Somatic
Practices
Integrating the body and the mind
By paying attention to movement, felt sensations , breathing patterns, and overall body language, I will help you to connect with and communicate with your body in a different way. We won’t talk about what you ‘should’ or ‘shouldn’t’ say or do. Instead, we listen to your body in the present moment so that we can hear what it needs.
Our conversations will help you to notice and listen to the messages your body is sending you. You will see the pathway to healing that will unfold as soon as your body feels safe.
Somatic practices such as movement, breath, resonance and awareness are ways to connect with energies in your body that store traumatic memories or content. This deeper connection allows for memory reconsolidation (‘metabolizing’ of trauma) and deep healing.
Somatic IFS
Somatic IFS was developed by Susan McConnell and emphasizes the connection between the body and the mind. The somatic practices (resonance, awareness, breath, movement and touch) foster a more embodied connection with the energies in your body. With gentle guidance and consent from your system, we can access deep core beliefs and trauma - even pre-verbal or non-verbal. Somatic IFS can also help to restore the relationship that you have with your body, and it can be helpful when working with chronic pain or illness.
Instead of managing or dealing with your problem-body, you learn to attune to the messages of your body with curiosity and openness.
Polyvagal Theory
Polyvagal Theory was developed by Dr. Stephen Porges, and it explains how our body and nervous system respond to stress, and how our sense of feeling safe or unsafe impacts our behavior.
Our brains constantly assess our environment for cues of safety or danger (unconscious process), and that determines the automatic response of your nervous system. If we constantly feel unsafe, due to trauma or environmental triggers, our body is in a continuous state of stress and activation.
Through regulation of the nervous system, we can return to a sense of felt safety and leave the fight or flight state.
The findings of polyvagal theory explain “over-reacting”, '“irrational fears” and “shutdown-responses” as a fear response of a traumatized system.
Imagine a relationship with yourself that is rooted in compassion and curiosity. You feel safe and solid from within , without rigidity or chaos. Somatic Therapy helps you get there.
You will embark on a journey that focuses on getting to know yourself in a safe environment. Our conversations will guide you towards an embodied connection with all aspects of yourself.
Instead of living in a constant state of fear and worry, you can learn to be comfortable with uncomfortableness.