A Process of Listening

The wisdom of our bodies is ancient. It knows what it needs to heal itself and release any imbalances that trouble its flow.

Somatic therapy therapy has evolved to reflect this one big insight: that healing trauma largely involves listening to that and aligning to that ancient body intelligence and letting it heal itself. The body's wisdom communicates to us through sensation and impulse...but in ordinary life we mostly ignore and suppress its messages. When we can learn not to ignore it - to tune into and align to its messages - we create the conditions for the nervous system to restore itself to a smooth and healthy flow. As that happens, the symptoms of trauma tend to fall away.

Another big insight is that trauma recovery doesn't tend to work well alone. We're wired to wait until we're in a situation that feels safe - where we feel someone has our back - before we can relax and open in a way that allows the nervous system to work its magic. So this is where a somatic therapist comes in: holding the space with you and supporting your own deep intelligence and instincts to restore Wholeness and flow in the body.

Of course, trauma's impact isn't limited to the nervous system. The overwhelming experiences of our past can fragment psyche and soul in ways that surface on an emotional, mental, spiritual and physical level. The strategy of fragmenting is meant to try to protect you from the full intensity of pain involved in trauma...but its a strategy that can create more problems than it solves. So that's another thread of our focus: sitting with the ways in which trauma may have cracked you open, and finding out what trauma-recovery might look like at a more of a soul level.

Depending on your unique situation, our sessions might involve:

• building a clear sense of which resources help you feel grounded and calm when faced with difficult sitations. And deepening the value of those resources by building a more direct, nuanced sense of what it feels like in your body when they're available and at hand.
• learning to notice the nuances of what happens when you feel a sense of safety and connection with others. How that feels in the body. And exploring the possibilities that feeling of safety unlocks.
• Exploring a version of strength that's rooted in something deeper than our survival mechanisms - one that includes a deep sense of sovereignty and self-advocacy, and also supports vulnerability and authenticity.
• freeing "frozen" survival energy - the trapped, electrical charge of fight, flight, or collapse - that may be left over from traumatic experiences.
• rooting into a sense of grounded being - from which the tense, clenched, urgent reflexes of fight or flight can relax into relaxed power.
• exploring and challenging beliefs you may formed about yourself due to traumatic experiences. (How much might early experiences have shaped a sense of being a victim? How much might it be possible to reclaim an understanding of oneself as having autonomy, agency, outward rippling influence...)
• identifying what defence mechanisms feel inevitable as a response to challenging situations. And then exploring what other options might be available to the nervous system - alternatives that might be much better suited to your here-and-now reality.
• supporting a sense of "embodiment" in which you're present in your muscle and sinew and nerves...reconnected to your primal nature and the way it can embody fierceness, instinctive cunning and speed...or poised alert silence.

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