This is very important for you to understand before you start your somatic therapy journey.
Each journey is unique. How people register what their body is saying, how subtle those signals are, and how strongly they are felt is entirely personal.
We will be inviting your system to let go of things you’ve held onto because you couldn’t process them in the moment they happened. This means we are likely to come across things that feel big and uncomfortable.
In session
We will always work slowly, staying within your tolerance for what comes up. But letting these things leave can be ugly. Not always, and not for everyone. But you need to know that things like being in a collapse on the floor, squirming around, crying, and shaking, are all perfectly ok.
Too many people worry about what they look like in a session. Leave that worry behind. It’s just you and me. I’ve seen it all. If it gets ugly, it’s ok! If it happens, let it happen. Please.
Outside of our sessions
In the real world. You will feel more. How that happens within you, is unique to you.
But go in knowing that we are strengthening the mind-body connection, and this leads to more of all the feels!
It also leads to better emotional regulation. But that takes time.
In the meantime, things can be bumpy! Get ready for it.
Ideas for ways to prepare for this
Allowing yourself space to have a wobbly moment or day.
Examples to consider
- Have someone on hand to pick up the kids.
- Letting colleagues, friends, partners, family, housemates know you’re having somatic therapy and you may need some support or time to process.
- Use mental health days off, or work from home.
- Set up a person/people who knows your world, and that you feel comfortable talking through the changes that happen over your therapy. Make time to talk to them.
- Go slow. Give yourself permission to need space and healing time.
When we start touching on things in sessions, the therapy doesn’t stop when you leave the therapy room. The nervous system is slow, and you’ll feel things shift and change over the following days/weeks/months.
Healing can be uncomfortable.
Needing more rest.
Healing can be tiring. Your body may need more softness, quiet and recovery than you expected.
Noticing your triggers.
You may become more aware of what activates you.
This doesn’t mean you’re getting worse. It may mean you’re starting to see things in a new light.
Setting boundaries… and not necessarily getting it right the first time.
This might be new to you. Or you maybe making ones you would never have considered before.
You might stumble, over explain, or change your mind.
That’s ok, you’re practicing.
Grieving what you needed but didn’t receive.
Healing can bring grief for the support, safety, protection, love or understanding you should have had
Anger.
Rage even. It tends to surface as you heal. It’s important to allow it to have its place. It’s the rage that lives beneath survival. When you realise how much of your life was shaped by someone else’s dysfunction.
- It’s not going to be smooth or pretty.
- Healing is not linear, but it is still healing.
- You are not failing because it feels messy.
- You are meeting parts of yourself that had to wait to be heard.
- Be kind to yourself as you go through it.
In the groggy times, it may feel like you want to step away from somatic therapy. Or maybe that it’s not the right therapy for you.
This isn’t the time to have a break or stop!
It means we’re touching on things! We’re best to keep going until you feel we have reached the other side of the groggy patch. Then take a break.
Leaving you in a groggy patch with no support isn’t nice. Don’t do it to yourself. Talk to me, book in, get through it together.