Healing with somatic therapy

The bottom-up physiology of your body and the top-down psychology of your mind are wholly interconnected, which means that to become a regulated & regulating force in the world, for yourself and for others…

Reshaping your body’s autonomic nervous system and how it forms your perception, beliefs, behaviors and reactions, is paramount.

Nervous system state and psychological story join forces into enduring neural loops of experience, that unless interrupted, with gentle reinforcement, the right context and sequencing, persist indefinitely.

So how can physiology craft new stories and the conditions for safety, wellness, connection and true thriving? By working to rewire and re-pattern the autonomic nervous system into a more coherent state.

The essence of the somatic coherence is really a deconstruct and reconstruct,

a life, death, life resurrect kind of holy realive-ing process that is enacted by:

First falling in love with the very things and aspects of yourself you are so very determined to “fix,”

and instead coming deep into supportive relationship & communion with them so you can sanction that tender shift away from identification with the myths that….

  • Pleasure, play, abundance, joy, relationship, trust, you name it, is not available to or even compatible with you right now as you are,
  • That your process and even fundamental identity is wrong,
  • That there are various aspects, experiences, ways of being that you’ve put in the gap between where you are and where you wish, strive, struggle to be, have & feel.

What’s more, I believe, and have seen the truth over the years working with clients on somatic therapy training that allows me to say most assuredly –

that any and all human expression is irrevocably valid and holy
anywhere along its natural cycles of not knowing and fully knowing.

And when we really adopt that approach to our own journey as a Soul moving through life,

everything changes

somatic coherence is an evidence-based framework that brings together techniques & the science of Somatic Experiencing, IFS Parts work, Polyvagal Theory and more; that will support you in truly living your healing process day-to-day, as you traverse the bridge of curiosity into purpose, belonging & true thriving.

  • Did you grow up with experiences where you were invalidated, not seen, held or heard?And now you tend towards patterns of “self-sabotage” or resistance that come up any time you try to “go” for something or truly be you?
  • Did you experience a situation or relationship in which you couldn’t (or wouldn’t) leave?And find you tend to be judgmental and/or untrusting? Perhaps even experience depression, anxiety and/or mystery fatigue or autoimmune issues?
  • Did you always have unsafe home environments?Or your parents were divorced and you were constantly moving around? And now you want to start a family and truly nest somewhere, but you completely shut-down and freeze when you try to take steps towards it?
  • Did you self-quarantine and isolate for the entire COVID-19 pandemic,lose many aspects of yourself, your business or even home, and now literally feel like you can’t even remember how to human? (*Okay, let’s be real… noooo one, doesn’t get to raise their hand on this one!)

If so, first of all – you are not alone!

Second, to truly heal, we must ultimately enact corrective experiences.

These are essentially experiences you seek out having and/or creating that are close enough to where the original wounding occurred,

but that have different, positive outcomes (ie. this time you are held, seen, validated, loved,  this time you get to leave the situation, this time you have support to grieve your losses and come back together with physical touch and shared full face expressions, etc.)

Why is this important?

Because disconfirming experiences bring new data points to your hard-wired neuroception lens, which is a 24/7 threat detection process running on your behalf.

Lived experiences to date (ie. traumas) shape this part of you to see your reality (people, situations, environments) in a very particular way –

orienting your towards or away from connection and into mobilization, shutdown, etc.

When we bring new cues and the lived data of experiences where we were safe, that person did see us, we were able to parent ourselves, show up and regulate our own nervous systems,

it begins to invalidate perceptions of a particular type of situation, person, place etc as always being unsafe and guess what?

The resistance, the disease, the dis-ease, in our experience when we try to be ourselves, try to be vulnerable, try to try something new, try to welcome healthy attuned relationships, you name it, just gets so damn easier.

And it literally changes our primal brain structures that begin to allow us to experience more and more of a decrease in the intensity, druation and frequency of those particular parts of us that we’ve deemed so “non-serving.”

Third, and most importantly,  we cannot adopt a “just do it” attitude and style in order to live our disconfirming experiences.

There is a very specific sequencing of foundational steps in somatic therapy training that must be laid first in a pacing that is supportive, trauma-informed and sustainable –

and that my friend, is precisely what somatic therapists, like myself, help people navigate in programs and small group or 1-on-1 facilitation.