USING EMBODIED AWARENESS TO RELIEVE TRAUMA SYMPTOMS
SOMATIC THERAPY SESSIONS
Here we create a container together that gives your body and soul the deep safety it needs to rebalance itself and return to its natural resilience and flow.
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 has evolved to reflect this one big insight: that healing trauma largely involves listening and aligning to that ancient body intelligence. Given the right kind of space, it heals 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 change our stories about ourselves and our world in a massive way. Trauma can teach us that life is something that happens to us; that our role is to endure and survive what comes our way as best we can. It can shatter our sense of dignity and self-advocacy. It can make us nervous and afraid. Our work then includes undermining any limiting beliefs that trauma might have slipped into your sense of reality. The goal is not just to "release trauma", but to reclaim and expand a powerful sense of agency and self-possession. Where our broken boundaries may have taught us we are victims, the restoration of those boundaries helps build a sense of strength and ground. And from there, we can be more fully ourselves. And shape lives for ourselves that reflect who we are.
“In my experience of Shawn, it is his solidly consistent and deeply grounded presence that is so healing. He’s a keeper of sacred heart space. His superpower is the way he naturally draws energy down and supports people to anchor into their own bodies with the attuned space that he holds.”
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 situations. 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.
FAQ
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Likely! Somatic or trauma therapy is covered as “counselling” under many insurance plans. As a registered clinical therapist, my sessions are often eligible for reimbursement from insurance providers. However, coverage varies from plan to plan. Get in touch with any questions, and we can work together to see how we might get your sessions covered.
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This work involves upsetting the status quo of your nervous system and defence mechanisms. As you restore and integrate the instincts and survival mechanisms you may have been cut off from for a long time, you may experience uncomfortable emotion and energies. For example, if you’ve lived for years without much access to your instinct for “fight”, you might find yourself feeling more anger as you experience somatic therapy. If you’ve taken refuge in the numbing blankness of “freeze”, you might find yourself feeling more of many emotions. This is part of the work of recovering the full spectrum of being at the physiological and instinctual level.
“When the innocent parts of us are able to emerge from hiding and enter into consciousness we start to suffer ‘true grief’. True grief is feeling the pain held in the innocent parts themselves. When we open to this deeper pain with self-compassion, we begin to cry the tears that reconnect us to our essence. In time we discover a new sense of aliveness and healing.”
