Somatic healing reminds us that the mind and body are deeply connected. Discover how body awareness, mindfulness, nature, and nervous system regulation can help us reconnect with ourselves and create a foundation for sustainable healing.
The Body Knows
The interwebs, knowing me as they do, have been showing me a lot of advertisements to earn a degree in Somatic Therapy. This form of psychotherapy connects the mind and physical body through body awareness, breathwork, and grounding. It’s used to treat PTSD, anxiety, depression, and chronic pain. Much like energy work (Root to Crown), somatic therapy works from the ground up. The physical and emotional bodies are a unit, with the greatest and most sustainable healing done together. The focus is on self-healing, nervous system regulation, and a recognition that trauma is stored; for somatic therapy in the physical body, for energy work in the physical and subtle body.
Long before the birth of modern psychology, our minds, spirits, and bodies were viewed as a single entity. Ayurveda, beginning about 3,000 years before our modern calendar, focused on treating physical illnesses concurrently with lifestyle changes, meditation, and yoga. The focus was not on treating the symptom but on keeping the prana, or life force (Ki) flowing. The Egyptians built sleep temples that focused on healing the subconscious mind to heal the body. Traditional Chinese medicine, rooted in Taoist philosophy, viewed and treated the body as an ecosystem with emotions and physical ailments directly correlated. Elements of each of these ancient traditions can be seen in modern medicine today in oncology, sports medicine, pain management, trauma care, and even pharmaceutical development.
The Mind Body Connection
Aside from the mind-body connection that all of these modalities have in common, there is also a focus on present-moment-awareness. Simply being quiet enough in a single moment to recognize what is happening internally and not rushing to an external distraction. Possibly the most common go-to that I use when working with my clients is asking them to find a feeling in their body. This not only gives me an idea of which chakra may need some attention, but moreover allows my client to focus, even for a second, on where he or she may be holding tension. Often a single breath focused in this area can make a notable change in whatever is happening in the moment. Sounds simple, right? Well for many, even finding the area of tension feels impossible, let alone releasing it.
With all of our medications and meditations, I think that this may be where we culturally miss our mark. Tapping into ourselves. Tapping into our environment. Not as a ritual but as a foundation.
In searching for relief to our internal chaos, we have learned to simply create more noise.
Finding Stillness Through Somatic Healing
As I am typing this, I am sitting in the top of a train car which has been renovated into an apartment on a working farm. Directly out of my window is a dock overlooking a beautiful lake. I am only feet away from the man that I love, with the sounds of nature and modern classical music as my background, immersed in a practice that brings me incredible peace and joy. But when my fingers stop, when I close my eyes and focus on what is happening internally, I can still feel a little pull. I feel a small tug of anxiety to complete this task and move onto the next, a longing for my children, a slight worry that I’m ignoring my partner. If all of these emotions are existing in the background of a nearly perfect moment of serenity and relaxation, how many thoughts and emotions are in the background of a chaotic day? How many tensions and tugs are we energetically, emotionally, and physically experiencing that go completely unrecognized but deeply affect us in the long run?
You are making dinner while thinking about work. You are at work, worrying about your children. You are with your children and planning a conversation with your partner. You are talking with your partner while remembering a heated discussion with a friend or parent. You are not present in a single one of these moments. These every day occurrences require your energy, emotions, and physical bodies to be responding to two experiences at one time. Add on top of that any underlying grief, concern, or trauma. It’s not surprising that many people today are contending with chronic fatigue, overwhelm, anxiety or depression. This sort of daily effort is exhausting.
More often than not we turn to an external source to ease this constant flooding of sensation. Sometimes a person, a pill, and quite often perpetual scrolling. However, none of these outlets can sustainably calm the internal storm that is silently brewing. In fact, more often than not, the cure that we seek ends up becoming more fuel for the flood. In searching for relief to our internal chaos, we have learned to simply create more noise. More distractions. Less presence. The calm that we seek can truly only be found in the quiet. When we tap into ourselves, into our own natural rhythm, into the natural rhythm of our surroundings, we can find that peace, that space for self-healing. That is where we find our strength and our focus.
The Quiet We Keep Avoiding
In her book and podcast, Florence Williams popularized what she calls Dr. David Strayer’s “three day effect”. Strayer led research finding that spending several days immersed in nature, away from the demands of technology, improves our minds and bodies. Essentially, giving us a natural reboot. His work suggests that time away from modern life quiets the area of our brain that filters most of our stresses. Nature shouldn’t be used to replace medication or professional care if it’s needed, but it can be a powerful compliment to it. If research shows that simply just being in a natural environment lowers your stress levels, and helps you become more focused and present, why wouldn’t you try it?
Start Where You Are
Intense internal work isn’t always required to get in touch with ourselves and the world that surrounds us. In fact, it’s more the opposite. We need to get in touch with ourselves and our environment to do the intense internal work. Maybe a three day camping weekend may not be available, or even remotely appealing to you. A twenty minute walk in a park or on a beach may. A barefoot lunch break on the square yard of grass outside of your office building. Spend fifteen minutes on your apartment balcony each morning. No phones. No distractions. No judgement. Just you, being present with your environment. You don’t need a daily meditation practice to begin building a strong foundation for balance and presence. You don’t need a profound lifestyle shift to change your internal and energetic responses. You simply need your own breath and a willingness to recognize and rebuild from the ground up.
References
- Blanck, P., Perleth, S., Heidenreich, T., Kröger, P., Ditzen, B., Bents, H., & Mander, J. (2018). Effects of mindfulness exercises as stand-alone intervention on symptoms of anxiety and depression: Systematic review and meta-analysis. Behaviour research and therapy, 102, 25–35.
- Brom, D., Stokar, Y., Lawi, C., Nuriel-Porat, V., Ziv, Y., Lerner, K., & Ross, G. (2017). Somatic Experiencing for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: A Randomized Controlled Outcome Study. Journal of traumatic stress, 30(3), 304–312.
- Shuda, Q., Bougoulias, M. E., & Kass, R. (2020). Effect of nature exposure on perceived and physiologic stress: A systematic review. Complementary therapies in medicine, 53, 102514.
- Stevenson, M. P., Schilhab, T., & Bentsen, P. (2018). Attention Restoration Theory II: a systematic review to clarify attention processes affected by exposure to natural environments. Journal of toxicology and environmental health. Part B, Critical reviews, 21(4), 227–268.
Need a Little Clarity?
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