When a system is dysregulated the resting baseline is higher, leading to quicker reactions rather than measured responses. Sometimes somatic awareness and reregulation integration needs space to move through all the levels in the body, from the circulatory, nervous, respiratory, digestive, and skeletal systems.

​

If  this applies to you, it may be worth exploring

Somatic Therapy:  

​

• Struggle with knowing, sensing, and communicating your needs

• Difficulty in being present to your body sensations

• Vivid and varied uncomfortable body sensations or unexplainable aches

• Feel unreasonably suspicious or weary of others’ intentions

• Strong, overwhelming fears of failure or success

• Difficulty concentrating because of overwhelming thoughts

• Experience an excessive need to plan for and be in control of your life

• Struggle with feelings of dissociation and disconnection

• Difficulty with sleep, digestion, and other physiological needs

• Feel especially foggy or out of touch with reality for a prolonged period of time

Trauma need not be something drastic. Trauma as defined by Dr. Peter Levine is anything that is too soon too much or too fast for the body to respond and reregulate. Somatic Experiencing is a holistic mind-body integration and stress regulation approach resetting the natural rhythm of the nervous system and helps to increase one's capacity to cope with stress from a place of intentional response rather than spontaneous reaction. SE focuses on developing coherence between the parasympathetic and the sympathetic nervous systems, to unfreeze stuck responses, to restore the defense response, to promote a reregulation of stress.

 

 Somatic Experiencing focuses on nervous system regulation and providing closure to traumatic symptoms. As observed in evolutionary psychology, when animals face a threat, there is a release of chemicals such as adrenaline and cortisol to signal preparation for attack. When the threat passes, survival reactions shift toward release of that stress, with movements such as shaking, sighing, or stretching before the animal returns to normal behavior. 

Regulated autonomic nervous systems can induce a state of “biological completion” in which stuck arousal energy is released and the system is restored to balance. A resilient nervous system is one that can move back and forth between alertness and rest. 

​

Benefits of Somatic Experiencing  Include: 

​

• Fewer body and emotional pains

• Easier and more effective completion of daily activities

• More positive and stable affect and moods

• Increased compassion toward oneself and others

• Positive changes in behavior, attitudes, and beliefs

• More constructive and heart-centered communication

• Increased problem-solving capacity

• Greater openness and mindset flexibility

• Clearer reasoning capabilities and a deeper breadth of intuitive knowing

• Increased calm and confidence throughout your day

• Greater ease in learning new abilities and skills

• Asserting and practicing resilience

• Embodied mind-body-heart integration