How many of us experience full body awareness? ~exploring somatic therapy and mind-body connection

💭Documenting my ongoing journey of exploring somatic therapy and mind-body connection/connecting as it feels like the experience ebs and flows.

We often learn about subjects in a compartmentalised way. For example, we learn about our physical health separate from our mental health or historical events separate from inequality.

This can sometimes disconnect us from the way in which everything connects.

Within the abundance of mental health conversations, the body is often left behind. We acknowledge the physical symptoms related to specific mental health challenges, however, we don’t fully explore the bodily experiences of healing, trauma and emotional regulation.

How many of us experience full body awareness?

I’ve always been curious about the relationships between our body and mind. I can’t pin point exactly when this passion sparked, I think it started with my own experiences with depression and my relationship with long distance running, yoga and hiking etc. Intertwined with my experiences as a youth worker, studying physiology and nutrition, a unique, at the time MSc in Sport, Physical Activity and Mental Health, a thesis that explored connection through long distance hiking and squillions of hours of podcasts around these themes.

Following this I began the journey to become a person centred counsellor. Everything drew me towards the person centred approach, my values and beliefs felt completely aligned with the principles and ideas. However, in our studies, we didn’t fully explore the body’s experience. I was and still am really interested in the role in trauma, healing and emotional regulation. PS so many therapists are working with the experience of the body and mind, but integration is sometimes not the main focus…

This led me down the path of exploring somatic psychotherapy.

Creating an open, curious and compassionate approach to our bodily awareness requires us to slow down. I think that’s why we can resist it and lean more heavily into cognitive/intellectual understanding.

I will end this part with a wee somatic question for you:

💭if your body could speak (or a specific body part) what would it say to you right now?

#somatictherapy