Healing begins with curiosity and discovering what best supports YOU on your unique journey.
The HEAL YOU newsletter is dedicated to helping you heal chronic stress, trauma, and nervous system dysregulation, with a special focus on the lasting impact of loving someone struggling with addiction.
Welcome to this research informed newsletter to deepen your understanding of various healing modalities and discover what resonates most with you (this is a no AI zone, evidence-informed research only!!).
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A Simple Explanation
I’m always asked, what does somatic mean? What kind of healing or therapy is it? How is it different than traditional therapy? So, here’s my elevator speech…
“Somatic therapy, workshops, any somatic work can help build awareness the mind and body, since they are a “team player” in our experiences here as a human. The mind does the thinking, helping us to figure out the details of our day and lives, planning and preparing, helping us survive, telling the body what to move and when, etc. The body takes in the cues from the brain and then tells the body how to respond or react to the current perceived experiences. Often, the body, and its senses, are the first to get ignored, when in the past they have needed to be ignored for survival. Think about all the difficulties us humans experiences, and why it would be helpful to “turn off” the cues to the body to protect survival…… this includes traumas, adverse childhood experiences, living around those that struggle with addictions or mental health concerns, the passing of loved ones, etc. Somatic therapy is healing the connection between the mind and body. Helping those who have lost the connection to listen to the mind and/or the body. Because sometimes the narratives of experiences, those beautiful stories and ways you navigated your body, were exactly what helped you get through the difficulties. Through this lens, somatics is the process back to healing that connection, increasing awareness of the patterns controlling both the mind and body, and finding ways through the senses to help people understand how to best rewire their patterns that no long serve current functioning (and often, the old patterns that once were really helpful to survival, are actually detrimental to survival currently).”
Again, I say this so often……the “somatic therapy” approach I use is different for everyone, because every is SO DIFFERENT! Each of us are attuned to the senses differently, and with various relationships and stages of the mind body connection journey, the level or access to the connection, varies. I’ll add right here, that sometimes, for some people, this awareness of the mind and body, can lead to a deeper connection to spirit or soul as well. Hence, sometimes you hear the “mind, body, soul connection” used together. I’ll admit, this somatic work has led to great soul connection for myself, something that came as a great surprise, after my very intentional separation from any religion affiliation decades ago (that is another lengthy story for a later newsletter).
After my elevator speech introduction to somatic, my version of it’s definition verbally reproduced in just 3-5 minutes, I get many variations of responses, and most go like this…
“Hmmm….ok.....” confusing looks continue to engulf the individual as the exact nature of the practices or what my language that I’ve vomited out to them may mean…..they are confused on the jargon, but really want to understand, so they sit in a bit of perplexity as I continue to unfold the process. I hav found this excerpt from author Rochelle Clavert’s book “Healing with Nature: Mindfulness and Somatic Practices to Heal from Trauma”, very helpful in explaining somatic healing:
“Depleting our internal resources in the pursuit of personal goals can lead to strained mental and emotional states, bodily dysregulation, and disharmony in relationships. This is particularly true if we try to push through, control, ignore, and suppress experiences of trauma. The good news is that the body, like other natural systems, has self-repair mechanisms: it is inherently designed to organize itself toward healing. For example, the body has mechanisms for killing cancer cells, fighting infectious agents, and repairing damaged proteins, to name just a few…..We have seen the value of establishing mindful awareness in healing from trauma. As you continue to develop awareness of your body, mind, and heart, you develop a sense of being “embodied”— present to and at home in your body from moment to moment, and feeling all mental, emotional, and physical sensations safely. This sense of embodiment helps us make healthy and skillful life choices. As you increase your sense of embodiment through awareness practices, you begin to heal your trauma….Healing somatically means moving with awareness toward the trauma stored in your body, locating and knowing intimately the places in your body where trauma is stored, being willing to explore barriers related to the stored trauma, being open to new sensations and experiences in the body, and awakening new impulses for health and wholeness.”
When we live disconnected from our body, or I like to think of it as the body is “turned-off”, the senses are working, but the message to the brain are not getting through, then the mind has to take up the brunt of the work to navigate choices and actions. According to Calvert, the body is where the traumatic wounds are stored, yet it’s also where the healing occurs. Increasing the awareness of the body, relearning to listen to the senses, understanding and attuning to the cues of the body can help to discover the patterns that keep us stuck in habits, routines, and cycles that are no longer helpful.
The body always leads us home…if we can simply learn to trust sensation and stay with it long enough for it to reveal appropriate action, movement, insight, or feeling. — Pat Ogden
And here is the part I love the most about all of this work, as Pat put it, the trusting of sensations within the body increases with this work, TRUSTING yourself to move through life, with this mind and BODY, to pause and notice what’s really happening within your situation, so you can listen and make a different choice. One that is more in alignment with values and dreams, not one that’s working from faulty programing and hijacked from past experiences. And, side note, I always like to look at this faulty programming with SO. MUCH. COMPASSION. Never judgement. The faulty programming is just the byproduct of the past, and deserves to be understood with compassion.
Another beautiful way of understanding the benefits of somatics was discussed in Amanda Williams book “Somatic Movement Dance Therapy: The Healing Art of Self-Regulation and Co-Regulation”. Here, the author shares how anguish and strain are held within nervous system, and over time they become a pattern in which talking alone (talk-therapy) makes it sometimes difficult to heal traumas, because the trauma reside within the tissues of the body. They go on to share that with somatic movement, deep release of stress held within the tissues, can offer participants a completely different sense of self, one that is more expansive, peaceful and socially engaged.
Somatic modalities can be used to support healing and access changes through deeper understanding of where, within the body, patterns and energy are stored. Though remember, it’s not a linear process, and movement therapies can help support healing without having to know exactly within the body stress has been stored too. Movement, just the movement without the explanation can help heal too.
Awaken awareness within the mind and body connection, so you can cultivate compassion of your patterns and make different choices led with insight and clarity.
Awaken awareness. Cultivate Compassion.
I love this work. I love it for myself. I love it for my clients. It is empowering to find compassion for the self, and all the billions of patterns that have accumulated over the lifetime thus far, and find ways to change and rewrite the next chapters of life.
Let’s pause for second, and not get too carried away, it sounds kinda like rainbows and butterflies in this simple explanation. “Yay, I’ll get more in touch with my mind-body connection, then I’ll be able to rewire my shitty patterns, and not have to struggle anymore…..yayyyy…..” PAUSE…..a realistic truth is this, somatic therapy, like any therapy, is a long and often arduous journey. Making lots of trips down the current “faulty pattern path”, slowly adjusting and finding ways to navigate with new tools.
It can feel easy and smooth with patterns changing with ease, and other times agonizingly slow and painful, patterns holding on with GREAT might!
It can feel extremely hopeful, and other times daunting and overwhelming.
It can feel silly and fun, and often thick like crawling through dark periods of heavy sticky tar.
And, is it worth it?
For me, a big HELL YES (I mean, makes sense this is my perspective as this has been a huge player in my healing, finding and reconnecting the mind and body). For many of my friends in the healing world and community, a big HELL YES (again, not surprising, as they too have found the body has brought them back to their mind, body and spirit connection).
So, as always, I encourage curiosity. Somatic, aka mind-body-soul connection, can be supported in SO MANY WAYS!!!! Here’s just a few ways to start increasing your mind-body connection: yoga of various sorts, breathwork, Thai chi, sensory exercises, mindfulness walking (most mindfulness activities work towards this increase awareness), and meditation. Last weeks newsletter discussed more ways in which I’ve healed, and so many are somatic based with increasing awareness to the mind and body. And we will keep diving into the various modalities weekly! Next week we will go into Yoga Nidra, a favorite of mine for sure!
When I first started my journey, I didn’t know I was doing “somatic healing” each time I walked into a yoga session, or used my senses to guide choices, or increased awareness with my mind body connection. I know this is just the iceberg explanation of “somatic”, and I’ll be discussing various forms of somatic work in upcoming newsletters as well what it was like to experience somatic events or therapy, so you can have a better understanding of what to expect if you decide to try some options for yourself.
AND, again and always, thanks for being here. Thanks for embarking on your own healing. It is the most brave work you can do, and we are all better off when we are all showing up and working on the hard stuff.
Sending so much light and love,
Heidi
Website to access all the happnenings ---> lifenflow.com
1) DIY: FREE 40 day Somatic Practice ---> LINK HERE
2) DIY: Year of Somatic Daily Practice Library with Workbook ---> LINK HERE
3) Individual Somatic Therapy ---> Space Opening Soon!
Private 1:1 therapy sessions offering personalized support through compassionate, trauma-informed care, somatic practices, and mindful exploration to help you reconnect with yourself, gain clarity, and cultivate meaning (ONLY in person and online for clients within Wyoming).
4) Retreats ---> LINK HERE
Immersive Somatic and Breathwork experiences designed to reconnect you with your body, regulate your nervous system, and cultivate healing through breath, movement, mindfulness, and embodied awareness. All are welcome!
SUBMERGE Alaska 2026 - Registration open!! ---> LINK HERE
ONLY ONE SPACE LEFT!!!!
SUBMERGE Tulum 2027 - Registration open!! --->LINK HERE
ONLINE MEETINGS:
1) The Heart of Recovery -
A weekly meeting that joins Buddhist meditation and spiritual step work, in order to connect to and engage in a commitment to recovery from addiction, and the everyday addictive behaviors and patterns in our lives. Anyone is invited to participate. Learn more here.
2) Al-Anon Meetings -
Al-Anon is a mutual support group for those that live around addiction. Anyone who's lives have been affected by another person’s addiction is welcome. Online electronic meeting information found here.
ADDITIONAL SUPPORT:
1) Podcast: HOPESTREAM - Hopestream Community™ is the not-for-profit destination for support, education and resources for parents of teens and young adults struggling with substance misuse and mental health challenges.
2) Website: SAMHSA - Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administraion -Resource for Families coping with mental health and substance abuse disorders.
3) Website: RECOVERY RESEARCH INSTITUTE - A Guide for family members.
4) Books: Titles that might help you understand addiction and various forms of healing modalities:
Codependent No More - Melody Beattie
In The Realm of Hungry Ghosts - Gabor Mate, M.D.
You Can Heal Your Life - Louise Hay
The Untethered Soul - Micheal Singer
The Body Keeps the Score - Bessel Van Der Kolk, M.D.
What Happened to You - Bruce D, Perry , M.D. Ph.D.
The Dance of Anger - Harriet G. Lerner, Ph.D.
A Monks Guide to Happiness - Gelong Thubten
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