What Is Somatic Therapy?
Somatic Therapy relies on the basic premise that unresolved emotional issues are often stored in the body. By working on the body in some way, these trapped emotions can be released. This includes feelings which are not necessarily specific to a particular traumatic event. For example, it can include general stress or anxiety that has been accumulated over a period of time. Of course it can also include specific traumatic events. Very often, these emotions trapped in the body can manifest in the form of some disfunction or disease. By working at the body level it is often possible to allow access to these emotions so that they can felt, understood and released.
A Personal Example of Somatic Therapy
I recently have had cause to use this myself. I was going through a difficult personal issue and could feel lots of deep heavy emotions within me. However, my usual go-to methods of EFT and energy healing methods were not working well. This was largely because it was a current on-going emotional issue rather than an unresolved past issue which I normally work on. I remember a video that I’d seen on a simple Somatic Therapy routine (see below) which I’d found very helpful. A few minutes of working with the techniques of this video and I was able to access these emotions and to release them. I repeated this several times throughout the day and found it very effective in allowing me to access these feelings and release them.
Somatic Therapy by Having a Shower!
As an aside, I have often noticed that when I can feel pent up emotions within me, having a shower is a good way of releasing them. I think the running water is very grounding and standing there with it streaming down on the top of the head can often bring these things up. So I often find myself having a good sob in the shower!
Exploring Further
There are no end of videos on youTube about all sorts of somatic therapy exercises. If you feel draw to this approach then try some out and see if they work for you.
Below is the one that worked well for me.
