Somatic Awareness: Learning how to read your body’s story
Throughout my practice as a somatic trauma therapist, I see patients whose painful experiences muted their connection to the body. For trauma survivors, focusing on their body sensations - even if only for a brief second - can become extremely overwhelming because it brings them back to their experiences of being neglected, abandoned, or abused.
I’m writing this piece to explore the concept of somatic awareness and to help trauma survivors understand why this practice holds the key to understanding emotions, traumas, and overall well-being.
Somatic awareness helps individuals engage in open, non-judgmental attention to the experience of the body as it unfolds. Somatic awareness involves paying attention to the sensations and signals our bodies send us. It's an intuitive process that enables us to connect with our emotions, thoughts, and experiences on a deeper level.
Unlike traditional forms of communication, the story of our bodies is written and experienced through sensations, tensions, movements, and breathing. Practicing somatic awareness allows us to process and understand our own story eventually allowing us to respond to our own body needs.
Your therapist’s patience and persistence are crucial elements in this practice; we as therapists develop these attributes through our own exercise of somatic awareness. My experience, including my body-listening journey, has been a core part of developing resonance with my patients and attaining the trust of their protective parts, the parts that served them to disengage with their bodies' to survive; without this trust, getting into the more vulnerable stories is not possible.
My own journey of listening to my body included listening to my thyroid disease and hip pain symptoms, amongst other symptoms in my body for the last eight years. I connected with these parts of me, instead of trying to get rid of them, and was forced by their wisdom to slow down, becoming acquainted with my vibrations, skin, breath, joints, muscles, and aches to experience the narrative that my body has been holding. I've experimented with movements that feel good for my body. Activities like dancing, yoga, running, and hiking, have been wonderful for me. Breathing practices have allowed me to engage, mourn, and shake the fear and pain underneath my bodily symptoms, to ultimately understand that my emotional scars and my body expressions are one and the same.
As therapists, when we connect to our self-energy and ground in our somatic awareness we are able to navigate our client’s protective parts. These protective parts hold the belief that they need to block awareness of the body; we help people become open, curious, and compassionate towards the sensations in their bodies. To slowly access the vulnerable stories in their body, and create new neural pathways that eventually replace the trauma-related pathways.
Here are some practical tools you can engage with to start developing Somatic Awareness on your own:
Mindful Breathing: Become aware of your habitual patterns of breathing: quality, depth, pace, rhythm, location, body movement, etc. What differences do you feel between inhaling and exhaling? Are you curious about a particular aspect of your breathing?
Mindfulness of habitual movements: Select a habitual movement you want to explore, things like hand gestures, sitting or standing positions, walking patterns, etc. Notice how you feel about your movements. Mindfully repeat the movement being open to images, thoughts, words or emotions that seem connected to the movement. What meaningful information does this movement have for you?
Self touch: Awaken awareness in your hands by rubbing the palms of your hands together, and slowly brush your hand over your entire body. Get curious about sensations in your hands and the sensory responses to touch all over your body. Bring your focus and open curiosity to this place in your body and explore what kind of touch it might want. Listen with your hands and your heart for emotions, thoughts, images, and words that arise in response to the touch. Are there places in your body your hands want to return to?
As we continue to prioritize the integration of mind, body, and spirit in our therapeutic practice and life, we embrace the journey of somatic awareness as a path toward resilience and self-discovery. Honoring the intelligence of our bodies empowers us to navigate life's challenges with greater clarity, compassion, and authenticity.
Check in with yourself now. How are you feeling? Need some extra support? Does somatic therapy sound like something you are interested in? Reach out today for a free 30-minute consultation to discover how trauma therapy can help you reach your wellness goals.
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