Somatics

“Somatics” refers to a spectrum of body-based awareness practices with the goal of nurturing your nervous system and healing trauma. In these somatic practices, you bring attention to your present-moment experience, including bodily sensations, movements, postures, and impulses. Alongside a trained professional, you give your nervous system the opportunity to “remember” how to feel safe and at ease.

Here’s what somatics is all about:

Sometimes, we get “stuck” in our survival responses—states like fight-or-flight and freeze. We can think of these states as “protection mode.”

When we’re stuck in protection mode, the nervous system perceives danger even when we’re, in fact, safe. Our bodies respond to this perception of danger with protective instincts. Energy floods into our system, making us amped up (that’s hyper-arousal). Or energy floods out of our system, leaving us numb (that’s hypo-arousal). Either way, we’re all out of sorts!

In a sense, we’ve “forgotten” how to shift from protection mode to “connection mode”—how to return from a survival state to a state of ease and comfort.

Somatics is about “remembering” how to “come home” to connection mode. It’s about helping your nervous system realize that the danger is over.

I’ve gotta say, I love the somatic approach! I’ve trained in the Tao of Trauma and Somatic Experiencing systems, and I’ve found somatics to be an essential tool for anyone who feels overwhelmed by their protective states—folks who chronically feel too up (like in anxiety, rage, hypervigilance, and worry) and/or too down (depressed, withdrawn, hopeless, and numb).

In my sessions, I help you bring your awareness to your present-moment experience. In particular, I support you in “surfing” the “waves” of your nervous system—your sympathetic up-waves and parasympathetic down-waves. You practice allowing states of activation (protection mode) and deactivation (connection mode) to rise and fall.

As you surf the waves of your nervous system, in the presence of an attuned guide, your nervous system has the opportunity to re-discover the pathways from protection to connection. You start to taste freedom from the prison of past overwhelming experiences. You remember how to feel safe.

I give clients the option of combining somatic therapy with a needle-free acupuncture treatment. (They complement each other very nicely!) Or, you can choose to focus on one or the other modality (either somatics or needle-free acupuncture).

I recommend somatic sessions for anyone dealing with chronic stress, tension, anxiety, depression, insomnia, or trauma. Click below to learn more about my sessions or to book a session!