Heal Your Nervous System with Somatic Wisdom

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Our bodies hold infinite wisdom. They know how to heal, release trauma, and regulate. They hold the key to our transformation; we no longer need to be chained to or weighed down by fear, stress, & trauma. By listening to this innate wisdom, we can go from surviving (just trying to make it through our days) to thriving (truly loving our lives and experiencing authentic joy).

How do we listen to this wisdom and alchemize our fear into joy and peace? Somatic therapy is a healing modality that does just that by honoring our body’s wisdom and allowing our nervous system to guide us toward healing. Through somatics, we learn to trust our body’s wisdom, listen to its messages, and release stuck survival energy that no longer serves.

But what exactly is somatic therapy? We’ll dive into the basics first, but to fully understand somatic healing, it’s important to understand how the nervous system functions. From there, we’ll dive into the methodology of somatic therapy, which is how to work with the body to regulate the nervous system and heal trauma.

What is Somatic Healing?

In essence, somatics is a body-based healing modality that focuses on nervous system healing and regulation. Through scientific techniques and the art of self-awareness and expression, somatic therapy helps regulate the nervous system by purging stuck survival energy. By doing so, there’s a sense of completion and relief in the body. This is achieved through various pathways, such as intentional movement, visualization, breathwork, and more.

With somatic practices, we communicate with our nervous system through our body and teach it to release and relax. Through practice and intention, somatics is about teaching the body and subconscious mind that it is safe to both feel and be safe.

When we teach/show the nervous system and subconscious mind that it is safe, we skillfully rewire our nervous system in a way that allows us to go from surviving to thriving.

In this way, somatic therapy gets to the root of the nervous system pattern causing anxiety, depression, or any other symptom of nervous system dysregulation. These practices are deeply transformative. They can lead to healthier relationships with self and others, as well as more joy, playfulness, confidence, motivation, energy, patience, peace, and so much more.

Somatics is about learning to listen and notice your body’s cues to discern when you’re in an activated sympathetic nervous system state (or survival response). It is a modality that teaches you how to work with your nervous system patterns. As such, it’s incredibly important to understand how the nervous system functions and its patterns of dysregulation.

How the Nervous System Functions

The nervous system is the body’s command center that permeates and influences every organ and musculoskeletal system. Everything is connected to the nervous system, including every physiological and psychological function, such as thoughts, movement, breathing, heart rate, the senses, digestion, how the body responds to stress, and more.

Because it affects every aspect of our health, the health of the nervous system determines the health of the whole body, to a certain extent. That’s why it’s so important for us to tend to and regulate our nervous system, for if it is chronically dysregulated, we can suffer from a variety of psychological, emotional, spiritual, and physical symptoms.

This is where somatic therapy comes in and can be so helpful. But before we jump back into somatics, let’s dive deeper into the nervous system, such as the difference between the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems and how the body responds to trauma.

The Parasympathetic and Sympathetic Nervous System

Our central nervous system is composed of the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems. When we encounter a stressful experience, whether psychological or physical, our body adjusts and adapts to confront the source of the stress.

It “confronts” the stress by switching to the sympathetic nervous system, which stimulates nervous system activity and activates the adrenal gland to release the hormones epinephrine (adrenaline) and norepinephrine.

When epinephrine is released and circulates throughout the body, it increases heart rate, blood pressure, and surface constriction of blood vessels, which directs the blood away from the skin and sends it to the muscles. When blood is directed away from the skin to the muscles, it delivers more oxygen and sugar. Blood and life force energy is also directed away from the immune system and digestive organs and sent to the muscles.

The body intelligently directs blood to the muscles because when faced with a threat, it isn't a top priority for the body to digest food or be alert for pathogens. Rather, the top priority is to survive. These physiological responses give the body the energy to run or fight, as in the fight-or-flight response (which also includes the freeze response).

The parasympathetic nervous system is the natural state of being that our body returns to and is termed the rest and digest state. We need to be in the parasympathetic nervous system to relax, digest and metabolize nutrients, sleep, support immune system activity, and feel peaceful and happy.

From a primal and instinctual perspective, the sympathetic response is highly beneficial and crucial for survival. It isn’t that the sympathetic is “bad” and the parasympathetic is “good.” They both play a part in healthy nervous system function.

However, when the threat continues or we experience frequent triggers, the body releases cortisol to “stay on alert.” When the sympathetic nervous system is chronically activated and switches on even when there isn’t an actual threat, it can be detrimental to our health.

Our bodies are not designed to be in the sympathetic nervous system for long periods. When we experience increased and continual stress, we develop several psychological and physiological symptoms.

Moreover, when there is chronic stress due to trauma stored in the body, the nervous system becomes depleted, weakened, or dysfunctional. This results in the sympathetic nervous system being triggered easily and more frequently. In other words, our nervous system isn’t able to strengthen and rebound when faced with too many stressors and becomes weakened over time.

The Nervous System and Trauma

In learning to regulate our nervous system with somatic healing, it’s also important to understand how the nervous system responds to trauma. Trauma is not an event in and of itself. It’s not the thing that happened, rather, trauma is your body—your nervous system’s—response to that event.

When something traumatic happens, the nervous system holds the memory of that event, including the memory of the physical and psychological response your body had at the moment of the event. One of the functions of the nervous system is to keep you safe. In that traumatic experience, your nervous system learned that XYZ wasn’t safe.

So, to keep you safe, the body then made an agreement with itself to respond & “protect” you from anything that triggers the feeling of being unsafe as it relates to the past experience of XYZ. Even though the threat is no longer here in the present, our nervous system is still behaving from that place, which more than likely, no longer serves.

In essence, survival energy can get stuck in the body, which can make your nervous system respond to triggers, even if there is no apparent threat. It makes no difference to the nervous system whether the threat is real or “imagined.”

For instance, if you’re lying in bed and imagine someone breaking into your home, your body will respond to the threat whether or not someone is actually breaking into your home. That is how powerful our mind-body connection is through the nervous system.

With somatic therapy, we teach our body—our nervous system—that it is safe to both feel discomfort and stress when it serves, same as it is safe to be safe.

Again, it isn’t that we want to always stay in the parasympathetic state, rather we simply want to bring a more balanced and easeful transition between the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system without it getting stuck. You can imagine this movement like a sound wave: sympathetic activation is going up, and parasympathetic activation is going down.

This up-and-down movement of the nervous system is called titration. It is always doing this, and somatics helps us to identify our nervous system’s current titration pattern so we can bring it into a more balanced & resilient place.

Understanding Nervous System Titration Patterns

Imagine a horizontal line and a sound wave dipping above and below that line. This image represents a balanced or regulated titration pattern. You’ll want to keep this image in mind to help you understand what a dysregulated nervous system pattern looks and feels like.

In the somatic healing modality, there are primarily three patterns of dysregulation: anxiety, suppression (or depression), and the global activation pattern. These patterns describe how and where our nervous system is currently titrating in and out of activation & regulation. Understanding and recognizing these patterns is one of the first steps to regulating and healing our nervous system.

With the anxiety pattern, the titration, or sound wave, is rising and falling above the horizontal line of balance. This pattern is developed when we lean towards and live in more of a fight response. With this response, there’s an urge to move towards the threat or stimulation to create safety.

Generally, the fight response moves up the body: energy rises into the chest, arms, hands, and face. The desire of the nervous system in this response is to engage with the threat; whether that is literally fighting or simply engaging with (conversation, setting a boundary, leaning into the feelings & sensations of discomfort, etc.).

With the suppression (also known as the depression) pattern, the titration is happening below the horizontal line. With the suppression pattern, the nervous system has learned to avoid stimulation via the flight response. There’s a desire or urge to move away from the source of discomfort or stress.

Energy moves down the body into the legs, feet, and toes like it is preparing the body to run (isn’t that so fascinating?). You can see cues for this response with the legs bouncing or feet tapping. A person with this activated pattern might physically lean away from the source of stress, and their eyes might dart toward the exits or windows (as if they’re subconsciously planning their escape.)

The third pattern is the global activation pattern, which generally develops at a very young age, usually preverbal. With this pattern, the nervous system has learned to skyrocket into activation in order to find relief, which then plummets their nervous system down to the other side into suppression/depression. This pattern is a bit more extreme in its movements, with dramatic activation and suppression.

At the top of the anxiety pattern and the bottom of the depression pattern is the freeze response. In other words, when our nervous system becomes over or underwhelmed, it can “shut down” into the freeze or hide response.

Another way to look feel into this survival response is through the experience of dissociation; which can leave you feeling numb, spacey, distracted, confused, & forgetful. When you “thaw” or “melt” from the freeze, your nervous system will either come back down into a fight response or rise back up into a flight response before it can come back into regulation.

The goal for each dysregulation pattern is to move towards balanced regulation through awareness and honoring our body’s innate wisdom.

The Goal of Somatic Healing

In essence, somatics aims to teach the nervous system to regulate and create safety in the body. The first step to regulating the nervous system is noticing when it is activated and then noticing which pattern the activation is in.

When activated, the nervous system wants to complete the response it is in. Somatic practices give us the framework and tools to do this in a safe, conscious, and embodied way. With this being said, when our nervous system is dysregulated (titrating above or below the balanced horizontal line in either an anxiety or suppression pattern) it’s just as important to prioritize the balancing/regulating of our titrations. To bring this balance, we must train our nervous system back towards “center.”

With the anxiety pattern, the nervous system has learned to keep itself “safe” by moving towards the thing, which has consequently trained itself to be in constant activation. Because the nervous system finds comfort and “safety” in what is known and “normal,” it now deems the lack of stimulation associated with actual safety and regulation to not be safe. To bring regulation, we must teach the nervous system that it is indeed safe to be safe. We do this by training the nervous to be able to tolerate more and more safety before allowing it to complete fight responses.

For the suppression pattern, the goal is to teach the body that it is safe to feel. It is safe to move toward the source of stress or discomfort. We do this by inviting and allowing ourselves to lean into, be with, and stay in the discomfort of feeling and facing the threat. It’s not that we’re dishonoring our nervous system’s response to flee, but rather to strengthen its capacity to tolerate and find safety in being with stimulation.

As you can see, with the anxiety pattern we are moving the pattern down (moving away from the activation) to reach the balance line. And with the suppression pattern, we’re moving up towards the balance line (moving towards the source of stress). This is the main goal of somatic healing: moving towards a balanced and regulated nervous system so we can complete stuck survival responses & purge stuck survival energy that is no longer serving us.

Healing Through The Five Channels of Awareness

Somatic therapy is both a science and an intuitive art. So far, our main focus has been on the science of somatic healing, but the practice is where we discover the art form of intuitive healing and discovery.

Somatic practices are done through the five channels of awareness, also known as the SIBAM model. The five channels of awareness include the mind, imagination, posture, emotion, and sensation.

The mind or mental channel refers to our thoughts, such as cognizing our experiences. The imagination channel uses our visionary and imaginative faculties. The posture channel uses body movement and specific postures for somatic release. The emotion channel focuses on emotions (anger, sadness, grief, etc), and the sensation channel focuses on our physical & internal sense of feeling within the body (hot, cold, tingly, sharp, dull, expansion, contraction, etc.).

These channels of awareness are how we communicate with the nervous system and unconscious through the body to process and release stuck survival energy. In other words, these different channels of awareness are what we use to digest the experience that we’re having so that we can complete the survival response. This is how we honor the nervous system and allow it to do what it needs to healthily purge the energy that doesn’t serve and experience healing somatic release.

Join The Shadow•n•Soul Community to Experience Somatic Practices and Workshops

Somatic therapy provides transformational healing by honoring our body & experience and getting to the root of the issue. Many of our emotional, psychological, and even physical challenges in life are rooted in nervous system imbalance. If the nervous system is dysregulated, it affects the entire body and our psyche.

As such, when we address and release stuck survival energy, we not only help heal our nervous system, but we also heal past wounds, release baggage that no longer serves, improve our relationships, and so much more. We go from surviving to truly and authentically thriving.

Ready to dive even deeper into somatic healing by experiencing it first hand? We got you! Below are a few great places to start...

Somatic Healing & Coaching Sessions
Somatic Healing & Coaching is a nervous system-led, trauma-informed offering that supports and enhances your innate ability to regulate, heal, and thrive.

Working Out & In: A Somatic Health Coaching Series
Gain instant access with this deeply healing & transformative series that helps you tend to your temple & somatically release that which is holding you back from living your most vibrant & fulfilling life.

Live-streamed Classes & Workshops
Join us from the comfort of your home for masterfully guided & somatically infused experiences like High Intensity Temple Tending, Yoga, Ecstatic Dance, & Embodiment Workshops.

What is Somatic Healing?
In this episode of the Shadow•n•Soul Story Time Podcast, Rayneen teaches you the foundations of Somatic Therapy. From the science & art of it to personal stories & shares, this conversation offers an abundance of information, insight, & opportunities to feel in for YOU.

Whether you join us for one of our offerings or tune into the podcast, we’re so glad you’re here and are honored to be a part of your somatic healing and soulful living journey.

With love,

Rhianna Quanstrom