Breaking Free from Survival Mode
How Somatic Therapy Unlocks Healing
Before discovering body-based therapy, I assumed the only way to feel better was to get through whatever was happening and wait for the storm to be over. For others, you may disappear into your mind and escape into a fantasy land. You may jump in full throttle and take charge of the situation. You may take care of everybody else’s problems while completely ignoring your own. And finally, you may stick to the rules in hopes that it will lead to the appropriate end goal.
Too often we find ways to deal with our feelings so that we can maintain our existence in the world. But what we might not understand, or even feel, is that we are just escaping, waiting for the next hit, or my favorite, compartmentalizing our feelings. Pushing them aside so that we do not have to feel the hurt as much, so that we can keep moving forward and get through our life.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to survival mode. I had absolutely no idea what this was until I came out of it. I also did not understand that my body was keeping tabs of all the feelings that I was locking away. Feeling what it was like to be out of it, feeling what was happening inside me as well as around me, though brief, showed me a glimpse of what could be. That’s when I dove in…through thick and thin.
Enter Somatic Therapy. As mentioned in my services page Somatic Therapy is a body focused approach that allows you to explore what it has been holding on to, find peace and safety within your body and finally start having a positive relationship with your body, mind and soul.
I also indicated in the services page that our body keeps score leading to potential feelings like anxiety, brain fog and depression amongst others. Standard practices for addressing such feelings include, but are not limited to, medication, counseling, recommended movement such as exercise or yoga. Unfortunately, all of these may only take you so far. Until you release the feelings/emotions that were stored in your body and let go of the events that suppressed, their effects will remain. Somatic therapy provides you an opportunity to do release them. To heal them, so that they no longer hi-jack your mind, creating the symptoms that we often work to medicate away.
In Somatic therapy we will incorporate movement, breathing, and when needed, dialogue, to help you identify and process emotions, feelings, thoughts and/or events that come up during the session. By doing so, you release their hold on your mind, fostering a lighter, and freer, sense of self.
Now reading this, you might be thinking, this sounds awful. This sounds hard. I don’t have the time for this work. I can’t afford this work.
Let me raise my hand again and say I said all these same things plus some. Please understand that I honor and respect that this work is not taken lightly and it is a big step to enter into work such as this.
But here’s the key…
Take a small step in and see what is possible. The goal of each session is to slowly help you to understand and connect with your body. The goal is to not thrust the body into overwhelm, but to help you learn how to listen to it (your body), to connect to it, to feel it. All that you may need to start is 60 minutes. 60 minutes of breathing, light movement, or maybe even sitting by a lakeside and having an ear to listen. We all have our place where we can start. The goal is to help you discover where you are at, and allow your body to lead the way.
If feel ready to have a conversation about this work, schedule your consultation with Amanda today.
