What is Somatic Experiencing?

What is Somatic Experiencing? This is the first question I asked Dr. Abi Blakeslee when I met her 10 years ago as we both arrived to an “old Bozeman” (there were only about 15 of us, invited by an email) women’s healthcare networking event when we both moved to town — me, coming back after grad school, and her, moving here with her family.

I don’t remember her exact answer but I remember the way she was — especially when talking to someone who had just lost her mother. She was more attentive than anyone I had ever witnessed. The way she moved towards a hard topic felt real and important, and sparked something in my knowing.

I didn’t know what Somatic Experiencing was but I said yes when she asked if I would help coordinate “some classes”. Little did I know these classes are 3 year long deep dives into understanding the human body and how our nervous system holds and processes trauma developed by the psychologist & medical biophysicist Peter Levine.

If you’ve read this far, perhaps we should take a pause to “experience” — something that we skip over all too often.

Look away from your screen and notice something.

Notice anything.

Actually notice it.

Let your senses tell you what is around you.

Look, listen, feel.

Pause — for only a few seconds, but a real pause.

Let your breath move through your body.

Become a little more aware of your body right now.

Feel the contact your body is making with the ground or something supportive.

Notice what you can feel. And, as you sense something notice what might shift or change in your body.

Take the time and listen to your body — as a little gift to yourself.

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Our human brain is brilliant. It’s busy and constantly distracting us from what is actually going on. Our brain wants to ‘know’ and tell us a story to keep us safe.

Our body is what is actually keeping us safe — and alive. Our body is constantly sending our brain quiet signals of threat/danger, safety, and also regulation and pleasure.

Our body IS experiencing. We need to learn how to listen to it.

I often tell clients this work should be introduced in kindergarten, because kids are already doing this. They are already in the language of their bodies. We (perhaps the constructs of culture?) learn to be in our heads and dismiss our body’s way of communicating until it yells at us.

Our human intelligence and story is real and important. But, what if we could be more infused with life, too?

What if we could play, cry, laugh, move through emotions as they flow with the capacity of an adult body to regulate, reflect and learn about ourselves — and have the intelligence of kids to be free?

Actually free.

A healthy nervous system is free.

When our nervous system can move through a range of sensations and emotions and not get stuck we have a wide ‘window of tolerance’ (more capacity, or resilience) and can engage in healthy social relationships.  We are able to live and feel more in life.

Trauma patterns inhibit our body’s natural responses when they get stuck in our physiology. Our body is constantly telling our ‘reptilian-brain’ to respond to danger, even when it’s not happening if the feedback loop of safety was never restored.

There are many ways to restore healthy function in a nervous system. And the answer is: there isn’t one. Everyone has their unique patterns that work best for them. We also all get stuck in our own unique ways.

Attunement is key.

What works to break the pattern or loop that has been a coping strategy?

In my language of having studied Chinese medicine, what promotes the free flow of Qi — in relation to a trauma patterns?

There are many ways to begin to better understand our patterns and tools to evolve with better adaptation, or neural plasticity.

I often begin a session with someone wondering, what is going well?

Where do you feel most like yourself?

Most alive?

How do you best overcome adversity?

This is a good place to understand how you resource and regulate. Build more of this, always.

But, we don’t always want to be bypassing or coping. We also want to have the capacity to take on what’s hard in life and begin to understand our patterns that live in the shadows and keep us stuck - physically, mentally, and emotionally.

This is where the real work begins and observation is key. Our nervous systems’ often get stuck in a pattern when something traumatic happened too fast for us to cope with. We need to slow things down when they get hard and let our bodies catch up, so we don’t move into fight, flight or freeze.

*and just to name, the flight/fight/freeze responses are good, natural, and appropriate for us to stay safe. It’s when we get stuck in the physiology of them after the threat is gone is when they become problematic.

A few basic tools to start to unravel these patterns involve bringing presence back into the body. Now. Not when things happened, but what is happening now (in relationship to what’s hard — and resourcing).

Some people like to look around, take in their surroundings and orient. Others like to regulate internally: with a breath, a settling, softening or expanding of their body’s physiology. Another way can be to self soothe: a soft or weighted blanket, touch, or self protection.

Some of us might need to be (and enjoy being) more up regulated, and others more down regulated, and often a mixture of both.

The key is patience and presence.

Slowing down and getting to know yourself.

What helps? And what aggravates?

What is it like to move towards and sit with something hard? Like I began this story, Abi showed me in the first few minutes of meeting her what can happen when someone holds presence in the midst of something hard. The woman who lost her mother was able to calm her body, shed a few tears, and tell us how she was actually (honestly) doing. It brought tears to my eyes.

The most beautiful thing I do everyday is witness people becoming more honest with themselves. And, in-turn, becoming more of themselves. More alive, integrated and whole. Not leaving parts of themselves that are hurt, traumatized, or buried under layers of incongruent coping patterns. But bringing those parts, in their truth, into who they are.

Often, when we heal our wounds become a new source of our strength. A richer, more honest, graceful, real and alive strength that invites a ripple effect of healing to occur – both within ourselves and in those around us.

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If you are interested in this work Bozeman has an abundance of incredible providers in many fields (mental health, coaching, teachers, bodyworkers, writers & more). At Enso, we have three SEPs: Dr. Holcomb, Leigh & myself (Katie). Aspen also offers bodywork from a somatic lens. Bozeman has another Somatic Experiencing training beginning in the spring of 2027 if you’re interested in learning this work.