Do You Ever Feel Disconnected From Life and From Your Body?
How somatic experiencing can help you feel more alive and connected with the world and with your fullest self
3 min read
If you are noticing a desire to not feel emotions, thoughts, and physical sensations, you may be experiencing conflict between your thinking brain and your feeling and sensing mammalian self. Somatic therapy is a space in which to honor these tensions as well as to support you in feeling more connected to every part of yourself and to the vitality of the present moment.
Most people desire, at some point in time, to not experience their body. Not every bodily function or embodied experience is particularly pleasant. Physical aches and pains, whether chronic or acute, are rarely desired. If a pill existed, which could rid us from ever catching a flu or profusely sweating in hot weather or accidentally tasting spoiled foods, who among us would not be tempted?
Although the experience of emotions often seems to live in our minds, we hold the sensations of emotions in our bodies as well. Peter Levine, the founder of Somatic Experiencing (SE), observes that humans forsake the evolutionary tools (such as body movements, facial expressions, sounds, etc.), utilized by mammalian peers to support the autonomic nervous system, in favor of cognitive processes. Instead, we often use our brains to try to think away (or recontextualize) frightening events. We hope that, in doing so, related emotions, behaviors, thoughts, and trauma responses will fall in line.
Tamiko Nishita-Hawkinson, a therapist at Downtown Somatic Therapy, reflects on the dilemma of having a thinking brain and a mammalian body. “It’s so hard to move away from our thoughts and toward our emotions and our physical sensations. Even after many years of being a somatic therapist, I often notice myself wanting to ruminate on an upsetting event, instead of slowing down and letting myself feel the upset and the physical sensations related to the upset. Our brains are so successful, also! Thinking powers so much of our lives, our relationships, our jobs, and our daily routines, and yet it’s at a complete loss when it comes to our emotions and our trauma responses. So many of my clients share with me that they desire to be a robot, not a mammal, and I truly empathize with that!”
“Thinking powers so much of our lives, our relationships, our jobs, and our daily routines, and yet it’s at a complete loss when it comes to our emotions and our trauma responses. So many of my clients share with me that they desire to be a robot, not a mammal, and I truly empathize with that!”
After spending many years disengaging from embodied emotions and threat/trauma responses, it can be difficult and even painful to re-engage. Somatic therapies support people’s reconnection with their embodied experiences in a thoughtful and nurturing manner. They do so by taking a gentle approach which privileges innate psychosomatic resources (such as a cherished image which inspires a calm feeling) to begin healing trauma and renegotiating the felt sense of emotion.
Privileging innate psychosomatic resources also means that inner wisdom can thrive. Our bodies instinctively sense what they need in order to heal from traumatic experiences. They simply need the time, space, and support with which to do so. Meeting the body’s unmet needs also encourages the thinking brain to come online with further insight and meaning.
In these ways, somatic therapies support a different sense of transformation. Other therapies may guide people to think the right things, feel the right feelings, and/or express themselves in a specific way. In comparison, somatic therapies are tailored to support the individual in connecting more deeply with themselves and with life in general in a way that honors their own unique intuition, bravery, and dreams.
Somatic Experiencing often calls embodied emotions and threat responses our mammalian birthright because they not only assisted us with surviving up to the point where we are now, they also connect us with life itself. Giving space for the body enables us to be more present. What a trade-off this ushers in however, as life and the sensory perception of it is complex! Ice cream may be very tasty but it causes brain freeze as well.
More than anything, somatic therapies offer choice, not the picking and choosing of desired embodied experiences, but the ability for the body to experience life and to not get stuck– to live with a sense of opportunity, regarding the many doors that the present moment holds, and to choose the doors which seem the most aligned with our unique selves.
“More than anything, somatic therapies offer choice, not the picking and choosing of desired embodied experiences, but the ability for the body to experience life and to not get stuck.”
If connecting more deeply with your human and mammalian form interests you, Downtown Somatic Therapy welcomes you, including any and all possible desires to be a robot. We understand them as we all have experienced them ourselves, and we are excited to journey with you closer to the present moment in a way that celebrates and bolsters your brain and your body’s unique wisdoms.