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Embodied Healing: Exploring Somatic Work in Therapy
143 Plays9 months ago
Ever heard the body keeps the score? Many people are realizing that we have so much to learn from our bodies- if we just take the time to listen!
Today’s episode is a deep dive into the therapeutic techniques and practices that engage the body in the healing process. Featuring insights from experienced therapist, April Oliver, and real-life stories, this episode offers a holistic understanding of how somatic work can unlock emotional and physical well-being. Whether you're a therapy enthusiast or exploring different modalities, tune in for a captivating exploration of the transformative power of connecting with the body in the journey toward healing.
About today's guest:
April Oliver is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and the owner of Soar Psychotherapy where she utilizes a somatic therapy modality called Natural Processing to work with a variety of concerns including trauma, anxiety and mood disorders and compulsive behaviors. When she’s not working she’s a puzzle-enthusiast who also loves reading, hiking, and enjoying intimate gatherings with her partner, close friends, and family.
Get in touch with April:
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Transcript
Introduction to Season 2 and Somatic Therapy
00:00:11
Speaker
Welcome back to season two of Outside of Session. I'm your host, licensed clinical social worker, and therapist BFF, Julie Hilton. This season, I'm interviewing some incredible guests who also happen to be experts in their fields. Mental health, motherhood, spirituality, and so much more, I can't wait for their stories to be told. These are all the conversations I'm having outside of session.
00:00:46
Speaker
Hello everyone and welcome back for another week of outside of session. In today's episode, we are going to be talking about somatic work in therapy. And if you're not sure what that means, no worries. You're going to learn all about it today from my guest this week, April Oliver.
00:01:03
Speaker
But just in a nutshell, somatic work has to do with the incredible mind-body connection, and how much we can learn from what our body tells us when we learn how to listen to it, and how we can heal emotionally when we help our body release what it's been holding onto for us.
April Oliver's Journey with Somatic Therapy
00:01:19
Speaker
April Oliver is a licensed clinical social worker and she's the owner of SOAR Psychotherapy, where she utilizes a somatic therapy modality called natural processing to work with a variety of concerns including trauma, anxiety, mood disorders, and compulsive behaviors. When she's not working, she's a puzzle enthusiast who also loves reading, hiking, and enjoying intimate gatherings with her partner, close friends, and family.
00:01:47
Speaker
So I hope you enjoy this week's episode as we learn all about somatic healing. Good morning April. Thank you so much for being here today. Hi, good morning. Yes, thank you for having me. I'm very excited to be here with you.
00:02:03
Speaker
I know, um, it's funny. We were just talking about a little bit of the nerves that always come with starting something new. Um, and I'm just so impressed with everybody that's been on the podcast that has been able to just kind of like push past that anxiety and just say, you know what, I'm going to do it anyways. Cause that's how I felt when I started this podcast earlier this year, I was like, I'm kind of terrified to do this, but I'm just going to do it because maybe nobody will listen to it anyways.
00:02:28
Speaker
Right, I'm gonna do it and I'm gonna push myself and you know part of me being here right I think we share that and I said I'm gonna do this anyway because I really um you know like I said to you I really love talking about this uh work and so I'm happy to share my experience with
00:02:47
Speaker
April and I meet a lot at this one restaurant that we always go to that has like tapas and we always have like a glass of wine. So we're just going to pretend that we're at Eclipse right now. We're there. We're chatting. We're just having a good time. Absolutely. I love it.
00:03:04
Speaker
So let's start by, can you just share a little bit with us about yourself, about your practice, about like what your journey has been like to become a somatic therapist? Is that kind of like even the way that you phrase it, that you you're a somatic therapist?
00:03:21
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I think that's the way that I normally will describe it and other people who do this work. So yeah, I'm a licensed clinical social worker. When I graduated in 2011, I started working with teens in foster care, I went on to work with in a
00:03:42
Speaker
sex offender treatment facilities, sexual compulsivity issues.
Transition from EMDR to Natural Processing
00:03:47
Speaker
I did that for I think about three years and really loved it. I know when you say that phrase, people have thoughts. And so it was definitely, and I think I told you maybe last time we met, you know, it's
00:04:06
Speaker
really fascinating work, because at the end of the day, these behaviors are a manifestation of deeper issues like, you know, all sorts of compulsive behaviors, but it definitely gives you an interesting
00:04:20
Speaker
view into the world and you know people have thought and you have to be careful who you know you share it with and you know talking about this in public with other therapists and people over hearing and yeah I really love the work actually um and that's what we were laughing because the waitress walked up in the middle of our conversation it was like pause yeah and we're sitting there talking about sex and
00:04:47
Speaker
all sorts of fun stuff that if people catch part of it, they are some raised eyebrows. Um, then I went and worked in substance use for about three years also and, uh, enjoyed that work as well. Um, and then after that was when I moved into private practice, you know, first at that group practice that we were both at and then, you know, out,
00:05:15
Speaker
on my own. And so when I was working in substance use, that's when I was originally trained in EMDR. And so as I moved into private practice, a lot of the work then was with clients who have pretty extensive trauma history, you know, lots of childhood trauma. And so that's really become the focus of my private practice is people with pretty significant trauma histories.
00:05:46
Speaker
Getting into, so I was trained in EMDR and I was doing EMDR as a client as well. And so the impetus to move more towards the form of EMDR I do now, which is really somatically based, came mostly from my own experience. I had been out of therapy for a little bit, but then was really noticing that there were things that I wanted to
00:06:10
Speaker
go back and address more deeply, but I felt like something was really missing. I mean, the EMDR had been great. It had made a lot of, you know, I had noticed a lot of good improvements from it, but I just intuitively felt like there was something that was missing and I wasn't totally getting to the root of some things. So I was going to actually,
00:06:36
Speaker
initially look for maybe a somatic experiencing therapist, right? So for listeners, maybe a lot of them know, but it's just another modality of somatic therapy. Uh, but then one day I saw this email about this training for this natural processing, which is again, like I said, a somatic form of EMDR that's really based in the body and it just click, you know, like, Oh, this sounds like maybe the missing piece. So
00:07:05
Speaker
I did this training, uh, and started using it, you know, with clients and that's certainly been really great and a lot of good work there. Uh, but then started doing it as a client myself and, um, have been doing it for about two and a half years now and I love it. So, so I love it from both sides of the couch, so to speak, you know, as a client.
00:07:31
Speaker
myself, it's been really fantastic. And then the ways that I've seen it shift work for clients has also been really cool and fun to watch.
00:07:44
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely.
Understanding Somatic Therapy: Mind-Body Connection
00:07:45
Speaker
Let's back up and start to talk about what even is somatic work, because I think that that's a word that some people potentially have heard. There's a lot of people that have never even heard of somatic work. So can you give us a somatic 101? What do these terms even mean? Yeah. What is it?
00:08:05
Speaker
So, somatic therapy is really just a form of therapy that's using the body more as the starting point for healing and really exploring the mind-body connection. You know, when you talk about traditional talk therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, and all these other modalities, those are what we would consider more top-down
00:08:29
Speaker
ways of processing through something, right? You're really starting with, uh, using the rational mind. So largely, you know, our left brain, logically through things, analyzing things. Um, and it, you know, I always think about this, um, uh, adage or quote that the rational mind is a wonderful tool, but a terrible master. And we have, Oh, I like that. Yeah. It's, you know, we have to use it. Um,
00:08:59
Speaker
and it's really wonderful. It is really limiting when you talk about the way that we hold experiences that we have, right? And so somatic therapy then is more of a bottom up processing where you're really focused in the body, you're focused in the language of the nervous system, which is sensations and
00:09:27
Speaker
you're able to tap into that wealth of wisdom that is in our body. And that doesn't, you can't always logic that out, right? We've all had these experiences with our intuition that we don't have logical words and understanding for, but we know when we feel it, you know, that, oh, this person or this place isn't safe or this decision I'm making, I know is the right decision for me.
00:09:54
Speaker
you know, even if logically, um, I can see that there might be pitfalls or everybody's telling me it's a terrible idea, right? I know. Um, so there's so much wisdom in that. And so, um, somatic therapy allows for that and really taps into, you know, the subconscious and unconscious drives that are, um,
00:10:19
Speaker
manifesting in various, you know, emotions and behaviors and beliefs and all of these things that you just can't talk your way around all the time. I like what you're saying because I don't think it's one or the other when it comes to healing. But I think that typically people want to talk about how they feel.
00:10:46
Speaker
And there is a lot of value in that. There is a lot of value in what the logical brain has to offer. Being able to talk through it, being able to, I don't know, talk therapy is kind of like thinking about how you think about something. And I don't want to say that there's not any value in that, but I think that sometimes it is used as a distraction
00:11:11
Speaker
Yes. And we can intellectualize our feelings instead of feeling our feelings. And when we intellectualize them, we think that, oh, I understand them. I understand maybe where they come, where they're coming from, what the root of it is, what were some of my past experiences that led to this. And so we were like, oh, we understand it. But that doesn't mean that it solves what the body is holding on to.
Emotional Healing vs. Intellectualizing Feelings
00:11:35
Speaker
Right. And so I think it's a piece of the puzzle to be able to look at the logical side of it.
00:11:41
Speaker
But it very much can be used as a distraction in a lot of ways from getting to the real work. Because I have tons of people that will come into my office in their game to talk about their experiences, but they are not down with feeling those experiences. Because it's way more uncomfortable. It's harder work. It's really, really difficult. And actually, what you're saying reminds me of this
00:12:08
Speaker
quote, there's this Russian philosopher Spensky, don't remember his first name off top,
00:12:15
Speaker
He said, I realized that people feared silence more than anything else, that our tendency to talk arises from self-defense and is always based on a reluctance to see something, a reluctance to confess something to oneself. Um, so yeah, they said that much better than I just did. I'm going to share what he said.
00:12:41
Speaker
I can't articulate it that well, but the right, you know, the talking, we have to have it, the, the left brain and the ways that it serves us. We have to have that. And, um, you know, a lot of my clients, we will do, um, most sessions really in this format of this natural processing, but there are, you know, sessions here or there, or there's part of a session where we do, excuse me, take that time to,
00:13:10
Speaker
verbally processed through things and that can help them connect some dots that came up during the natural processing. So right, it's a multi-pronged approach operating from the understanding that every piece has to be a part of the process to really get all the way to the bottom of something.
00:13:37
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. How did you, um, how do you think you landed in wanting to do this particular work? Cause I have people ask me that sometimes of like, how did you become a trauma therapist? Cause we, we have very similar, um, like client base. I think like I work a lot with childhood trauma as well. And people ask me like, how did you get into this? And my answer is, I don't know. I do not know how I landed here. I do not have a good answer for that.
00:14:04
Speaker
Right. Well, and actually that speaks to part of what I really noticed in relation to doing my own work as a client because the way that your childhood played out for me and the trauma that I had, one of the effects of that was that I didn't really
00:14:25
Speaker
feel like I could affect my own life. And so I would make decisions very just on the fly a lot of times. I don't really know how to describe it other than I didn't often really plan things out. And this is what I know about what I want and where I'm going in my life. Things would just unfold. And so, yeah, a lot of it just seems to be some
00:14:55
Speaker
again, right, you know, bigger force within me that would take me in certain directions and certainly some, you know, expectations of, you know, from my family, if you're going to go to college, you know, things like that. But things seem to just unfold in this direction. And I really think that the
00:15:19
Speaker
thing that maybe I take the most responsibility for doing intentionally was this piece of, all right, well, I have the EMDR and I'm doing that and I've done it as a client. It feels limited. Where do I want to go from here? And then, you know, that last part may be really orchestrating in a more intentional way. But yeah, before that, I just was
00:15:48
Speaker
moving through decision by decision, I'm going to go. All right, well, I know enough that this is the next step beyond that. I don't know. All right, now I know enough to know this is the next step beyond that. I don't know. And
00:16:00
Speaker
Here we are. Here we are. Yeah. So when you're doing somatic work, is it always paired with EMDR? Because we've done, um, we've done some episodes really explaining EMDR. So I think people have a good idea of how that works on the nervous system, the amygdala, all of those things. But does your somatic work go hand in hand with EMDR or is it something completely separate?
Integrating EMDR with Somatic Therapy
00:16:26
Speaker
Right. So what it is, is it's taking the bilateral stimulation from EMDR. Uh, so that's happening, um, largely during this work every once in a while, it can, um, be, feel a little bit too stimulating. Um, like it's moving people outside of or into a survival response based on what they're processing. Um, but we have the bilateral stimulation from EMDR.
00:16:56
Speaker
And then we're pairing that with somatic tracking. So, you know, what are the metaphor that I use is, you know, with, um, like cognitive behavioral therapy, for instance, right? We're using words as the language bread and we're processing through something with words. Whereas with somatic tracking, we're processing through something with sensations. So maybe when you first start moving through it, you know, you're feeling angry and where do you feel the anger?
00:17:26
Speaker
And then as you're present with that, that moves into sadness. And then you notice different sensations with that. And so big picture, one is from the EMDR, we have the bilateral stimulation. And then we're working with these same elements, right? We're connecting. So the tices from EMDR, right? Thoughts, images, beliefs, emotions, sensations.
00:17:56
Speaker
It's all part of the same puzzle, right? So we're working with all of those same elements and connecting dots. But it's a little bit more free flowing. I think typically a lot of times in EMDR, you know, you do a set 30 seconds and then add, right? With this, it's largely a very continuous process. Like the biological simulation doesn't stop. And if you hit
00:18:25
Speaker
Um, up on something, um, like in, uh, EMDR, right? The blocking beliefs. If you hit up on something, then you work with that. It's very process oriented. Um, where you're really getting to understand the mechanics of how you're responding to something.
00:18:49
Speaker
So the content of what a client is processing provides the energetic context in the body, right? It triggers the sensations, it triggers the emotions. But foundationally, clients are learning the mechanic of how they're responding to things. And so then they understand their body and the signs their body is giving them.
00:19:18
Speaker
So what do you mean by mechanics? So the mechanics of this event happened, right? And one person responds with really intense emotions, you know, they're really overwhelmed very easily by it. And somebody else that can happen and they can move through it relatively easily, they don't get overwhelmed, they can
00:19:48
Speaker
Um, you know, problem solve, you know, anything that may be necessary in the situation. And so you're learning how you respond to things and connecting the dots that, um, provide the insight for, okay, this is why these situations upset me the way they do. Right. And as you move through this, these insights come.
00:20:15
Speaker
Um, certainly a lot of, um, connections by way of, uh, adaptive memory networks from EMDR, right. Or similar life experiences go up as you start moving through a particular situation. Um, so I, does that explain what I mean by that? It does. And I'm, I'm wondering how.
00:20:44
Speaker
I've asked this question in a couple of different episodes because I think it gives a good point of reference for people. When people first show up in your office and they maybe haven't ever heard of this, but you can tell pretty quickly that this would be really good for them, what do people typically already know about what they're experiencing?
00:21:03
Speaker
Right? Like, what do they usually present with? So are that do they have an awareness of I'm here because I want to work on anxiety? Or do they come in thinking more about like, I'm having relationship problems, and I want you to help me work on my relationships? Like, how do you help people realize that whatever they're presenting concern, it would be beneficial for them to do this kind of work and get in touch with their body? Right? Well, one, I
00:21:29
Speaker
I've gotten to the point where I really, like if somebody calls me to start doing some work and we have a consultation, I tell them upfront that this is really the way that I, the work that I do, because I think this is another thing with maybe particularly this type of somatic work is that it's not
00:21:57
Speaker
a thing that is added to maybe like cognitive behavioral therapy or talk therapy. It is a way of moving through any issue. And so it's, I let clients know upfront that this is really the way that I go through my work. And, um, largely at this point, people calling, like that's what they're looking for. Either they still have effect.
00:22:25
Speaker
ground in that sense and have already have a pretty good understanding of the mind-body connection and they have done some work with it. So they're on board. I get a lot of clients who maybe don't have a lot of background, but they have done a lot of other therapy and felt like
00:22:45
Speaker
It's not totally hitting it. There's still something there that I haven't been able to work through and talk therapy or whatever else doesn't seem to be working. And so they are just curious and willing to try something else.
00:23:05
Speaker
It runs the gamut of the background and the awareness that people have. Um, but I am at a point where I'm pretty upfront like
Navigating Client Emotions and Fears in Therapy
00:23:14
Speaker
that. This is, this is how I do it. And if, you know, you want more, um, uh, talk therapy or CBT or DBT or, you know, those other things. Absolutely. Um, but I'm not going to be the one who's, you know, going to be good, um, for that work. And then.
00:23:34
Speaker
beyond that, the question about, you know, the presenting issues, one thing with this work, and this happened in therapy, right, clients come in and they said, well, I want to work on, you know, this thing, this issue in my life, and you start unraveling it a little bit, and it becomes pretty clear that something else is actually the, you know, ground level issue. And so that happened, you know, clientele
00:24:02
Speaker
come in and they'll think, well, I want to work on something with work and it's really something else in their personal life, or again, historical trauma that is really where the work is. And one thing with this work that I have found that is, I mean, I think
00:24:28
Speaker
good and bad. I mean good in that it really gets to the crux of the matter very quickly. I mean if you're in your body and you're doing things it becomes evident pretty quickly if you're trying to avoid something or you know talk your way around something or you know or something like that. It can be tough because you know things can hit very quickly and clients are oh wow I didn't realize that was even a part of this or
00:24:57
Speaker
didn't realize how big this was or how much it's really affected me. And so you can't, not that anybody ever does this on purpose and more typical therapy, but you can't talk your way around stuff for very long before it becomes evident that there's some avoidance happening.
00:25:25
Speaker
So, yeah. How do you help people that maybe the reason, maybe they even have an awareness that they are trying to avoid it because there's a fear of, I do know how much I've shoved down.
00:25:40
Speaker
And there's this fear of if I face it, it's going to be so overwhelming. It's going to flood me with such big emotions that I have been trying to shove down for decades sometimes, right? And so a lot of people don't realize when they're trying to avoid something, but a lot of people actually do. They're like,
00:25:58
Speaker
I purposely am not opening that door because there's a fear of it's going to be too much and it's going to disrupt my life. And I'm scared that it's going to, I'm not going to be able to get out of bed. I'm scared that I'm not going to be able to be around my family if maybe it was a family member that caused the pain, right? And so they're like, they can be pretty upfront with you about I'm scared to do this. How do you help them work through those fears?
00:26:22
Speaker
Right. Well, so that's the really great thing about this work. And I think it's, you know, similar to again, an EMDR, the blocking beliefs, right? You have to work with that before you can get to what's under that. And so what we do in these situations is
00:26:45
Speaker
Okay, so let's work with the fear of working with the thing. You go out as many layers as you have to go and you work with that outermost layer. And sometimes we start working on that and we find out that there's one even beyond that. And it's like, okay, so let's work with that. And I think it makes me think of, I know when we were talking, I think last time we met about,
00:27:11
Speaker
uh, how this, um, like that idea is very similar to write IFS internal family systems of, you know, there are no bad parts. It's like, if there's caution there, it's there for a reason. And so let's be with that and honor that. And then as that sorts itself out, then you have the capacity to move into the next
00:27:39
Speaker
You know, we're consistently expanding the resiliency that clients have to handle bigger and bigger things. So we don't move past anything until a client is ready to move there. And again, not from a
00:28:04
Speaker
Yes, I'm ready to go because sometimes they'll, they'll even say that, right. And we'll get into the processing and then it's like, oh, wait, hold on a minute. Like, okay, so let's just take this here in this sphere that's coming up and work with that. And so, you know, I'm sure with the India, right? It happens all the time. You start in one place and by the end of the session, you are in a whole other place, but for sure. How did these things connect?
00:28:32
Speaker
Yeah, and I think that that's important for people to hear that we will always pay attention to your system and keep you in kind of like that window of tolerance, right? And that will trust your system if it's starting to get too overloaded, that that is part of the work too. I like the word resilience that you use, like we're increasing that resilience. But another thing that I always say is that a lot of times we think that we, like we remember things the way we experienced them.
00:28:59
Speaker
So if it was something that was incredibly painful or incredibly scary at the time, we think that we will re-experience it from that childlike point of view.
00:29:13
Speaker
And a lot of times whether we're doing IFS or doing EMDR, I try to remind people that you're going to go to the past, yes, but you're going to keep one foot in the present. And that's going to help you to stay grounded. That's going to help you to, um, and I think one of the really, really cool things is that when people start doing this work and they can voice, I need to pull back.
00:29:33
Speaker
That like builds so much trust within yourself to say, I know what my limit is and I'm not going to ask myself to push beyond what feels good. And that's the thing that you didn't have a choice to do the first time you experienced it.
00:29:48
Speaker
If it was a really painful thing that was happening, you didn't have a choice to say, Oh, this is too much. I'm going to walk away. And when you have the choice of doing that in therapy and we can say, you know, thank you so much for speaking for that. Let's do something. Let's do some grounding work. Let's do some, some calming techniques that reaffirms to your body that you can go to it. You get to choose what your max is.
00:30:12
Speaker
so it I don't know it just builds this trust in your system so that the next time the next session or whatever it is that we go back to it it's almost like okay now I do know that I can tolerate a little bit more because I I have this belief that I can pull back whenever I need to right safety net yeah no that's absolutely true and that's a big part of like in the training around this work one of the the guy who developed it Craig Penner that's one of the big
00:30:39
Speaker
I guess foundational pieces of this is that you're building the discernment in the client for them to know what
00:30:51
Speaker
their needs are, what their wants are, what their limits are, right? And, um, to be able to choose that for themselves. And so, you know, that's one thing with, um, you know, in sessions sometimes is, you know, we'll start to move into it and a client may express, I'm not sure if I can do this today and, you know, work with that a little bit, but at the end of the day, I'm not, you know, going to handcuff anyone to do any kind of
00:31:20
Speaker
work because that is counteractive to them actually being able to learn that I can have needs and wants and express them and they will be respected. And, you know, there's a very big difference between I am pulling away from something or maybe even intentionally distracting myself from something. Um,
00:31:44
Speaker
but I'm aware that I'm doing it and I'm choosing to do it because I feel like that's what I need right now versus, you know, I'm feeling aware, distracting completely unconsciously. I don't even, you know, I'm not even aware that I'm turning to pick up my phone right now because I'm so uncomfortable about, you know, something that's just happened. I mean, those are two different, um, experiences from an internal,
00:32:12
Speaker
vantage point of our psyche to choose to do it. It's unconscious. I love that what you're saying, because if you look at it from an IFS point of view, that's the difference between self saying, I have the wisdom to know that it's time for me to pull back.
00:32:33
Speaker
versus a protector part coming in and using something like distraction or numbness to protect because it feels like this is unsafe and you're right. Then at that point, it's not really a conscious decision that you're making. Just this part jumps in the driver's seat and it can be, I've had people doing EMDR that now I have the understanding of what was happening, but it was a protector part kind of jumped in that driver's seat and all of a sudden they can't access their emotions at all. We were in the middle of doing EMDR and they're saying that
00:33:04
Speaker
that emotion, whatever they're processing through is an eight out of 10, whether it's anxiety or fear or something like that. And then immediately within like a 30 second round, all of a sudden they're like, I don't feel it at all anymore. Like I can barely even remember the memory right now. And now I have an understanding of like, oh, like a protector part jumped in and like completely shut them out and caused some kind of like numbness or disconnect. And I think that's kind of what you're describing, right?
00:33:30
Speaker
Yeah, no, that's the exact same concept, different verbiage maybe for you want to describe it. But yeah, that exact concept that there is some
00:33:44
Speaker
piece of what's being processed through that is so overwhelming for the nervous system that, yeah, these parts come in then. And, you know, we're from the perspective of the nervous system right into a shut down response, fight or flight response, because whatever it was attempting to get close to and work with was too much.
00:34:21
Speaker
Hey everyone, I just wanted to pause for a quick moment to say thank you so much for all the love and support that you're showing outside of session. If you haven't already, do me a huge favor and hit the subscribe button. Give me a five star review and share this podcast with all of your friends. Help me take this show to another level. Now back to today's episode.
00:34:47
Speaker
So we didn't talk about this question ahead of time, so I hope I'm not catching you off guard here. But I'm just wondering, can you give us some kind of like, what does a typical session look like? Not just the flow of the session, but also what a client experiences, maybe what are some typical emotions that you see come up? How do people process through that? Like if people wanted to do this work, what could they expect in a session?
00:35:12
Speaker
Yeah. So once, uh, we really, we'll take, you know, a session or two to do a little bit of, um, intake. But one of the things that I, especially people who have done a lot of therapy, I think can appreciate, especially if they have significant trauma histories is I don't need to know all that much honestly about what you're going to work on. We don't have to rehash it. Um, you know, certainly start out with a little bit of,
00:35:42
Speaker
you know rapport building and and all of the the stuff and get a general jest but So once we move into this work, it's I started the session with a body scan, right? I want to make sure that we're starting out with them in the window of tolerance and The way of doing that is just as they scan through. Can you identify? sensations in your body because if
00:36:12
Speaker
you go scan through and you're like, yeah, I'm good. All right. Let's go. Right.
Beginning Somatic Therapy Sessions
00:36:19
Speaker
And really make sure that they're present in their body. Otherwise, right. What are we doing? Um, so can I, so can I ask you to dive into that a little bit more of like, how do you, how does someone know if they're in their body? Right. It's, it really is pretty simple, right? Can you
00:36:37
Speaker
scan through and identify any sensations, right? So energetic sensations, right? If you have cortical butterflies in the stomach, if you are having any pain, if you are having tension, and the ones that I'm naming are all more unpleasant sensations. And so one thing that a lot of clients really have to work on is
00:37:07
Speaker
they'll describe, maybe they're not really noticing anything that's really, um, acute or uncomfortable. And so they'll say, well, I'm good. I don't really feel anything. And it's like, okay. So, or they'll say, I don't feel the tension I normally feel here. And so really working with people to understand, okay, so what are the sensations of,
00:37:34
Speaker
calm or relaxed or right because it's not just the absence of another sensation. There is the experience of this particular
00:37:47
Speaker
state as well. Right? So I love that. Yeah. And it's, and we all do, I catch myself doing, I would do it my own therapy, my therapist would be like, okay, so what is here? Not here. And so, you know, open, expansive, you know, deep breathing, all these things that we don't always, which from a survival standpoint, makes sense, right? If you need to do something, and you feel some uncomfortable sensation that is informing you that something is wrong,
00:38:17
Speaker
makes sense. And if everything is all good, then we don't need anything that is mobilizing us or, you know, somehow protecting that same way. So from that standpoint, it makes sense. But it's important to learn how to do that because that is an experience, a whole experience in and of itself to recognize
00:38:43
Speaker
the sensations of calm, of relaxed, and these ones that are the states, you know, we want to be in more often. And so they're just as important to be able to identify. Yeah, I like the the one that you said open. Because that's one that I think people don't pay attention to enough. And that one's usually felt around the heart, right? Don't you think?
00:39:07
Speaker
There's a lot, yeah, like in their chest, they'll say, you know, it feels really open. Like you're open to receiving. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Okay. So after you do, so you start with a body scan and once people are aware of some kind of sensation, even if it's a negative sensation, that's still the starting point, right? Right. I mean, the, the question is, are you in the window are we're making sure you're not in a survival response, right? Because if you're in a fight, flight,
00:39:37
Speaker
breeze collapse response, then you're not in a place where you're connected to higher order thinking, right? You're in survival response, your body and your mind aren't open to working with something. So it doesn't be that you have to be in a physically comfortable place. It just has to be that you're connected to yourself. That's yeah, the purpose of the body scan is just are we starting
00:40:08
Speaker
in the window and in a place where some work can be done. And then what's next? So then after that, it's, I always ask a pretty general, you know, broad question, what feels important for today? What do you want to spend the time on? And so from that point, we can start with really any of those pieces of the puzzle I mentioned, right?
00:40:34
Speaker
thoughts, images, cognition, emotions, sensations, because they're all connected in some way. And so a lot of clients will start with maybe a particular incident. A lot of clients start with a pattern of something in their life.
00:40:54
Speaker
I'm dealing with this, um, inability to feel like I can connect to other people. And so, you know, we, um, kind of the focus in from there, but we can start with a very broad, uh, you know, starting point. Some clients will start just with, um, sensations they'll be noticing maybe an elevated heart rate. And so we'll just start there. And then a lot of times, you know, something will,
00:41:24
Speaker
come up from there. Sometimes we start with even me asking certain clients that question, even that question in and of itself can be difficult for some clients, right? Because they feel important on the spot. They don't know they, you know, moves them into a freeze response or some other
00:41:47
Speaker
Kind of, ugh, even you asking me that question feels like a lot, and so we start there. Okay, so when I ask you that question, what happens physically or what happens emotionally? And that's where we start. And sometimes, clients will say, well, I don't really know. And cool. So let's just start with getting really present in your body and really bring awareness there.
00:42:16
Speaker
I don't think there's been, well, maybe once or twice, and then I can kind of explain what happens there, but almost always something comes up, right? As they're present in their body, something, some issue kind of raises a hand and, you know, there we go. There are a couple, there have been a couple of times I can think of where it didn't really seem like any really clear issue presented itself.
00:42:46
Speaker
But we spent the session really just staying present in their body Which may seem on the surface like what are we doing? But it is building their resiliency that capacity to stay in your body to be present and is There is something On the way to be worked on right I mean in this work and
00:43:16
Speaker
everything serves a purpose. So even on the surface, it feels like I, you know, we're sitting in this session, and I'm really just practicing being present in my body, but it doesn't seem like there's a lot of emotion or a lot of, or like I said, a specific issue that's really presenting itself. It's like, don't worry, this is paving the way for something that is waiting to rise to the surface, but needs this
00:43:42
Speaker
extra little bit of resiliency in order to do so. Yeah, I'm glad you're saying that because I think a lot of times whether it's nothing's coming up or whether it's something so random that you haven't thought about in decades and it felt
00:44:01
Speaker
Like logical brain is saying that's so insignificant. Why would we spend a session on it in therapy? But I always say like, trust what your brain reveals. We go wherever it takes us. It has deeper meaning. Stuff doesn't just pop into our mind for no reason. Right. Absolutely. It just doesn't. It doesn't. And if it's here, and it seems minor, it's not we work with it. If it seems like nothing's here, that
00:44:30
Speaker
doesn't happen for no reason. So we work with that. And then, you know, that in and of itself can lead to other things of, you know, I'm frustrated that nothing's coming up. Okay, so let's work with that frustration that, you know, maybe you feel out of control because you're here and you want to work on something, nothing's coming up or right, whatever direction it may go.
Differing Client Processing Styles
00:44:54
Speaker
But it's never not
00:44:58
Speaker
doing something that's right in service of the bigger picture if you stay with it long enough. Yeah. So at that point, something has either come up or not come up. Right. Which is equally important. Right. You have your starting point. Is that when you start the bilateral stimulation and you're saying, okay, let's sit with this emotion and you start to work through the body?
00:45:29
Speaker
Yeah, so after there's, you know, something that they mentioned wanting to work on or whatnot, you know, we check in on like, okay, emotionally, what's here with that and, you know, some of that, but we always start in the sensations. Okay, so you want to work on this fight that you had with your mother, you're feeling really angry. You know, what do you notice in your body as you're articulating this anger?
00:45:52
Speaker
And then once they have that awareness, right, then we start with the bilateral stimulation. And then we're just moving. It's using mindfulness and moving moment to moment. And okay, so I'm just feeling the anger in my chest. Now I feel like I'm starting to cry. I'm feeling really sad because
00:46:19
Speaker
You know, I don't want to have this relationship with my mom and clients process differently, right? Some people are pretty vocal and they'll kind of verbalize what's happening as it's happening. And, you know, there's a little bit of dialogue. Some clients have a really good understanding of themselves and the work and get to a point where
00:46:47
Speaker
They are largely in their own process. They may not necessarily verbalize what's happening unless they get stuck. Maybe they're like, I'm stuck on this thought about something or I noticed that I'm starting to move outside of the window because my thinking is getting kind of cloudy or I'm
00:47:08
Speaker
starting to think about what I want to do for lunch and the errands I have to run and all these other things you know and so they'll verbalize that and then right you do some grounding or what I call orienting activities to get them back focused and then okay so what was the last thing you noticed before you noticed the distraction right because whatever
00:47:35
Speaker
was happening before there was something there that really pushed your nervous system into this survival response or towards it anyway, enough that you were really noticing and wanting to get oriented again. So we try to start there right back at that thing and slow it down even more. And so what I mean by that is, all right, well, if they were kind of in their own process,
00:48:03
Speaker
I'll come in and check in a little bit more often. Okay. So you noticing your chest, you know, feeling tight and give them a couple of seconds. Okay. What do you notice now? You know, stay really tight with whatever it is. And there's a couple of different strategies to help, uh, be able to stay present with something, you know, just a little bit longer and maybe a little bit longer. I mean, they might go through this a few times around a particular thing. Um, but
00:48:33
Speaker
Yeah. So some clients, they got the whole thing and I'm just there as a presence and as, um, a co-regulatory, uh, mechanism. Um, and you know, to help them out at rough spots and maybe helped, you know, verbally process some things. Uh, and then, you know, other clients are a little bit more, um, verbal throughout the process and share more about what's going on.
00:49:05
Speaker
And so what you're describing is what I think a lot of people are curious about, which is when we say in therapy, like learning to feel your feelings and sit with your feelings like that's something that everybody hears, right? Like lean into your feelings.
00:49:20
Speaker
Lean into it But that's really what this is is saying instead of trying to talk your talk about it instead of trying to make sense of it You're just asking yourself to let your body hold on to that feeling as long as it needs to Until it starts to morph into something else And so a lot of times
00:49:46
Speaker
Like guilt, I see this a lot, guilt turns into anger. And that lets me know that you've shifted blaming yourself for something for a really long time into being able to zoom out a little bit more to see that other people played a part into it too. And you start to have like anger for them. And then after you sit with that anger for a while, it starts to morph into something else, like maybe compassion for them and being able to see what was happening on their end of things.
00:50:13
Speaker
And that might morph into sadness for both of you, that life is so hard and put both of you in that situation where nobody knew what to do or something like that, right? So then we used it in sadness. And what would you say the final goal is? Is it to get to a place of peace or acceptance with things? Or is there necessarily like an agenda or a goal to try to work towards? Well, there you go. I mean, you really,
00:50:42
Speaker
hit the nail on the head and that is what is for me and I think a lot of people in this work it the more you do the more doors it opens to things I mean I've learned things and I've had you know I can think of a couple clients recently who are have been doing this work a long time and made really great process and or progress and they'll
00:51:12
Speaker
have an insight and be like, Oh man, I did not realize how complicated this was or how deep it was. And, and I guess maybe because I love therapy, I am fascinated by those things. And so my own work, I'm like, yes, let's do it. And so I think
00:51:33
Speaker
I think really the big picture, you know, some people come in and they want to work on something such that they can move forward in a particular kind of way and they're good when they feel like they get to that point. You know, other clients really are just in for, let's see what happens. What's the next layer of stuff? And what's the next layer of stuff? You know, what's the next layer of stuff? I think, you know, with this work, what
00:52:02
Speaker
I love for myself is that, and so I think for clients as well, is that the more connected you get to yourself, I mean, the sky is the limit, right?
Client Goals and Self-Connection in Therapy
00:52:15
Speaker
As human beings, as close as we can get to a place of operating as much as possible from a place of love, from a place of joy, from a place of really enjoying life,
00:52:33
Speaker
You know, that to me is kind of the optimal goal, but you know, people come in and they want to deal with a particular thing or they have a place that they feel like is kind of the ultimate goal for them and then they're fine. So, you know, the, the goal question really depends on the client and just at what point they feel like
00:53:01
Speaker
they're satisfied and can function in the way that they would like to. And obviously that looks different for different people. It does, yeah. I think the one thing that I think is really cool about this work that maybe is different than some other work is that by doing this bottoms up approach, changes happen
00:53:31
Speaker
in a way that doesn't ultimately involve a lot of efforting, right? You, I mean, coming to therapy and doing the work, but right, the shifts happen without, you know, situation comes up and you say, okay, I gotta show up this particular way, or I'm not gonna let this thing bother me, or I'm gonna respond this way. You know, in this work, it,
00:53:59
Speaker
can often feel like it's not even really doing anything. I had one client, I really loved it because she said, well, it seems a lot like it's not doing anything until it does, or it's not working until it does, which typically is after some situation or just you start to really notice that you're showing up differently, you're feeling differently, and you're not having to force it. And even with like habits and things like that, like I've noticed for myself,
00:54:29
Speaker
I don't have to try to force myself to work out anymore. I want to because I'm connected to myself in a way where it
00:54:40
Speaker
I spontaneously want to take better care of myself. And I would almost venture to say enjoy it. I don't want to be going a little far, but you know, like it's just happening. And so I think that's really cool. And ultimately what we want, right, is to not have to feel like we're managing things or having to
00:55:03
Speaker
force things to happen all the time. It is a little bit hard, I think, for Westerners who are like, I have to have a specific goal, and it's going to look like this, and I'm going to check the box, and that's going to be solved. And the results or the effects aren't always in your face like that. But it's such a
00:55:26
Speaker
Yeah, that's such a good point. Because I see that with a lot of my clients too, that if you're not being really intentional to pay attention, yeah, on how things are changing, you might miss so many like, really significant things. Like I'll have clients say, I told my boss no the other day. And I didn't even realize I was doing it. But before I would have felt so obligated to say yes,
00:55:50
Speaker
that I didn't even realize. And that's a huge thing to learn to set boundaries and not have to agonize. She didn't have to talk herself into and put like the effort that you're talking about. It was effortless for her to just say, no, I don't think I can take that on right now. And it was days later that she gave herself credit for that. And she was like, I never would have been able to say no. But that
00:56:13
Speaker
Those are the kind of things that are life changing though, because when she's talking about decreasing her stress levels, she needs to be able to say no to people, right? Yeah. Or I've had another client that said, I was at dinner with a friend the other night and the friend was like, do you realize that you're sitting with your back to the door?
00:56:32
Speaker
And she said, I just sat down at the table and didn't even think about it. And I wouldn't have noticed, but my friend noticed because she knows that every time we go out to eat, I have to be sitting in the direction where I can see the exit. And she was like, I would have missed that, but somebody else pointed it out to me. And so I think, but again, like because you're rewiring your nervous system to not be so hypervigilant in a lot of ways.
00:56:57
Speaker
you're getting back to like probably what it would have been like had you not had these traumas to start with. And so it's almost like an absence of hyper vigilance rather than
00:57:07
Speaker
all the anxiety that goes into things of saying like, okay, this, I'm going to be really intentional about this conversation with my mom or something like that. It just starts to happen naturally. You got to be, you have to put in a lot of like effort to pay attention to how you're changing and not even
Recognizing Progress and Validating Emotions
00:57:22
Speaker
realizing it. Right. Right. Which is why one of the things that I do with clients all the time is, um, you know, they might really be feeling stuck around something or frustrated or upset or, or
00:57:36
Speaker
you know, really down about something. And so I'm always like, okay, well, if this had happened six months ago, or if this had happened a year ago, right? Do you do that too? I love that question. Yeah. Because then so often and look, sometimes it's like, all right, well, what if it was two years ago, something you got to keep going back sometimes. But inevitably, there is a point at which they can say, right, well, if this had been a year ago,
00:58:02
Speaker
I would have been in such a worse place around this. And so, yeah, I tried to encourage them to keep lists or write down little things that they noticed that if they're in a tough spot, they have it to remind themselves. But I guess take that on as part of my thing too, in the work of like, okay, let me help remind you how much of a shift you really made because
00:58:32
Speaker
much bigger than we're always able to access in a moment, right? When we're not so great. Yeah. This is all so good. I just want everybody to do this work. Well, you know, me too, because I love it. But I say this, you know, I was never much of a sales person. And so when I started doing this work and was like really excited to talk about it and like, you know, motivate people to do it, I'm like, this must be really good because
00:59:02
Speaker
I'm not going to like go out there and really, you know, uh, make a big thing. But, um, and I, I think, you know, I'll just say this here as we're kind of wrapping up is that it's the thing that I think is really special about maybe this particular form of somatic therapy in particular, um, is, you know, it's based on how we process things naturally. So this is not.
00:59:34
Speaker
a new thing that you're learning to do, it's bringing awareness to what's happening already. And so a lot of clients, you know, will, it changes their relationship to their body and their understanding of how things are happening. And so it's like, they'll start changing the way they process things on their own. And so, right. It's not that they even need me there a lot of times. I mean,
01:00:04
Speaker
theoretically, I could do this all day and I can't get myself to sit down and do it for myself. So I understand that having the other person serves, you know, multiple purposes, but in the grand scheme of things, you're learning how to move through life in a completely different way that is transferable outside of therapy.
01:00:28
Speaker
Yeah, I love that. And that's also a bit of hope and encouragement for anybody that has done potentially years of talk therapy and they do feel like there's this one piece that's missing, this might be it. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so before we close, I wanna ask you the question that I have been asking all of my guests, which is with all of your wisdom and life experience that you have now, if you could go back and tell your younger self one thing, what would it be?
01:00:55
Speaker
Right. Yeah. You know, when you first shared this question with me, it took me a minute and it was at a time when I was doing some work in therapy around reparenting myself through my like twos and threes, right? Like toddler stage because I had a really significant life event.
01:01:17
Speaker
Um, at that point. And, um, so working through that and then, you know, sitting with this question, I realized what I really needed someone to tell me was that, um, my, one, my emotions are valid, right? What you're feeling is valid period. And also that.
01:01:42
Speaker
what you're feeling is really valuable, right? I mean, we all know feelings aren't facts, but they can give you so much information, right? If you explore them, if you're present with them, you know, we don't feel things for no reason. And those things don't manifest into certain behaviors and beliefs for no reason. And I never had anyone do that for me. I was really,
01:02:12
Speaker
judged for a lot of my emotions and I was a very angry child and I didn't have anyone try to help me understand why. It was just not okay to be angry. And so, yeah, I think that is the thing that would have been, I mean, it would have, you know, set my life on a whole different course if someone had just helped me
01:02:41
Speaker
you'll like whatever's here is okay and let's work with it. No wonder you do the work that you do. Right? That's the thing, right? I mean, I ended up here and there was something some larger intelligence at that place because it moved me in the right direction. And this work is, you know, I think back to who I was two and a half years ago. And it's, um,
01:03:09
Speaker
Really incredible to see for myself what has shifted and you know in some sense I feel like a whole other person and yet in another way I feel so much more connected to that version you know of myself and all the versions before and so much more compassionate.
01:03:32
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. April, thank you so much for being here, for sharing not only all of your wisdom, but your personal story too. I think that's something that a lot of people will be able to relate to and I'm just, I'm so grateful for you. Yeah, absolutely. I enjoyed it very much. Thank you for having me. Yeah, absolutely. That is all we have for you guys today. I hope you guys enjoyed this episode and we will talk to you next week. Bye.
01:04:04
Speaker
Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Outside of Session. Remember, while I am a licensed therapist, this podcast is not a substitute for individual therapy. The contents of this episode are for educational and entertainment purposes only. If you are having a mental health emergency, please dial 911 for immediate assistance or dial 988 for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.