Somatic therapy is holistic, and body-based. It focuses on releasing trauma housed in the body, regulating the nervous system, and building skills in awareness, and present moment focus. It is a bottom up approach focusing on movement and sensation in the body. Somatic therapy concepts include, resourcing, grounding in the here and now, using descriptive language, movement, co-regulation, self-regulation, titration and pendulation, sequencing, boundary setting, mindfulness, somatic awareness, and embodiment. Embodiment and awareness are a master tool for personal enrichment and self-discovery, crucial in regulating stress and healing trauma.

Embodiment is looking within, being able to notice and be attune with the inner sensations of our being. To feel ourselves is to know ourselves. With embodiment comes healing and wellness, with disembodiment comes pathology and illness. When we are disconnected to our bodies they are perceived as objects rather than living entities. The way we know we’re alive is rooted in our capacity to feel, to our depths, the physical reality of aliveness embedded within our bodily sensation – though direct experience. This is embodiment.

Embodiment can be expressed and understood through movement. Awareness transcends the aspect as self to become fluid in the environment as a whole. It is the energy of the universe, felt within ourselves. The organic connection to nature, life, self, others, and spirituality. It is the balance of sensation inside and outside the organism.

Somatic therapies also include attention to interoceptors and exteroceptors, the two categories of senses corresponding to the two branches of the sensory nervous system. Exteroceptors are associated with the five senses: sight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell. Interoceptors include less recognized sensations, including the vestibular sense (balance) and proprioception (internal body sensations and the ability to locate your body in space). Somatic therapy seeks to integrating all aspects of our being into one holistic self through awareness, mindfulness, and resourcing. Somatic resources (body posture, gesture, and movement) such as feeling the ground under one’s feet, placing a hand over the heart, lengthening the spine, turning toward or away, moving closer or farther are used to regulate arousal. Mindfulness is utilized to connect, re-organize and become present in the here and now, it aids in stabilization of the automatic nervous system, restoring states of calm, and it allows feeling of emotions without flooding.

Working in the present moment, honoring the current emotional and physical reactions one can become friends with their past and present self, and generate a sense of dual awareness, feeling and experiencing a holistic connection between emotional and bodily feelings.