Happy Sunday!
I hope today is a cozy, calm, and gentle day for you. I plan on spending it in pajamas, playing board games, and listening to ALL the Taylor Swift I can get as I/we prepare for the Midnights release.
Here’s what’s on my mind this week!
What I’m Reading
Somatic Therapy for Healing Trauma by Jordan Dann, LP
Jordan sent me a copy of this a few weeks ago, and I was blown away by the quality of the information and how easily digestible it all is.
This books covers several foundations of somatic work and provides a good blueprint for starting to connect the body and the mind.
It’s an easy read chock full of activities that I would happily recommend to survivors looking to learn more about a somatic approach!
What I’m Listening To
These Days by Nico
When I was younger and more sad and I didn’t understand mindful movement but I still benefited from it, I would take really long walks and listen to music. This song was a favorite, and it still is. I think Nico beautifully captures the experience of depression –
I’ve stopped my dreaming
I won’t do too much scheming
These days, these days
These days I sit on corner stones
And count the time in quarter tones to ten
Please don’t confront me with my failures
I had not forgotten them
What I’m Thinking About
The Big Myth About Trauma Healing
Hot Take: We don’t heal from trauma by just thinking about and talking about it.
So while venting to your friends about how bad you feel might be cathartic (and it may help you calm down in the moment) it’s almost never enough to actually move the body from survival mode to feeling safe, calm and present in a long-term way.
That’s because trauma does not just happen in the mind, it happens in the physical brain and the physical body.
For most people with PTSD symptoms, some form of body work or connecting to the physical body (aka somatic work) while thinking and talking about the event is necessary to achieve healing.
This kind of somatic approach not only helps to connect fully to the experience of wounding (allowing you to understand it), it also helps your body to orient to the present, it helps the nervous system to shift out of fight/flight/freeze, and it helps your body complete the stress cycle after being activated and triggered.
This is why I always recommend therapies that include a somatic component for trauma survivors. Examples include:
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Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
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Somatic Experiencing
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Internal Family Systems
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Sensorimotor Psychotherapy
Don’t have a therapist? There’s also dozens of ways we can connect to an incorporate bodywork from home! I talked about this in an Instagram post this week, but some other examples include:
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Walking without headphones – noticing your surroundings and your body’s reaction to them (pleasant or unpleasant?)
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Practicing yoga from home – Yoga with Adriene is one of my favorites
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Weight lifting or bodyweight exercises
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Group fitness activities like Zumba or Pilates
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Putting in headphones and allowing your body to move intuitively
All of these strategies help you to connect to the body mindfully. This lays the groundwork for you to be able to feel your emotions in the body (somatically) and find what kinds of movements and body postures help you feel safe, calm, and connected.
Have questions or thoughts? Comment below!
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With love,
Summer
