When working with clients who have or continue to suffer with stress, anxiety or trauma involves a great deal of empathy, kindness and developing a delicate manner. Stress and trauma creates a huge impact on the nervous system. It changes the actions and behaviour of the muscular system due to the influence the limbic system (CLICK HERE to read more) and the postural reflexes have on a soma (whole person, mind and body).

To read more about postural stress reflexes, CLICK HERE.

By educating clients to start sensing and feeling their soma again can be quite an emotional challenge. Some people may be afraid ‘to go there.’ If this is the case, do not think about the thoughts. Encouraging a client to notice their body sensations is a really important step to helping them sense and feel their entire soma again. Often trauma and stress can cause a person to be very ‘cerebral’ and live in their head, completely unaware of how their body is feeling. This is a survival mechanism, however it is only designed to be for short periods, not for decades.

Stop and notice

What can you do to become re-acquainted with your soma? Notice the sensations within your body. Notice the ‘weightedness’ on the floor, which areas are in closer contact to the floor or feel heavier?, Notice the temperature of your body, the level of tension through your body. Then by developing deep rhythmical breaths, feel the difference between effort felt on the inhale and how heavy and relaxed your body felt after exhaling. Notice if you are making a grunting sound or any sound at all when you exhale. If you do, notice that this is creating tension within your throat. Could you exhale silently, like a quiet sigh? If we are truly relaxed in our throat, our exhale is quiet.

Try it out for yourself! Exhale with tension in your throat. Notice the sound. If you hold your emotion within your throat and suffer with neck pain, these could be subtle signs of repressed emotion, not feeling you have a say or voice. So to fully relax your throat as you exhale is very important to teach this area to fully relax.

To read more about repressed emotions, CLICK HERE.

I find creating gentle approaches using education to empower clients to sense and feel themselves again is crucial for anxious, stressed or traumatised people. The reason being, they try to suppress their inner turmoil, and never really enjoy living in their skin and being true to themselves. Suppressing emotional trauma will eventually rear it’s head as Chronic fatigue syndrome, autoimmune disorders and fibromyalgia, just to name a few.

Until clients know how to fully sense and feel their soma, emotionally, mentally and physically, they will continue to live on high alert with their neurobiology being frozen in time, repeating subconsciously the same physiological actions created by trauma over and over again.

I have an audio which has been popular over time with clients. I receive many emails from clients telling me that they enjoy listening to the following audio to help them re-connect. Also the binaural rhythm within the music helps to slow down your brain waves so you can switch your nervous system from a stress cycle to “rest and digest.” It is best to listen to it with headphones so you can gain greater benefits from the binaural rhythm.

Would you like to learn how to reduce pain, increase mobility, improve posture and develop mindfulness? I have created The Total Somatics Approach to Health & Wellness Online Program at www.TotalSomatics.com. Within the program you will have access to lots of supportive material in various forms which in some cases are downloadable to help you apply what you learn into your daily activities.

Would you like to know more about Somatics? Have you downloaded my FREE eBook? If not, CLICK HERE to receive your FREE copy.

I look forward to teaching you these amazing skills.
Take care,
Heidi Hadley xx
www.TotalSomatics.com