Did you know that 75% to 90% of all doctor visits have a mental health or stress-related component? You are in this statistic if you’ve ever experienced:
· continual worry, anxiety, or fear,
· sleepless nights,
· overwhelm,
· fatigue,
· burnout,
· loss and grief,
· trauma,
· depression,
· chronic pain,
· or other chronic physical or mental/emotional symptoms.
If you want to increase your chances of living a longer, healthier, happier life, then something needs to change. Exercising, eating right, cognitively understanding the need to do something different, and even going to the doctor or therapist isn't always the full answer. In fact, we’re getting sicker as a society. So, what can you do about it? That’s where somatic healing comes into play. It has the power to transform your life from the inside out for lasting results physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.
What is Somatic Healing?
First, my questions to you are:
· Have you ever cognitively known why you feel dissatisfied or aren’t reaching your goals, but you remain stuck in the same old pattern(s) anyway?
· Have you talked for years, perhaps even with a therapist, and you’re still not where you want to be?
· Are you “stuck in your head?”
· Do you keep doing the same things with the same unwanted results and don’t know why?
Somatic healing can help. It works on both the conscious and subconscious levels to address these questions. Somatic healing isn’t psychotherapy, nor does its practitioners make any medical diagnoses. Another significant difference is that somatic healing gets to the root causes of issues through releasing emotions stored or locked in the body, which can have faster results for lasting change to achieve your goals. The key is experiencing it in the body here and now rather than focusing on the past.
The word “soma” stems from Latin, meaning “body.” Somatic means anything related to or affecting the body, including our external and internal environments. And there’s much more to us than just the physical body, from the densest to the most subtle vibratory forms. There are the physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, energetic or etheric, and astral bodies that make up who we are, what we do, and how we live. (Note: Various traditions may name or categorize these differently.) Based on this, somatic healing unlocks the path to experiencing human wholeness, wellness, and wellbeing at every bodily level through awareness of our sensations, emotions, internal narratives, relationships, actions, non-actions, and mental and physical “beingness.”
The body in all its manifestations stores everything, even the traumas of our childhood and the emotions and tendencies inherited from our ancestors throughout the generations. It can also be a major contributing factor to “dis-ease.” Evidence-based science has proven the truth of the phrase, “the issues are in our tissues.” Our bodies continually inform us when something is off-balance, but we ordinarily don’t know how to listen until physical or emotional symptoms become apparent. Somatic healing teaches us how to tap into the body’s inner wisdom to receive, listen, and act upon its messages.
The 3 Steps to Somatic Healing
Somatic Healing is a bottom-up rather than a top-down approach. This means it isn’t the cognitive brain’s thoughts that informs us about what’s really going on. Rather, we “feel” into the body’s sensations, emotions, and experiences to unblock our conscious and unconscious mind and rewire our brain, releasing us from unhelpful habits and tendencies, so we’re not stuck in an endless thought loop. It does this in a variety of gentle ways that minimize overwhelm, traumatization, or re-traumatization.
Transformation through somatic healing is a 3-step process:
1. Somatic Awareness – According to Staci Haines, psychotherapist and somatic trainer, the first step is paying attention to our body’s sensations, how it feels in various settings, and then being able to distinguish physical sensations linked to specific emotions or memories. Initially we may not be able to identify what we feel, or we may feel numb or “nothing.” This isn’t abnormal because we’re not used to experiencing in this way. Somatic healing techniques help by training us in exteroception (what’s going on outside the body), interoception (what’s going on inside us), and proprioception (the body’s movement through space).
2. Somatic Opening – This refers to making room in the body for new experiences and emotions by releasing old patterns of tension or holding. It allows for new insights and perspectives to replace what doesn’t work well anymore. There are different ways to do this, such as through touch, breath, mindfulness, movement, sound, art, and reflective investigation.
3. Somatic Practices - The final step to somatic transformation is consistently practicing somatic techniques. This keeps our bodies and minds aware, open and resilient in an ever-changing world to meet our needs for safety, belonging, and love/dignity. Mindfulness meditation is an example of a somatic practice.
A somatic wellness coach/mentor guides you in discovering your path to somatic healing and wellness through processes and techniques liberating you from the conscious and unconscious chains keeping you stuck in the same patterns. You can then be free to herald in a new you filled with purpose, satisfaction, joy, peace, prosperity, and wellbeing. If this is what you want for your life, book a complimentary clarity call with me and find out more.