The Greek word 'Soma', means “the living body known from within”. This “knowing” indicates wholeness. Somatic Experiencing (SE) integrates the mind and body with an experiential approach. Trauma often leads to pain, overwhelm, and coping mechanisms that disconnect us from feeling fully at ease within our bodies, causing internal fragmentation.
SE offers a naturalistic approach to healing, guiding you to learn how to settle and release tension from your physical body. Through this process, many find relief from stress and regain a sense of balance and autonomy in their lives. Through deliberately focusing, SE empowers you to attend to discomfort in your body and gently unravel it. This approach is particularly effective in managing stress due to its concentration on physiological symptoms.
Dr. Peter Levine, the founder of Somatic Experiencing, said “Trauma is a fact of life. It does not have to be a life sentence.” Trauma often causes feelings of powerlessness, helplessness, and disconnection, severing us from being present in our body, mind, and spirit. Recognizing and understanding the symptoms of trauma can serve as a pathway toward healing. My role as a practitioner and educator is to listen and hear the messages and wisdom encoded in the body, and to facilitate healing.
Trauma is a response to a distressing or unsettling experience. Approaching trauma holistically means viewing it not just as an isolated event, but as a disruption to our body-mind's ability to cope and adapt effectively. Various circumstances can lead to trauma, including overwhelming situations, prolonged stress, deprivation/not having basic needs met, loss of agency, insufficient resources, and the suppression of natural instincts and responses. It's also crucial to consider the broader social, developmental, and cultural context when understanding someone's trauma history.
Symptoms of trauma can manifest immediately or develop gradually over time as the person deals with the stressors of life impacting the body and mind. These symptoms encompass physical discomforts like headaches and muscle tension, emotional challenges such as fear, shame, anxiety, and panic, psychological struggles like dissociation, depression, memory loss, and self-blame, as well as social impacts like isolation and difficulty with relationships.
By acknowledging the multifaceted complexity of trauma and its symptoms, we can better support individuals back to wholeness, recognizing that trauma doesn't have to be the primary state in which we function.
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