You can change your thoughts. You can come up with new mantras, You can do the cognitive work until the cows come home. But you’re likely still going to be left realizing that non of it is really helping. Yes, changing your thoughts is a great way to help, but if you’re not addressing the sensations in your body, you’re never really healing the root of the issue.

Think of it this way— you keep falling in love and end up with the same sensation of not feeling good enough. So you decide you’re going to give yourself a makeover. You revamp your closet, take care of your diet, and pick a new partner. Months later, you end up in the same place, feeling confused that you still feel unworthy.

The problem is not fixing this or changing that, it’s addressing the root of the sensations that live deep inside of you. These sensations and belief systems that feel like they are on repeat in your life is your trauma. So, while getting a makeover is nice if these deep-held beliefs and sensations still live inside you, they will resurface again and again, begging to be held and healed.

Somatic Therapy and Trauma

Living with trauma can impact every aspect of your life, leading to emotional distress and physical pain. However, the benefits of somatic therapy for trauma healing cannot be overstated. Somatic work, which accesses the mind-body connection, can provide a holistic and sustainable portal for processing and healing trauma.

When small but painful events happen when you’re young and are not addressed, they get suppressed and live inside your body. Your muscle tissues, heart, and gut can be the center of that stored embedded trauma. As you begin to heal, it is vital that you start to get in touch with your body and the sensations that live in these centers. Becoming more embodied is actually complex, as it means being with sensations that you might have been avoiding your whole life.

Four Reasons Why Somatic Work is Necessary for Healing Trauma

Here are some reasons why somatic therapy is essential for healing trauma:

1 | Somatic work helps people reconnect with their bodies. One of the main effects of trauma is dissociation, which means disconnecting from your body to block out pain. I like to describe it as someone who feels like their head is not connected to their body. This dissociation leads to a chronic and ongoing state of physical tension and anxiety.

More than half of our population is walking around in a disassociated state. This is due to it being a natural protection because we are unable to handle the sensations that live in our body until we slow down and have the right support.

Somatic therapy helps clients develop a greater awareness of their bodies and the physical impact of their emotional responses. By learning skills for self-awareness and direct contact with bodily experience, individuals with trauma can learn to modulate fears and develop safety.

2 | Somatic techniques offer diverse tools to help patients respond to different scenarios and build resilience. Rather than being a single, panacea-like intervention, somatic methods tend to be a collection of physiological and cognitive-behavioral techniques. These tools can include relaxation and regulation activities to gain control over thoughts and behaviors, improving enjoyment and adaptability in recovery.

Learning to be with your body and what surfaces allow for a natural deepening within yourself. This deepening from within is also mirrored by an ability to deepen one’s connection to everything in life—a beautiful byproduct of doing your own inner work.

3 | Somatic work helps establish self-care practices that sustain recovery. The nature of somatic work is that it emphasizes the inner processing of emotions, sensations, and thoughts more naturally and holistically. We currently live in a world full of quick fixes, pills, and instant gratification, which can create lifelong patterns instilled by our environment. By learning to prioritize inner processing and relationship building with our bodies, somatic therapy is able to provide long-lasting change.

4 | Somatic work does not separate the person from their body. It addresses the wounds, sensorimotor associations, and how trauma lies at the cellular level rather than mere cognition. By bringing the body as a resource itself and incorporating it into the healing process, the brain can engage as a problem solver and reap the benefits of integration. This also allows for a better sense of ownership over one's own's self, with improvement over lacking adaptations.

Interested in a bonus reason? Somatic work teaches new coping mechanisms. Often, people with trauma have been coping in ways they learned long ago and are familiar and routine. While these behaviors may have served a purpose in the past, they may no longer be effective or sustainable. Somatic therapy provides new tools and resources that can help those with trauma to regulate strong emotions in a secure and meaningful way. By teaching individuals how to focus on their body and customized techniques that work best for them, people with trauma can develop a skill set that can carry them through the rest of their lives. This process leads to an ability to become more embodied.

While it feels easier in the moment to just do a makeover, there is real merit to taking the time to do complete healing, especially when you’re struggling with trauma. And it’s important to note that not all trauma is created equal. You cannot compare what’s traumatic for you to what’s traumatic for someone else. Instead, you have to look within yourself to see what your body has stored, what comes up when you slow down and have support, and begin to process the experiences you had, even in your earliest days.

Are you looking for someone to walk you through your healing journey?

Click here to learn more about our coaches at Be Self-full.