Bringing the Body into Therapy
The Body's Wisdom
In exclusively talk-based therapy, we may understand why specific patterns exist. We may be able to understand how our childhood shaped our current reality, but if we don't bring knowledge of our nervous system and the wisdom of the body, we can't actually change our reality.
Although we like to believe we are rational creatures, our emotions, and unconscious beliefs often direct our actions. When we don't have the internal resources to hold those suppressed emotions and unconscious beliefs, we have difficulty accessing them in a way that allows us to work with them and shift deeper patterns.
While our thoughts are vital to understanding ourselves, they are only one piece of information we can access to better understand ourselves. Somatic therapy invites the body into the therapeutic process.
When we bring the body into therapy, we can access a different information source stored within our bodies. Our bodies store past experiences of pain, trauma, and unprocessed emotions. When we turn our awareness to our bodies during therapy, we can access that information to process past emotional experiences in the present.
When we invite in the wisdom of our bodies, we learn to understand the language of the body—sensations, feelings, and emotions.
This is essential information to explore past experiences and better understand our current experiences. When we learn to listen to the body's language, we tap into the wisdom held within the body.
When we reconnect to the experiences of the body, we reconnect to our full emotional experience— allowing us to connect not only to pain but also profoundly connect to joy and pleasure.
Internal Resourcing
Learning to work with the body gives us tools to manage our emotional state from the bottom up. Many coping skills taught in other therapeutic modalities teach you to distract yourself instead of providing tools to shift your state from the body to the mind.
Building our internal resources allows us to experience intense emotions and discomfort without feeling like we will be overtaken and pulled under by the emotion or distress in our experience. When we build internal resilience, we can sit with the truth of our experiences to process those experiences without losing emotional stability.
When we build our capacity to be present with difficult emotions, we take control of our lives in a new way. We reclaim our power by being able to make decisions based on our best interests instead of just avoiding or soothing intense emotions.
We can engage with the world differently as we build our internal capacity to regulate difficult emotions. We can do the hard things required to create change in our lives. When we have the ability to be uncomfortable, it makes it easier to take risks, set boundaries, and be vulnerable to build healthy relationships.
Somatic Awareness of Emotions Practice
Sitting with feelings is a foreign concept to most of us. We were never taught how to relate to our emotions healthily. This simple practice can help build more awareness of our bodily experience of emotions so we can sit with our feelings without fueling them with our thoughts.
The practice:
Find a comfortable seated or lying down position. You can have your eyes closed or have a soft point of focus.
Begin by taking 5-10 deep breaths into your belly to help relax your nervous system.
Scan from the top of your head down to your feet, moving your awareness through all the different parts of your body to notice sensations that are present. These sensations may be more obvious, like tension or pain, or more subtle, like a vibration, tingling, or expansive feeling.
Bring to mind a situation that you are feeling stuck with (or this can be used when experiencing any intense emotions) and try to allow yourself to really feel it as if it is happening in the moment.
Notice what emotions are coming up for you. Then, drop your awareness into your body to notice where you feel that emotion in your body.
See if you can stay with the sensations for a few minutes and notice if they shift and change as you watch them.
When you feel complete, you can take a few breaths to return to the present moment. You are welcome to shake through your body to release any energy in your system.
