Somatic Approaches
Our bodies hold stories that words alone cannot always reach. Trauma, stress, emotions, attachment wounds, and life experiences are not only remembered cognitively — they are also carried within the nervous system, the body, and our patterns of sensation, tension, movement, protection, and response.
Somatic work recognizes the body as an essential part of healing, self-awareness, and transformation. Even when we intellectually understand our experiences, we may still feel stuck in cycles of anxiety, overwhelm, shutdown, hypervigilance, disconnection, chronic tension, or emotional reactivity because the nervous system has not yet fully processed or integrated what has been lived through.
Through greater awareness of bodily sensations, breath, nervous system responses, movement, grounding, and embodied experience, somatic therapy helps us gently reconnect with the wisdom and communication of the body. Rather than forcing healing or “pushing through,” this work emphasizes safety, pacing, curiosity, regulation, and learning to listen to the body with compassion and attunement.
Influenced by somatic psychology, attachment theory, trauma-informed care, and nervous system healing, this approach understands symptoms not as signs that something is wrong with you, but often as intelligent adaptations developed in response to stress, trauma, or survival.
Together, we may explore patterns of activation and shutdown, boundaries, embodied emotions, nervous system regulation, felt sense awareness, trauma responses, and the ways the body communicates what words alone may not fully express. Somatic work can support greater grounding, resilience, embodiment, emotional regulation, self-trust, and connection to yourself.
This work is influenced by the teachings and approaches of:
- Peter Levine
- Pat Ogden
- Arielle Schwartz
- Stephen Porges
- Irene Lyon