Why Somatic Therapy

We can stuff our emotions for a while…

But one day, you’ll realize you feel horrible in your physical or emotional body.

Chronic fatigue…

Muscle tension…

Headaches…

Digestive issues…

Maybe you’re that quiet, agreeable person, but stuffing your emotions will have you flying off the handle for no reason!

Any of this sound familiar?

“I have butterflies in my stomach.”

“There’s a lump in my throat.”

“He’s a pain in my neck!”

Most of us work hard not to feel painful emotions. That’s logical, right? I mean… why feel bad?

But the problem with stuffing emotions is that they don’t go anywhere. They remain in your body.

This is good and bad news.

It’s bad news because you clearly don’t want to feel that emotion. If you did, you would have done it when it happened.

The good news is that the emotion is still in your body, so it’s available for you to feel and experience when you’re ready.

Emotions that aren’t felt and moved through the body cause problems.

If you’re like some people…

You worry that if you allow yourself to feel sad, you’ll be swallowed up by that feeling.

In somatic therapy, we will titrate your emotions, leaning into them slowly so you don’t get overwhelmed.

In a safe, caring environment, I’ll guide you to feel the emotions you may have been bottling up for years, giving you relief as you let them go.

Breath

Not breathing exercises. I may ask you to focus on your breathing to help you become able to breathe easily and deeply naturally without being conscious of it. The focus is helping you sense and release the tensions that prevent you from breathing naturally.

Breathing exercises help somewhat but do nothing to reduce tensions and restore natural breathing patterns. We will learn and understand your breathing pattern to know why it became the way it is, then learn how to release the tensions that disrupt the natural breathing pattern. Healthy breathing is a total body action; all body muscles are involved to some degree.

It is almost impossible for a depressed person to lift themselves out of a depression by thinking positive thoughts. This is because your energy level is depressed. When your energy level is raised through deep breathing and the release of feeling, you’ll come out of your depressed state.

Movement

Movement helps change unwanted patterns of behavior.

Intentional physical movement will help you release physical tension that may contribute to emotional and mental distress. Emotional healing can be aided through resolution of bodily tension. I may ask you to walk, stomp, or jump to express anger or frustration. Or, you might kick or punch a pillow to release energy or pent-up emotions.

Movement provides the deepest way we can understand our inner world and why we are the way we are.

Sound

Why use sound in therapy?

• Deepens our breath: as long as we breathe, we feel. To make sound, you must move air through the larynx. Shallow breathing results in the lack of oxygen and limits our vitality and emotion in such a way that we produce little vibrant impulse and correspondingly receive little feedback (classic depressive pattern).
• Release pent-up emotions: Free vocal expression can help release pent-up emotions, animate our bodies, and touch the people around us. The emotional expression while making sounds provides us with stimulation via vibration and self-massage while reducing rigidity, stiffness, silence, and depression.
• Decrease Depression: the voice is the energetic “door opener.” The depressed body is energetically depressed. The voice is flat. Using sound gets the energy moving through the body.
• Improve concentration: In some fifth and sixth-grade math classes, screaming is encouraged to promote concentration.
• Improve the immune system: Sound positively stimulates our immune system on a hormonal level.
• Increase socialization and intimacy: the capacity for social engagement depends on how well we can influence our facial and cranial muscles using nerve pathways that interconnect the cortex and the brain stem.

Many people feel self-conscious using sound in front of another person. I will do it with you if that helps.

Saying “no” may be the best thing you do in therapy. You always have the right to refuse any of my suggestions.

Somatic Therapy can help you heal.

Reach out today and schedule a free 10-minute consultation: (480) 677-1198.

I’m happy to answer any questions, or we can schedule your first appointment.