Somatic Therapy: What is it and Why is it Beneficial?

Something that I’ve been nerding out on and that has been immensely helpful in my personal healing journey and in my work with my clients has been somatic therapy. I think it’s getting more airtime due to TikTok and celebrities and people being more therapy-savvy in general. If you’ve been curious about it too, this blogs for you. 

What is Somatic Therapy? 

Somatic therapy is a way of doing therapy that pays extra attention to your body and its needs and its experiences. Historically, therapy has been very focused on the mind and our thoughts and our stories. This isn’t wrong but it misses a big piece of the puzzle of our mental health and wellbeing. 

Anxiety, depression, ptsd, eating disorders, addictions, and stress involve and impact the body. A lot of our behaviors aren’t driven by how we think but also how we feel and how we want to feel. If we can understand that connection, we can find other ways to help us feel better and also learn how to tolerate our feelings and not be so desperate and reactive with our discomforts.  

What Makes Somatic Therapy Different?

Somatic therapy can feel a little different in sessions than traditional talk therapy. It keeps closer to the present moment than your past or future, and stays closer to your body than your head, and therefore feels a little slower as it can take time to learn to connect to your moment and to your body since our culture doesn’t generally teach us or reinforce us for doing all that. 

One of the goals of somatic work is to become an ally with your body instead of ignoring or controlling it. In somatic therapy we try to respect the body and its experience and its needs. Often our culture supports us dominating our body through diet and exercise and productivity. Or we subdue it with food or alcohol or mindlessly scrolling so we don’t need to pay attention to it when it’s in pain or inconvenient. With somatics we want to build a relationship with the body that is symbiotic and nurturing and helpful and kind. When we work with the body we stop fighting it and learn to work with it. 

 Another aspect of somatic therapy is that it aims to make you and your body the expert, not society or some TikTok clown or your family or even me. You learn to listen to and work with your own unique body and its needs and boundaries and preferences. This has the added bonus of helping reconnecting us to our intuition and rebuilding trust in ourselves and our bodies (which is often lost in trauma). I like psychedelics and ketamine assisted psychotherapy (KAP) for building the connection and trust in our own inner wisdom as well, and actually the blend of somatics and psychedelics are a very potent combo for treating chronic stress, PTSD and CPTSD. But that’s a whole different rabbit hole you can feel free to reach out and set up a time to talk to me about. 

Who Can Benefit from Somatic Therapy?

Because somatic therapy is a great tool to help regulate emotions, build capacity for life, and cultivate a relationship with the body, the short answer is: anyone who’s experienced stress and trauma…which is everyone! Especially those who have had stress and trauma and have had a hard time moving past those events or who have struggled with day to day living and current life as a result of stressors in the past. 

When we have stress and trauma and aren’t connected to our bodies, we habituate to and dissociate from pain and disgust and discomfort. But then we don’t know our boundaries and preferences. We aren’t aware of how alcohol or that relationship or our own cruel words impact us. We also don’t know how good that rest and sunshine and a big laugh can feel either. And so we don’t change anything. But when we can feel how our environment or our thoughts or habits or relationships impact us, we can better navigate how to take care of ourselves. 

Somatic Therapy for PTSD and CPTSD

Trauma induces a stress response of fight, flight freeze, or fawn(people pleasing). That’s not inherently a bad thing, those responses help keep us safe. But ptsd symptoms emerge when we’re not able to perform those responses (your body wants to run but it’s trapped and the energy gets stuck in your body and you feel antsy all the time) and/or we get stuck in the responses (I needed to fight to protect myself but now I’m still braced for a fight even though I’m in a safe environment). When this happens our bodies feel chronically unsafe and dysregulated. 

 If we can’t find safety we are chronically stressed and might develop injury or get sick or develop go distress, migraines, or auto-immune symptoms. If we can’t find safety we can shut down and avoid and feel numb and that looks like depression. Or feel keyed up and tense and get panic attacks. Or we try to avoid the feelings in our body with food or drugs or sex or shopping or scrolling mindlessly online or whatever else. 

With reconnecting to the body, the goal is to be able to get back to the present moment and back to a felt sense of safety after stress. The goal is not to feel good all the time. It’s to have flexibility to hold joy and safety and be able to be with yourself and nurture your body in sadness and fear and anger and shame and also take action when stressful events happen. 

Easy Somatic Exercise to Try

Take a breath and notice your surroundings. Notice where you are and who’s around. Maybe notice the temperature or brightness of the room. Look and see if you can find something in the room that you like. What happens as you look at it? Maybe something softens or expands or feels warm or tingly. See if you can find the place in your body that responds and put your focus there. As you focus, it might change and get bigger or smaller or it might move or might disappear. Just notice. And…you did it. You did some (obviously not all) somatic therapy!

Make Yourself THE Priority

This is going to be the year of putting myself first and I want all of you to do the same. I write a lot about couples, conflict, how to avoid it or recover from it, etc…  However, to be part of a healthy relationship you have to take care of yourself first. YES FIRST.  And don’t tell me you don’t have time, this is a question of priorities and you need to make yourself the top one.  Even just thinking about it gets me happy.  I am devoting this year to me and making it count - my posts will be a reflection of this.

I googled “put yourself first” to see what came up and the search results proved my point exactly.  It’s so important to be kind to yourself, to treat yourself as you treat all the important people in your life (of course I am assuming you are a nice person!).

You suffer when everything else or everyone else comes first.  If you are suffering, you can’t give in the way you intend to the people who matter most.  If you need permission to put the rest of the folks in your life in the back seat, then here is your permission slip... for the rest of your life and especially for 2017.  

Here are some tips to put yourself first or make yourself feel good.  For all of you who feel guilty about this, stop it right now.  If you are exhausted, overwhelmed and stressed out, then this post is for you.  Below are just a handful of ideas on how I like to accomplish this and some links to take you to my favorite resources.

1. Take at least 10 minutes a day to something new or creative - inspired by my fav photographer, Willy - Life Unstill Photography.

2. Say NO, no no no no no.  Being a YES person is exhausting.

3. Put daily rituals in place.  I LOVE this planner... 

4. Forgive yourself when you mess up.

5. Find one thing every day that will make you smile or feel fantastic and do it.  

6. Do something that scares you or makes you uneasy, your brain loves a challenge.  

7. Have time during the day where all electronics are turned off.

8. Find a great podcast that brings you joy and peace (Tara Brach is AMAZING). 

9. Savor your meals - I mean really savor them.  

10. Laugh out loud. This blog does it for me. 

11. Take things off your to-do list that really aren’t important and add in something that replenishes you. Lists will go on forever, so put your important stuff first.  

12. Be in the moment, not in the future.  (again, Tara Brach)

13. You always have choices, make the one that will benefit you most.

14. Get Physical - you all know why.  Find a great gym or find motivation at home.  I hate gyms so I am making plans for my home gym this year.

15. Make plans or let life make them for you.  

16. Lose the people in your life who are downers, nay-sayers, just a drag to be around and the ones who are critical and judgemental.  Those people suck, drop them.

17. Get a candle that smells incredible - get 10 - always have one on hand.  

18. Spend one meal a week with somebody who inspires you to be better, to be more, to live beyond.  If that’s hard, then chat on the phone, go on a walk or connect via text.  But connect.

19. Save all the wonderful emails, cards and messages people send to you and make a journal out of them.  Turn to it when you are feeling blue, you will remember how deeply amazing you are.

20. Pat yourself on the back - you know you deserve it.

21. Make lists of what makes you feel good and keep it handy.  

The message here is to pay attention to yourself, put yourself first and realize why it is so very important.  Make lists, update them, change them and look at them daily.  I like to make my lists in gorgeous journals of which I have far too many, but WTH, I love them and they make me feel great. Please tell me what inspires you and makes you feel great!

If you need help prioritizing you to make your relationship better and stronger, please reach out! I love to help people focus on themselves.

Carrie

Taxidermy Creatures as Service Animals

If you are my friend or my husband, you have heard my rant many times over about what happened to me a few weeks ago and how awful it was.  You don’t need to know who or what, but f&%k her and all the bullshit she spewed my way. What you do need to know is how to help yourself feel better because therapy alone ain't always enough.  (Keep reading 'til you get to the funny part below….)

I am listening to Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson, in which Jenny explores her lifelong battle with mental illness.

I have my own little list of what makes me feel better when I am feeling low or dealing with anxiety, but Jenny’s list is so much better, like off-the-charts better.

My nice and tidy list goes something like this….

• Family

• Friends

• Colleagues

• A tubby

• A shower

• Nature

• Podcasts

• Audio Books

• Cleaning

• Crying

• My dog

• Wine

• Whine

• Comfy clothes

• Yummy smelling lotions

• Therapy - yes therapists have therapists

• My Mom

That list isn’t very inspiring - it’s just comforting.  So I decided to buy a funny book to lift my spirits.  Comfort is good but sometimes you just need a damn good laugh.  I found this book that I thought would just be humorous, but as luck would have it, the book is about Jenny and her diagnoses of about 15 different disorders as determined by therapists and psychiatrists. For all the meds and behavior mods she tries, she has other, sometimes better ways of handling anxiety.  

Here are some of her super-way-better-awesomer-than-mine tactics...

• Carry around a taxidermy creature as a service animal

• Confessing you have some disorder that ends in mania because people automatically back off

• Embrace your crazy

• Get an eating disorder to compensate for the lack of control over your emotions

• Medication

• Shrink visits

• Behavioral Therapy

• Be painfully honest about how crazy you are

• Hide in bathrooms and under tables at important events

• Let it control you when you have no other choice

• Or try being furiously happy - it’s not a cure for mental illness but a weapon designed to counter it.

If you are having a moment, or a week, or a year, buy this book.  I had to turn it off on my way to a session today with a client because I was laughing to the point of hysteria.  I had so many tears running down my face it looked like I was hysterical in a scary I-am-falling-apart kind of way.  I think Jenny Lawson could replace meds for some people, she’s that funny.

Now that we have explored my list vs her list, what’s on your list?

Have Better Sex Tonight with This Trick!

Now that I have your attention....

I want to talk about mindfulness. Not the sexy topic you may have expected, but bear with me, I promise I wasn’t just teasing you with some clickbait blog title.

Sex is pleasurable, fun, connecting, and even spiritual at times. F### what Cosmo or Maxim might say, the way great sex happens is not through circus act moves, fancy positions, or having the perfect body. It comes from being mindful.

Mindfulness is paying attention and choosing your focus and purpose. You can have the best techniques and all the right moves, but if you’re doing your taxes in your head or critiquing the size of your butt, you’re missing out. Being mindful will help you notice your own feelings and pleasure and give you the wherewithal to be able to communicate what you need to be fully present and connected with your partner.  

Now Cosmo and Maxim aren't totally wrong. New moves, exotic smells, and feeling sexy thanks to the latest health and fashion tips may help you to have great sex. But why do they help?? Because trying something new, using your senses, and feeling confident aid us in staying present and being focused on the moment.

But you can’t expect to go around being a mindless robot, thinking of the past, the future or not thinking at all, and then expect to suddenly be good at staying present for sex. That's crazy. We get good at what we practice.

So, since sex sells, here’s reason #592 for practicing mindfulness consistently: being more mindful will make you a better lover! See our quick mindfulness tips to jumpstart your practice. Do this as often as you like to use your five senses to be more aware of the present moment.

5 Tricks to Have Better Sex:

1. Notice 5 things you can see right now

2. Notice 4 things you can hear right now

3. Notice 3 things you can touch right now

4. Notice 2 things you can smell right now

5. Notice 1 thing you can taste right now.

Namaste. Happy practicing!

Four Square Breathing

Four Reasons to Try "Four Square Breathing"

1. It’s easy. If you can count to four and breathe, you can do it.

2. You can do it anywhere. One DBT skill for distress tolerance is distraction. For this you can go for a walk, watch TV, squeeze silly putty, smell flowers, etc. The list is endless (and having all those options is empowering). But you don’t always have the time to go to the gym, or the money to buy an adult coloring book. And, if you’re in a meeting or on a date, let’s face it, playing with a slinky or going around chanting in lotus pose is just plain weird. But no one needs to know that you are controlling your breathing, refocusing, and calming your nervous system as you do four-square breathing.

3. Turns on parasympathetic nervous system. I will spare you the nerdy science, but let’s just say that four square breathing can help take you from frenetic fight/flight/freeze to calm rest/digest/process mode.

4. Gives anxious or obsessive brain a task. If your brain is going a million miles an hour in circles, sometimes it is soothed by doing something basic and concrete. Instead of letting your monkey mind swing from thought to thought, you can focus on counting your breathe and noticing your inhales and exhales. It is difficult for a brain to obsess about the talk you’re about to have or taxes or germ while simultaneously counting your breaths.

How to do Four Square Breathing

1. Breathe in for a count of four

2. Pause for a count of four

3. Breathe out for a count of four

4. Pause for a count of four

5. Rinse and repeat. Do 4 cycles.

Now all you have to do is try it!

Gaslighting in Adult Relationships

Gaslighting is basically crazy making. It typically happens in abusive relationships, relationships where one (or both) partner has an addiction, or if one partner has narcissistic tendencies. It can be a defense strategy (he says "I wasn’t drunk", when he obviously was), a form of manipulation ("I'm worried about you. I hope you haven't told anyone, they'll think you're crazy"), or a result of limited attunement or empathy ("you're just being sensitive"). Sometimes it's blatant. Sometimes it's more tricky to spot. Either way, it has an impact on your health and vitality and is a pattern that needs attention and effort to change.

Because one effect is lack of trust in your perceptions, if you’re being gaslighted, you may be second guess if you’re actually being gaslighted. Here’s a list by Robin Stern, PhD to help.

Signs you may be being gaslighted:                        

• You are constantly second-guessing yourself.

• You start to question if you are too sensitive.

• You often feel confused and have a hard time making simple decisions.

• You find yourself constantly apologizing.

• You can’t understand why you’re so unhappy.

• You often make excuses for your partner’s behavior.

• You feel like you can’t do anything right.

• You often feel like you aren’t good enough for others.

• You have the sense that you used to be a more confident, relaxed and happy person. You withhold information from friends and family so you don’t have to explain things                               

We are here to help. Get in touch and start getting help today. 

Gaslighting - A Form of Manipulation

If you were like me, you had parents who did their best but made mistakes. One mistake that can have lasting impact is invalidating or gaslighting.       

Whats gaslighting

It’s basically crazy making. Its denying or significantly distorting facts and feelings. In my house it looked like not talking about fights or denying fights, being told I was too sensitive, being told that I was selfish for not helping even though I didn't know help was required, being told "I never said that" or "I already told you that". There was a lot of stress in my family and that sometimes left insufficient room for my needs and emotions.           

Is Gaslighting Manipulation?

Gaslighting is often described as a form of emotional abuse and manipulation. But it’s not always so conscious and sinister. Sometimes a parent or caretaker simply doesn't have capacity or skill or emotional space to see our emotion or take our perspective. But regardless, the result of chronic invalidation is that we are left separated for our self, our feelings, and our intuition. The initial anger we may have felt as a kid gets turned inward and manifests in poor self worth, shame, and depression. Most of the people I work with (and in my case as well) deal with that by numbing and soothing those invalidated emotions with food, sex, alcohol, drugs, codependency, etc. I would happily be out of a job if parents would be able to validate their kids emotions.

I think through therapy and work on ourselves we learn to validate ourselves and be comfortable with our own reality and then can we be able to tolerate the feelings and perceptions of others. By doing that we can make an impact on future generations.

Thanksgiving Day Tips for People with Eating Disorders

Thanksgiving can be hard for everyone.

It's a lot of people, a lot of preparation and clean up, and of course there's all manner good old f-ed up family dynamics. But this food focused day can be exceptionally hard for people with eating disorders to navigate. Here's a few quick tips to help you deal with an eating disorder during the holidays.  

1. Keep your routine as normal as possible. Don't restrict or skip meals before dinner. Doing that may make it feel more safe, but it actually sets you up to be more anxious, less present, and more likely to struggle with diner if you go into the meal super hungry.

2. Don't spend extra time around the food. Limit time in prep and clean-up of food. Being around the food more than necessary may keep you focused on food and more likely to be anxious, calorie counting, or triggered to binge. Instead, see if you can spend time with friends and family outside the kitchen. When possible, before and after the meal, distract, distract, distract.

3. Don't drink much, if at all. That will make staying centered and grounded and connected more difficult.

4. Remember that it's just one meal. Regardless of culture and family messages, thanksgiving doesn't have to be a gluttonous free for all. It's just a meal. No need to eat past fullness. That being said, it's just one meal. Even if you eat more than you usually do, you may feel uncomfortable and at the same time you're safe. Your anxiety and fullness will pass. One meal doesn't make or break your life or your body. Usually bodies are far more flexible and forgiving with food than your eating disorder mind is.

5. Try to redirect your focus from food to gratitude and family. Food doesn't have to be the centerpiece of your day. The day originated as a way to celebrate friends and family and give thanks. Don't let your anxiety and eating disorder rob you of that. The meal can be challenging AND you can still feel and focus on gratitude. Be grateful that you have a meal to attend, that you are brave for showing up, that you have values you are moving towards (connection, family, love, humor, integrity, etc.) that are more important than your eating disorder.

If you or a loved one are struggling with an eating disorder, we are here to help. Contact us to schedule a consult.

Therapy as a Part of the Heroines Journey

I had heard of the hero’s journey. It was made popular by Joseph Campbell and is an archetype for human struggle and growth and is the basis for most all stories.

But I hadn’t heard of the heroine’s journey. While the hero’s journey is the archetype of peoples interactions with their life and environment and society, the heroine’s journey is the archetype for peoples struggles with their emotions, needs, intuition, and sense of self. The hero deals with the exterior. The heroine deals with the interior.

I heard about this concept from a podcast (typical Erika). Here is an expert from an article that outlines the steps of the heroines journey.

Note: While this talks about the journey for a heroine with she/her pronouns, it’s not a gendered thing. Men and women and non binary folks in western society lose their feminine selves (connection to emotions and intuition) and over emphasize masculine energy (productivity, busyness, conquering). I bet if you ditch the gendered wording you’ll relate.

”1. ILLUSION OF THE PERFECT WORLD. The heroine has an idea of the world she is living in that is not entirely accurate. She uses coping strategies that she believes will work in the world as they believe it to be. Such coping strategies can include: naivete (nothing will happen to me); men/dominant group will take care of me; I am exceptional and will be “one of the guys” or just simply fit in seamlessly; everything will work out if I can please my mother/father/husband/boss/etc. This is us living as our false self.

2. BETRAYAL/DISILLUSIONMENT. The heroine’s coping strategies fall apart either because she is betrayed by someone, because they realize their coping strategy is toxic/ineffective, or because they realize their assumed world is not what they thought. This may be a loss of some kind, a breakup, divorce or a perceived failure that breaks the heroine down emotionally.

3.THE AWAKENING & PREPARING FOR THE JOURNEY. The heroine may initially become hopeless but eventually she decides to do something about her situation. Others may try to discourage the heroine, but the force of the betrayal or failure pushes her on. The whole direction of her life begins to change. The heroine searches for the tools she needs, but is still looking outside of herself.

4. THE DESCENT—PASSING THE GATES OF JUDGMENT. The heroine experiences fear, abandonment, guilt, and/or shame associated with giving up her old way of being. She may be challenged by the outside world with judgments against her new identity. She may feel guilty or ashamed about sexual desires/expression. Or she may have fears/shame associated with expressing herself honestly and freely, honoring her intuition, setting boundaries, and/or letting go of relationships that aren’t in alignment anymore. Out of fear, she is trying desperately to control life and every aspect of it. As a result, nothing can flow smoothly. The heroine must give up control and all of her strategies/tools/defenses/“weapons” to move forward.

5. THE EYE OF THE STORM. In this stage (which corresponds with Murdock’s Boon of Success) the heroine experiences a small taste of success which brings about a false sense of security. The heroine may experience momentary—but not sustained—success because she is not a vibrational match for this success quite yet. She is still clenching, closing and trying to control. She has more to learn before she finds peace and wholeness.

6.DEATH/ALL IS LOST. In this stage the heroine realizes that her original coping strategies are no longer effective and that her new-found skills/tools/coping strategies are not sustainable. To continue on this way is depleting her energy, and as things get worse, the heroine feels there is no hope. Despite her best efforts, she fails to move forward and is forced to accept defeat. She is finally ready to surrender.

7. SUPPORT. The heroine meets someone (who may be a spirit/goddess/muse within, a friend, family member, love interest, spiritual teacher, coach, or specific resource) who offers support. The heroine embraces the “feminine” aspect of receiving support and accepts that she is not completely self-sufficient. The heroine surrenders as opens herself to receive. She embraces her need for support as a positive thing knowing that she needs to do things differently than she has in the past in order to successfully move forward.

8. REBIRTH/MOMENT OF TRUTH. The heroine finds her strength and resolve with the help of this support. She “awakens” and sees the world and her role within it differently. The heroine understands that brains, heart, and courage will be required, and she begins to face her own fear with compassion.

9. RETURN TO A WORLD SEEN THROUGH NEW EYES. The heroine sees the world for what it is (not better than it is and not worse). Her experience will change others—but receiving recognition for being a change-maker is not the heroine’s priority. The consequences of her experience and awakening may extend beyond her lifetime and into future generations through her children, younger siblings, friendships, etc. The heroine’s reward is spiritual and internal. She now knows herself on a deeper level and is committed to showing up as this centered, compassionate being in the world. This new outlook brings new, more effective strategies for living. I see this play out with myself and clients. People come in to therapy separated from their self. They thought the relationship, or job, or perfect body, or approval of family, or an impressive circle of friends, etc was supposed to be the thing. But in pursuit of that thing, they lose themselves. Some are addicted to substances or food or porn, or maybe numbed out, or just stuck. All are unhappy. Therapy can be a process by which we continue on the journey to ourselves. Spoiler alert: it sucks sometimes. If you’re lucky you reconnect to all your disowned rage and grief which ultimately carves out space for true connection and joy but first feels like a deep dark cave of pain. As someone’s who’s spent much more than one dark night of the soul in a dark cave, and will undoubtably go back another time or twenty, my favorite job is to be a tour guide and companion to the cave, and in the cave, and finally, at your pace, out of the cave. Basically, I’m loving the framework of the heroines journey as a blueprint. It feels more predictable and hopeful. I hope it resonates with someone else out there as well!”

We are all people on a journey, and whether you believe it or not, we all have both a hero’s and heroine’s journey to walk. If you need help figuring out the details of yours, I am here for you. Individual therapy can help you come to terms with your journey. Reach out to me today.