyny, and how historically both women and men have embodied and perpetuated this. This energy is also rooted in colonialism and white body supremacy.
You could take a moment now if you choose. What do you notice in your body? Where might you notice tension? What sensations do you notice in your belly? Your jaw? What are some of the qualities in your breath? Can you feel your heartrate? What parts of you do you notice connected to the ground or your seat? Do you feel safe, unsafe, or somewhere in between? If you took time to slow down with different sensations, what messages might they have for you about what is happening now, or about what might have happened in the past?
Over the long term when we embody ourselves more, we not only notice places of tension, stress, dis-ease, and pain, but we can also notice a wealth of wisdom and resources that live within our bodies. Our wisdom includes the parts of us that already know how to heal, and the parts that have rich offerings for our community. Offerings could include simple connection to somebody, a phone call with a trusted friend, time in nature, feeling the ground with our bare feet, food, fresh air, a place to stomp and scream and yell, a safe space to cry, to move our body, to laugh or dance- the possibilities are endless.
Healing is both individual and communal. I offer one-on-one counseling sessions at my office in Easthampton, MA. I look forward to answering any of your questions or inquiries via email, text, or telephone.
