Speaker 1: If there was one thing you wanted people to take
Speaker 1: away from this podcast about sematic healing, what would it be?
Speaker 2: Your body isn't broken, it's just trying to protect you.
Speaker 1: Liz Tanuto is a sematic practitioner and trauma educator, also
Speaker 1: known online as the work Out, which her new Bookshares
Speaker 1: has signature movement protocols and practical tools that help her
Speaker 1: and her students cover from childhood abuse, domestic violence, and
Speaker 1: chronic illness.
Speaker 2: I think for a long time, we've had this break
Speaker 2: fixed mentality where it's like, my lower back hurts, it
Speaker 2: must be the chair I'm sitting in. I'm going to
Speaker 2: go buy a new chair. I was really trying all
Speaker 2: these different things to just fix the pain. I didn't
Speaker 2: realize it took me a long time to discover that
Speaker 2: there was a whole emotional layer underneath it. You're really
Speaker 2: just trying to reconnect your mind and body.
Speaker 1: And who do you think would benefit from sematic healing.
Speaker 2: I personally discovered it because I had gone through a
Speaker 2: lot of trauma, and I had really bad insomnia and
Speaker 2: had tried a lot of other modalities that weren't really
Speaker 2: working for me. So a lot of people initially find
Speaker 2: somatics from trauma or from like autoimmune conditions or some
Speaker 2: sort of physical condition that they're having a really hard
Speaker 2: time with.
Speaker 1: I'm Radivlukiah, and on my podcast A Really Good Cry,
Speaker 1: we embrace the messy and the beautiful, providing a space
Speaker 1: for raw, un fielded conversations that celebrate vulnerability and allow
Speaker 1: you to tune in to learn, connect and find comfort together. Liz,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1: I've been following your content for such a long time now,
Speaker 1: and I was just saying this to you, but I
Speaker 1: feel like I need to say it to everyone. The
Speaker 1: way that you create your content and the way that
Speaker 1: you share the work that you do in somatic healing,
Speaker 1: it's so easily accessible. You make it feel so much
Speaker 1: simpler than the way that you think it would be,
Speaker 1: and you just find a way to make it digestible
Speaker 1: and easy. So thank you so much for the work
Speaker 1: that you do.
Speaker 2: Thank you. I really appreciate that.
Speaker 1: I wanted to just start off by asking you what
Speaker 1: sematic healing is. I feel like we hear it, but
Speaker 1: I don't know if the people really know the breakdown
Speaker 1: of what it actually means.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's such a great question. Soma literally translates it's
Speaker 2: the Greek word for a body, and somatic exercises are
Speaker 2: these really tiny micro movements that you can do in
Speaker 2: bed or on the floor that really stress out of
Speaker 2: your body, release tension out of your body. Some of
Speaker 2: them regulate your nervous systems, some of them release trauma
Speaker 2: out of your body.
Speaker 1: Okay, And so does it originate from? Where is the
Speaker 1: origin of somatic heating from?
Speaker 2: Yeah? So I would say it's rooted in ancient cultures,
Speaker 2: like ultimately, and then in the nineteen seventies, this guy
Speaker 2: named Thomas Hannah used the word somatics for the first time. Okay,
Speaker 2: but there was a lot of research before that in
Speaker 2: terms of how emotions are connected to your physicality and
Speaker 2: your muscle tension. That's kind of paved the way and
Speaker 2: set the foundation for somatics. But as of the nineteen
Speaker 2: seventies is really when the field was born, and a
Speaker 2: lot of neuroscience research has been done to kind of
Speaker 2: substantiate the science behind the mind, body and emotional connection.
Speaker 1: And who do you think would benefit from somatic healing?
Speaker 2: I would say anyone who feels stressed. Okay, I personally
Speaker 2: discovered it because I had gone through a lot of
Speaker 2: trauma and I had really bad insomnia and had tried
Speaker 2: a lot of other modalities that weren't really working for me.
Speaker 2: So a lot of people initially find somatics from trauma
Speaker 2: or from like autoimmune conditions or some sort of physical
Speaker 2: condition that they're having a really hard time with. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but anyone who feels stressed out can benefit.
Speaker 1: What are some of the benefits that you have found
Speaker 1: in doing it yourself and recognizing some of the patients
Speaker 1: that you've helped and treated.
Speaker 2: Deep restorative sleep, so you really get that restoration that
Speaker 2: happens when you get a full night sleep, which is
Speaker 2: kind of the foundation of a lot of your health.
Speaker 2: I would say just being able to handle stress with
Speaker 2: more ease without it taking you into overwhelm or taking
Speaker 2: you into a shutdown state. So it kind of helps
Speaker 2: you stay connected and stay grounded to yourself. And I
Speaker 2: would just say like physical relaxation, like feeling like you're
Speaker 2: not tense all the time, not feeling like you're not
Speaker 2: feeling like you're clenching your job right right, not feeling
Speaker 2: like you're clenching your body which just makes everything so
Speaker 2: much more relaxing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that sounds great. I feel like everyone needs that.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: Now you mentioned how you came into this through trauma
Speaker 1: that you'd been through. How did you find trauma showed
Speaker 1: up in your physical body or that you've seen other people?
Speaker 1: Where does it show up in the body? How does
Speaker 1: it show up?
Speaker 2: How does it manifest There can be a lot of
Speaker 2: different what I call like flavors of manifestations. For some
Speaker 2: people it's sleep issues, for other people it's chronic pain.
Speaker 2: Some people have unexplained issues. Gut issues are quite common,
Speaker 2: stomach aches are quite common. And then you can also
Speaker 2: have kind of unexplained physical pain that's not from an
Speaker 2: injury or an accident that's just not really going away,
Speaker 2: whether it's headaches or migraines, or if it's you know,
Speaker 2: lower back pain that's not going away, or neck pain
Speaker 2: neck tension that you can't really figure out.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I we recently shared this on our page on
Speaker 1: Instagram of the body map and where different emotions show up.
Speaker 1: I just wondering if you share a little bit on that,
Speaker 1: is there truth to it? And how do you wear
Speaker 1: in the body do different emotions end up showing up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's such a great study. So there are patterns
Speaker 2: of different emotional responses that kind of get stored what
Speaker 2: we call get stored in different parts of your body.
Speaker 2: In the throat, it's very connected to like lack of
Speaker 2: like not feeling like you have a voice. So perhaps
Speaker 2: you've experienced some sort of injustice or you've been like
Speaker 2: shut down over and over again and you feel like
Speaker 2: you can't really speak up. Jaw tends to be like
Speaker 2: your boundaries have been crossed. You're angry about something and
Speaker 2: not in a bad way, like really valid anger. Hips
Speaker 2: tend to be more like betrayal or trauma.
Speaker 1: So many different places in the body. Yeah, it's incredible, though.
Speaker 1: It's incredible to see that emotion body connection. And sometimes
Speaker 1: you don't realize it, like, oh, we're just exhausted and
Speaker 1: we're tired, and we think about everything being on the
Speaker 1: physical plane. It's like my foot's hurting because I've been
Speaker 1: walking too much. But no, maybe it's walking. Maybe it's
Speaker 1: hurting because I'm carrying too much load emotionally, And it's
Speaker 1: difficult to remember that on a daily basis.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really difficult to remember that. And I think
Speaker 2: you know, I think for a long time we've had
Speaker 2: this break fixed mentality where it's like, my lower back hurts,
Speaker 2: it must be the chair I'm sitting in. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 2: going to go buy a new chair, right exactly. And
Speaker 2: then you're like, wait, the chair didn't fix it, which
Speaker 2: is what I experienced with my own insomnia and my
Speaker 2: own chronic pain for a while too. And I was
Speaker 2: really trying all these different things to just fix the pain,
Speaker 2: and then I didn't. I didn't realize. It took me
Speaker 2: a long time to discover that there was a whole
Speaker 2: emotional layer underneath it.
Speaker 1: What's the difference then, between sematic work or sematic work
Speaker 1: and doing yoga yoga postures?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would say there's different goals. So yoga, from
Speaker 2: what I know about it is, you know, very rooted
Speaker 2: in spirituality, and the postures are kind of and the
Speaker 2: poses are kind of a way to deepen your spiritual connection,
Speaker 2: deepen your connection to yourself. The postures work on a
Speaker 2: muscular level, whereas somatics, there is no spiritual component to somatics.
Speaker 2: It's really just about for me, it's about re establishing
Speaker 2: a sense of agency in the body. So you have
Speaker 2: this like choice of how you do the exercises. There's
Speaker 2: no correct or incorrect way to do them, and you're
Speaker 2: not really trying to go deeper necessarily. You're really just
Speaker 2: trying to reconnect your mind and body so that neither
Speaker 2: are feeling shut down or kind of dissociated.
Speaker 1: I remember when I studied, when I did my yoga
Speaker 1: teach training, they talked about how breath is the anchor
Speaker 1: between your mind and your body to bring you back
Speaker 1: into presence. And from what I'm hearing, somatic healing sounds
Speaker 1: like practices to bring you back into the present moment,
Speaker 1: like to constantly bring your body and your mind back
Speaker 1: into one place.
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
Speaker 1: What are some if people are doing trying to incorporate
Speaker 1: sematic healing into their day. Are there three different types
Speaker 1: of exercise you could share with us or movements that
Speaker 1: you could share with us that are easiest to do?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so one? Do you want to do one together?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Okay, great, we can stay sitting like this. We'll just
Speaker 2: uncross our legs and then just move this slightly so
Speaker 2: you can go ahead and take your right hand and
Speaker 2: grab a hold of your right ear pretty firmly, and
Speaker 2: if at any point your arm gets tired, just rest.
Speaker 2: You want to have a nice firm pull on the ear,
Speaker 2: and you're going to open and close your mouth a
Speaker 2: couple times. It looks kind of strange, it's.
Speaker 1: Part of the good things do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's part of the fun. And then we'll just
Speaker 2: bring that to a rest for a moment. This is
Speaker 2: a vagus nerve exercise, so it'll give you a little
Speaker 2: more energy. And then the next step of this is
Speaker 2: getting that same hold with your ear, so you're using
Speaker 2: your right hand to grab firmly, pull up slightly, and
Speaker 2: then in the laziest way possible, you're just going to
Speaker 2: dip your ear a little right to left.
Speaker 1: Oh my, next tent.
Speaker 2: That's okay, And then you want to see how unclenched
Speaker 2: can your job be as you do this? And then
Speaker 2: how lazy can you be as you do this movement?
Speaker 1: Pretty wed is staying when moving the headside to side.
Speaker 2: Yes, and then we'll just go ahead and rest for
Speaker 2: a moment. And it takes like twenty to thirty seconds
Speaker 2: to kind of feel the effect, but you might feel
Speaker 2: like a little sprinkly feeling on the right side of
Speaker 2: your and it should make you feel slightly more energized. Okay,
Speaker 2: and so then you know, if we were doing this
Speaker 2: in a class format, we would repeat it on the
Speaker 2: same the other side, which we can do after we finish. Yeah, yeah, together.
Speaker 2: But that's one quick exercise that you can do. I
Speaker 2: do that before meetings all the time.
Speaker 1: Amazing. You mentioned the vegus nerve. Yeah, tell us a
Speaker 1: little bit about the vegus nerve and how it impacts us.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's the longest cranial nerve in your body. It
Speaker 2: runs from the base of your brainstem all the way
Speaker 2: down into your stomach. If your vegas nerve is kind
Speaker 2: of shut down, you'll feel like emotionally numb. You'll have
Speaker 2: a hard time getting out of bed. You'll feel really
Speaker 2: low energy, your limbs will feel heavy, you may not
Speaker 2: be able to cry, you may be like responding to
Speaker 2: people with one word answers, kind of like after you
Speaker 2: finish all your tasks, you may just like kind of
Speaker 2: collapse and watch Netflix or just like be so tired.
Speaker 2: So the vegus nerve really, when you restimulate vegas nerve,
Speaker 2: it really helps bring you back into your baseline. It
Speaker 2: really helps regulate your nervous system and give you more energy.
Speaker 2: And you can normally do that if you practice for
Speaker 2: like ten minutes a day, you can normally restimulate your
Speaker 2: vegus nerve and like fifteen to thirty days.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, yeah, so that was an exercise for that.
Speaker 1: Are there any is the breath work involved in somatic
Speaker 1: healing as well?
Speaker 2: There can be breath work involved in somatic healing. There
Speaker 2: are different schools of somatics. I personally don't teach breath work,
Speaker 2: but there are there can be breathwork involved.
Speaker 1: I know sometimes I've seen online when I'm watching people
Speaker 1: do somatic healing, and obviously there's small clips, but sometimes
Speaker 1: it can be quite aggressive and it can look a
Speaker 1: little bit scary. Talk me through the movements that's you know,
Speaker 1: it almost looks like involuntary bodily movements that people are
Speaker 1: having or the type of energetic experiences that look like
Speaker 1: they're unexplainable.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. So there is a thing called a neurogenic
Speaker 2: which is like this involuntary shaking that can happen in
Speaker 2: your body. And essentially, if you've ever been in like
Speaker 2: a really scary situation, you may have noticed that your
Speaker 2: body shakes. And for a lot of people, we have
Speaker 2: this cognitive override where we can like subconsciously stop the
Speaker 2: shaking because we don't want to look bizarre, like, especially
Speaker 2: in public, if you're really scared, you don't want to
Speaker 2: be shaking. But the shaking actually finalizes your biological stress response.
Speaker 2: So dogs, after they get scared, they'll shake their body right,
Speaker 2: and animals do this, and that's why doctor Peter Levine
Speaker 2: talks about like he's one of the founders of somatics.
Speaker 2: He talks about how animals don't get PTSD, and part
Speaker 2: of this theory has to do with the neurogenic genic tremor.
Speaker 2: So there are exercises that you can do it within
Speaker 2: somatics that gently recreate this neurogenic tremor in your body.
Speaker 2: So you'll do an exercise and you'll start to shake.
Speaker 2: Oftentimes when that happens, you'll also start to cry and
Speaker 2: you get like this big release emotionally and physically. You've
Speaker 2: finalized your biological stress response, and then you're no longer
Speaker 2: really stuck in that stress physiology in the same way,
Speaker 2: but with somatics, I always kind of advise people like,
Speaker 2: you don't want to have like a super intense cathartic
Speaker 2: experiment the release itself can be kind of intense and
Speaker 2: cathartic for some people, but if someone's guiding you into
Speaker 2: it in a really intense cathartic way, that's not the best, right, Okay, Yeah,
Speaker 2: so you want to kind of work incrementally. For me,
Speaker 2: I don't even talk to people about the release until
Speaker 2: like eighteen sessions in. Yeah, so you kind of want
Speaker 2: to make sure that you've released habitual tension out of
Speaker 2: your body, that you feel safe again in your body
Speaker 2: before you start to take it into this big release moment.
Speaker 1: So there are all these there are different exercises to
Speaker 1: stimulate or release different parts in your body. And so
Speaker 1: would you normally what would a session look like, could
Speaker 1: go through head to toe, or you'd focus on specific areas.
Speaker 2: I kind of focus on first. I start with these
Speaker 2: really gentle rocking exercises, bilateral stimulation, different ways of releasing
Speaker 2: habitual tension out of different body parts. I personally start
Speaker 2: with the hips because it's kind of the main center
Speaker 2: of movement and it's also one of the strongest parts
Speaker 2: of your body. So rather than starting with some more
Speaker 2: like the neck that's really tender and people can kind
Speaker 2: of injure themselves, you want to start with the strongest
Speaker 2: part of the body and start there so that people
Speaker 2: stay safe. Then I normally go into the jaw and
Speaker 2: do some jaw releasing. And the jaw and the hips
Speaker 2: are connected through your fascia, so that's quite nice. Like
Speaker 2: normally if people have tight hips, they also have a
Speaker 2: clenched jaw.
Speaker 1: Oh interesting, Yeah.
Speaker 2: They kind of go hand in hand, and those are
Speaker 2: kind of the two first responders to stress in your body.
Speaker 2: You're so as muscle will clench up, which is a
Speaker 2: muscle that runs from your diaphragm into your greater trocanter
Speaker 2: which is near your groin, and then your jaw will
Speaker 2: also clench and this is just part of your fight
Speaker 2: or flight response.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So I start with those two parts of the
Speaker 2: body release ten, and then I start releasing tension in
Speaker 2: the shoulders as well, and then I start moving into
Speaker 2: more releasing exercises. So I do like a soas release,
Speaker 2: and we do a stress release and a trauma release.
Speaker 2: And then at the end of the journey that I
Speaker 2: teach is more integration, so that you're not just like
Speaker 2: leaving people after this big release early moment that we're
Speaker 2: reintegrating it so that you know, everything's kind of complete.
Speaker 1: Are they? Is it something that I recommend people do
Speaker 1: every single day.
Speaker 2: I do them about six days a week. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: I only do like five minutes sometimes ten per day,
Speaker 2: depending on what I'm doing. For example, in the car
Speaker 2: on the way here, I was doing a couple exercises
Speaker 2: to just relax and you know, not feel anxious totally. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and it depends, you know, for people if you've gone
Speaker 2: through more in your life or you are currently living
Speaker 2: in a really stressful phase of life. They're so great
Speaker 2: to do every day. Other people who want to just
Speaker 2: like have this experience of reconnecting to their body and
Speaker 2: regulating their nervous system can do them for a shorter
Speaker 2: amount of time, like like thirty to sixty day journey
Speaker 2: and then you know, just use as needed.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Are there certain types of movements that we do, you know,
Speaker 1: whether it's workouts or yeah, the types of workouts that
Speaker 1: we do that can negatively impact our nervous system or
Speaker 1: you know, because you think movement is movement and it's
Speaker 1: always good for you, but are there certain types of
Speaker 1: movement that you wouldn't recommend for someone who's feeling quite anxious?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I would say high and super high intensity exercise
Speaker 2: atally caring that. Yeah, if you're already stressed, and you're
Speaker 2: already disregulated, or you feel constant anxiety or constant overwhelmed,
Speaker 2: you're really just introducing another stressor into your life. So
Speaker 2: you want to do low to mid intensity exercise if
Speaker 2: you feel that way. And it's not that you can't
Speaker 2: ever get to the place of doing high intensity exercise.
Speaker 2: You just want to work your body incrementally and slowly
Speaker 2: to get there. So some people that I would coach
Speaker 2: would like be like I went to a hit class
Speaker 2: after not working out for COVID, Like they didn't work
Speaker 2: out the whole pandemic and then they went back to
Speaker 2: a HIT class and they're like and then I got injured,
Speaker 2: And I'm like, right, because you just threw your well
Speaker 2: intentioned They just threw their body into this really intense experience.
Speaker 2: But you can't get there. You just want to start.
Speaker 2: It's like Goldilock, you know, like you want to start
Speaker 2: in the middle and then or you know, low intensity
Speaker 2: and then work your way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, when you were going through healing your own trauma
Speaker 1: that you'd been through, were there any other supportive therapies
Speaker 1: or treatments that you had done that also helped in
Speaker 1: your journey. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. I love emdr Okay, which also uses bilateral stimulation,
Speaker 2: mostly with your eyes. It can sometimes be done with sound.
Speaker 2: It's another bottom up regulation tool, bottom up processing tool
Speaker 2: for trauma. Talk therapy is considered a top down processing
Speaker 2: tool for trauma. I also really love talk therapy. It
Speaker 2: took me a little while to find the exact type
Speaker 2: that worked the best for me, But for me IFS,
Speaker 2: which stands for Internal Family Systems, Yes, has been really amazing.
Speaker 1: I had Gabbie Bernstein on the podcast and she recently
Speaker 1: wrote a book on internal family systems, and it was
Speaker 1: so amazing because she said she actually didn't realize that
Speaker 1: she had a specific trauma until a few years ago,
Speaker 1: where she did it internal family system and she realized
Speaker 1: that she'd been abused when she was younger, and she
Speaker 1: had no idea, and it unlocked a part of her
Speaker 1: that she had obviously suppressed or kind of put aside.
Speaker 1: But I've heard that it can be such a powerful tool.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's incredibly powerful, and I think it's a lot
Speaker 2: more effective for people who've experienced trauma than other types
Speaker 2: like cognitive behavioral therapy, and a lot of people who've
Speaker 2: experienced really intense trauma when they're younger get kind of
Speaker 2: a dissociative amnesia because it's essentially it's too much to process,
Speaker 2: so you just kind of shut down and you can't
Speaker 2: remember it until you get your body to the place
Speaker 2: that you feel safe enough.
Speaker 1: Is that disassociation? Oh yeah, yeah, I feel like that's
Speaker 1: a common symptom. Well, I don't even know call it
Speaker 1: a symptom, but a common response to trauma. And I
Speaker 1: guess could you explain that a little bit why that happens.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, When your a nervous system gets too overwhelmed
Speaker 2: into a protective response called freeze. Some people experience it
Speaker 2: as functional freeze, or you can go into like a
Speaker 2: full shutdown, so there's a spectrum. Functional freeze is when
Speaker 2: you can still get all of your tasks done during
Speaker 2: the day. You might even be really successful at work
Speaker 2: with your family, but then when you come home at
Speaker 2: night you just crash and collapse. And then freeze is
Speaker 2: a little bit more extreme, where you're like can barely
Speaker 2: get out of bed, and then full shut down is
Speaker 2: almost like catatonic, where you are not talking anymore, you're
Speaker 2: barely eating. And those are different levels of severity of
Speaker 2: the freeze response. But ultimately, when you experience the freeze response,
Speaker 2: your body turns off and your brain turns off the
Speaker 2: non essential functions. So that's part of the reason why
Speaker 2: people will get gut issues, because for some reason, your
Speaker 2: body doesn't think that it needs its gut to survive.
Speaker 2: This is very evolution. Nervous systems are very old, yeah,
Speaker 2: and haven't quite cut up to modern society yet. But
Speaker 2: also you will lose some ability to remember, yes, and
Speaker 2: it's just protective.
Speaker 1: Yeah, of course.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Your mind kind of like just boxes things up and
Speaker 1: puts them aside so you don't have to deal with them.
Speaker 1: What happens to the nervous system during panic attacks because
Speaker 1: that kind of feels like the opposite of dissociation, where
Speaker 1: you're really just feeling everything in your body totally.
Speaker 2: Panic attacks are like sympathetic activation of the nervous system,
Speaker 2: which is like your nervous system can go off, which
Speaker 2: would be like this shut down state, and then it
Speaker 2: can get kind of stuck in on which is more
Speaker 2: like fight flight, okay, And the panic attack is essentially
Speaker 2: like a really extreme version of that sympathetic activation where
Speaker 2: you get so activated that your body has to discharge
Speaker 2: some energy, and that's where the panic attack comes in.
Speaker 1: Are there any simple somatic tools that people can use
Speaker 1: if they're experiencing a panic attack.
Speaker 2: During the panic attack itself, get low to the ground
Speaker 2: and as slow of a way as you can, and
Speaker 2: place your hand on your body, just in any way
Speaker 2: to ground yourself, hand on heart if you can, and
Speaker 2: just stay there for a moment after the panic attack.
Speaker 2: When you feel more safer, once you've gotten home, you
Speaker 2: can lay in bed on your stomach and place your hands,
Speaker 2: stack your hands on top of each other, make a
Speaker 2: diamond with your arms and place your forehead on the
Speaker 2: top of your hands, and you can take your hips
Speaker 2: right left in like this gentle even rhythm, kind of
Speaker 2: medium speed. This is part of bilateral stimulation. It'll help
Speaker 2: bring your body back into a more regulated state. But
Speaker 2: I would suggest after a panic attack doing that hip
Speaker 2: blocking for like a minute before you go to bed.
Speaker 1: They feel like really manageable tools to be able to incorporate. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what are the things that you think people are doing
Speaker 1: every single day that's causing like minded dysregulation? Like in
Speaker 1: an average person. What are the things that we're doing
Speaker 1: in our day that you're like, we need to do
Speaker 1: less of that?
Speaker 2: Not going outside?
Speaker 1: Yes, so true.
Speaker 2: The big one. Not moving at all is another big one,
Speaker 2: And I get I get that the reason why it's happening.
Speaker 2: You know, we're all a lot more tech based now.
Speaker 2: Our lifestyles have changed a lot, even with AI. Our
Speaker 2: life has changed a lot in the last couple of years,
Speaker 2: and everything's getting more tech dependent. But I think as
Speaker 2: we're doing that, we can't stop our bodies from moving
Speaker 2: because not moving just has this domino effect on your health.
Speaker 2: You know, the phone can be problematic, but I feel
Speaker 2: like it's so far gone already, Like.
Speaker 1: How many more times can we tell people people find out?
Speaker 2: Yeah, like I can't. I can't in good confidence tell
Speaker 2: people to put their phone down because I just feel
Speaker 2: like it's part of our life style now. But we
Speaker 2: can do things, like, you know, anything that's more sensual,
Speaker 2: where if you're cooking, like that's a really great way
Speaker 2: of like experiencing your senses. If you're going outside, you're
Speaker 2: like smelling the sounds, you're hearing the birds, you're feeling
Speaker 2: the sun on your skin. Movement is also this great
Speaker 2: way of connecting to your senses so and connecting to
Speaker 2: how you feel on the inside.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I like that that tip of connecting back to
Speaker 1: your senses because I feel like those are the things
Speaker 1: that can bring you back into the present moment. And
Speaker 1: that's really what you're trying to do, right You're trying
Speaker 1: to constantly bring yourself back, bring yourself back. If you've
Speaker 1: been on your phone, try and connect back to your senses,
Speaker 1: if you've your mind's wondering, if you feel anxious, just
Speaker 1: do something, smell something, please, something that brings you back
Speaker 1: into this present moment. And the more moments you can
Speaker 1: have throughout the day, even if you've had a lot
Speaker 1: of moments where you feel like you've not been present
Speaker 1: in your body at least these are the little anchors
Speaker 1: that bring you back in. Yeah, I think those are
Speaker 1: really import And Yeah, I have a racing mind often,
Speaker 1: so I use breath work a lot for my resets
Speaker 1: throughout the day. Do you have like a thing that
Speaker 1: you do as like a two minute nervous system reset
Speaker 1: to just get you back into focus. Is breathwork involved
Speaker 1: in in that practice?
Speaker 2: Or I don't really do that much breath work I'm
Speaker 2: really focused on movement, and I have nothing against work,
Speaker 2: but I do this little tapping.
Speaker 1: I was gonna ask, Yeah, this just.
Speaker 2: On my thighs. Or you can cross your arms, cross
Speaker 2: your wrists over your chest and tap right left and
Speaker 2: I do it for like about a minute, medium pressure,
Speaker 2: medium pace, And that is bilateral stimulation, which helps me reset.
Speaker 1: I love tapping, like yeah, it helps to remind you
Speaker 1: that you're in your body, yes, Like yeah.
Speaker 2: Because we sometimes just kind of like leave our bodies
Speaker 2: for a moment exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So obviously this is called a really good cry. And
Speaker 1: you mentioned that you love crying.
Speaker 2: I love crying.
Speaker 1: Give me the load, give me the breakdown of Like
Speaker 1: why is crying so therapeutic? Because honestly, sometimes I will
Speaker 1: be feeling so heavy, whether it's energetically physically, my head's hurting,
Speaker 1: and as soon as I cry, I'm like brand new. Yeah,
Speaker 1: taught me through that a little bit.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. So crying is a reset for your nervous system.
Speaker 2: So if you're crying from an emotional reason, it brings
Speaker 2: you back into regulation. Essentially, what can happen for people
Speaker 2: is you get that sympathetic activation where your the stress
Speaker 2: is building up in your body, and crying is this release.
Speaker 2: It also releases oxytocin, which is a feel good hormone,
Speaker 2: and it just that's why you feel so good after
Speaker 2: you cry.
Speaker 1: Wow. So interesting that even though crying feels sad, it
Speaker 1: releases a happy hormone giving your body after afterwards. Yeah,
Speaker 1: no idea that it does that. Yeah, okay, so we
Speaker 1: do all these cry and why do you why do
Speaker 1: people find it difficult to cry? Sometimes? I first like,
Speaker 1: I really cry, Well, I haven't cried in years, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I can't relate, and I'm like, wow, what did that?
Speaker 1: What does that feel like?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I had about like ten years where I couldn't lie. Wow,
Speaker 2: which I was like, and I was much younger at
Speaker 2: the time, and I was very worried that there was
Speaker 2: something like quote unquote wrong with me, which if you're
Speaker 2: experiencing this, there's nothing wrong with you. Just so you know,
Speaker 2: it's a very normal protective response. But it does have
Speaker 2: to do with that freeze response in your nervous system
Speaker 2: where you're more shut down, so you're more emotionally numb,
Speaker 2: and ultimately, your your body doesn't feel like it has
Speaker 2: like the resources for emotional expression. It doesn't have the
Speaker 2: capacity for emotional expression.
Speaker 1: It's like if I shed one tear, all of them,
Speaker 1: all of the tiers can come out. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And for me when I experienced that, even like
Speaker 2: when my grandma passed away, I was not crying and
Speaker 2: I was like, what is wrong? What is going on?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's hard. I remember my friend when someone passed
Speaker 1: in her family. I went to her and I gave
Speaker 1: her huggy. She said, don't hug me because I'm just
Speaker 1: going to end up crying. Yeah. It's like, don't ask
Speaker 1: me if I'm okay, otherwise I'm going to end up crying.
Speaker 1: And so I think it's it's this feeling of I'm
Speaker 1: not ready to release just yet. I don't need to
Speaker 1: be comforted to. I want to protect myself. And then
Speaker 1: when I'm ready and my body feels ready or my
Speaker 1: mind feels ready, I'll release.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think women too, like we don't give ourselves
Speaker 2: enough credit for like how much we hold it down, right,
Speaker 2: Like a lot of us have great careers and a
Speaker 2: lot of us are kind of like the head of
Speaker 2: the household, and we do hold it down. And I
Speaker 2: think a lot of us are kind of operating in
Speaker 2: this place where we're like forced into hyper independence in
Speaker 2: a way, and it can be really hard to be
Speaker 2: vulnerable in that state and cry in that state because
Speaker 2: you're kind of concerned, like is everything going to fall
Speaker 2: apart if I let myself cry. I'm personally a big
Speaker 2: fan of crying in public.
Speaker 1: Yeah, cry on planes all the time?
Speaker 2: Yes, like you know, not for me, not like a
Speaker 2: huge cry. But if I lived in New York for
Speaker 2: a while and I would see people cry on the
Speaker 2: subway all the time, yeah, and no one, no one.
Speaker 1: No one. Yeah, I'd be like walking around New York
Speaker 1: loss like crying my eyes out, like so sad because
Speaker 1: I just moved there and I was feeling a bit lonely,
Speaker 1: like snotty and literally.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, totally fine, totally fine.
Speaker 1: That's oblivious.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's where I learned that crying in public was
Speaker 2: completely okay.
Speaker 1: I'd love to be going to relationships a little bit
Speaker 1: because obviously when people have been through some sort of trauma,
Speaker 1: especially sexual trauma, it were really difficult to trust again
Speaker 1: trust their body in another relationship and create a connection.
Speaker 1: Could you speak to that a little bit, or speak
Speaker 1: to anybody who's been through that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, I think there's an emotional component, and then
Speaker 2: I also think that there's a physical component that we
Speaker 2: don't always think about. So in terms of getting physically
Speaker 2: intimate with someone again, your body can get kind of
Speaker 2: stuck in like a bracing pattern. If you've experienced sexual trauma.
Speaker 2: Sexual trauma. We don't really acknowledge this, but it's like
Speaker 2: a capital T trauma. It is not a light trauma.
Speaker 2: It's just so frequent and it happens to so many
Speaker 2: women that we kind of just go on with our lives,
Speaker 2: probably without enough healing after it. Not everyone, but for
Speaker 2: me when I experienced it, like not enough healing right
Speaker 2: after it. That can cause your body to get stuck
Speaker 2: in this bracing pattern or in this holding pattern. You
Speaker 2: might feel really hyper vigilant where you're like constantly scanning,
Speaker 2: and so when you're in a relationship, it's really hard
Speaker 2: to reconnect to feeling relaxed and intimacy you've been through that,
Speaker 2: because even though mentally you know that this person is
Speaker 2: a different person, I am consenting to this and I
Speaker 2: want this to happen, it can your body can just
Speaker 2: be kind of stuck in this place, like kind of
Speaker 2: PTSD place or yeah, or like a stress physiology, and
Speaker 2: I think that that for a lot of people is
Speaker 2: the missing link in their healing and in their ability
Speaker 2: to re establish that vulnerability and that connection with someone.
Speaker 2: And then there's the emotional component where it just takes
Speaker 2: longer to trust someone. You might need to move a
Speaker 2: little bit slower, you might need to have more validation,
Speaker 2: more assurance to be able to really feel like we're
Speaker 2: partners and to fall in love again. You're just more
Speaker 2: cautious and rightfully so of course, yeah, of course.
Speaker 1: How do people tell the difference between having just really
Speaker 1: good chemistry with someone and being trauma bonded, Because I
Speaker 1: feel like sometimes they can for some reason feel very
Speaker 1: confusing or not knowing the difference.
Speaker 2: I would say the pacing of it is a really
Speaker 2: good indicator. So if you like immediately share your whole
Speaker 2: life story and you know you're instantly like connected, and
Speaker 2: then the relationship moves really quickly, that is probably a
Speaker 2: sign of a trauma bond, Whereas if you move more
Speaker 2: gradually and like it takes a little bit more time
Speaker 2: for some of that more vulnerable stuff to come out,
Speaker 2: then it's generally a really healthy, solid foundation. I was
Speaker 2: in a narcissistic marriage, got divorced, and I took a
Speaker 2: year off of dating, and when I started dating again,
Speaker 2: I asked my therapist for advice because I was like,
Speaker 2: how much do I share about this? I don't want
Speaker 2: to not share about it at all, but I also
Speaker 2: don't want to like come off like, you know, date one,
Speaker 2: date two, disclosing this information. And my therapist told me, like,
Speaker 2: you don't have to talk about it right away, you know,
Speaker 2: take your time and establish a connection first. And if
Speaker 2: someone asks you about a past relationship that was really
Speaker 2: difficult for you, you can say, I was in a
Speaker 2: relationship that was difficult and I've learned a lot from it,
Speaker 2: And that's a really great way of just introducing that
Speaker 2: something may have happened and I've done some work afterwards
Speaker 2: to be able to move on.
Speaker 1: That must have been so difficult. How long were you
Speaker 1: in that relationship? Was it a long marriage that you
Speaker 1: were in.
Speaker 2: We were married for three years, Okay? Yeah.
Speaker 1: Did it take quite a while and a lot of
Speaker 1: healing afterwards to help you get into dating in another relationship?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it took. I took a full year off of
Speaker 2: dating and then even finding a new partner took some time,
Speaker 2: and my current partner and I have been together for
Speaker 2: three and a half years. We just moved in together. Okay,
Speaker 2: so it's been a very slow, steady build and she's
Speaker 2: been very supportive of me and just has given me
Speaker 2: a lot of space, which is like very attractive, so lovely.
Speaker 1: But also like taking it slow. It's just at least,
Speaker 1: you know, it's like the steady pace and all of
Speaker 1: that feels good to your nervous system after you've been
Speaker 1: through something that's so intense, and so I feel like
Speaker 1: that probably felt a lot safer and a lot more
Speaker 1: manageable than getting too fast, too deep into something. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you have your book When the Body Speaks. We've got
Speaker 1: it up here right now. Tell us a little bit
Speaker 1: about it, what brought you to write it, and what
Speaker 1: can people expect from the book.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So Somatox has kind of historically been books about
Speaker 2: somatics have historically been written by older men who are
Speaker 2: researchers and doctors. So that the Body Keeps the Score
Speaker 2: by doctor Bessel vai Ercolk. There's Waking This Tiger by
Speaker 2: doctor Peter Levine. And both of these books are like
Speaker 2: really important and seminal foundational for the field, and my
Speaker 2: publisher really wanted me to write a book because they
Speaker 2: kind of see me as the next chapter of somatics survivor.
Speaker 2: I'm someone who's been through all of that, and I
Speaker 2: do talk about my story more publicly, so they see
Speaker 2: that it's very relatable. I'm a millennial woman, so they
Speaker 2: kind of want this new face of somatics, how it
Speaker 2: can be more relatable to modern culture.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what kind of things do you cover in your book?
Speaker 2: There's three parts. Part one is my story and how
Speaker 2: I discovered somatics. Part two is ten of my students' stories,
Speaker 2: and through their stories, we also illustrate the science of
Speaker 2: how stress and trauma gets stored in your body and
Speaker 2: nervous system dysregulation and hormonal imbalances that happen as a
Speaker 2: result of that. And then part three are my favorite,
Speaker 2: like little mini routines nice for sleep, gut issues, anger release,
Speaker 2: stress release, and there are photos and explanations of the
Speaker 2: exercises and parts.
Speaker 1: Amazing, really simple but so useful. Yeah, if there was
Speaker 1: one thing you wanted people to take away from this
Speaker 1: podcast about somatic healing, what would it be? What would
Speaker 1: you want them to know.
Speaker 2: Your body isn't broken. It's just trying to protect you.
Speaker 2: So if you're experiencing long term pain, or if you
Speaker 2: can't sleep well, or if you feel constantly bloated, or
Speaker 2: you have a random food allergy that you can't figure
Speaker 2: out with the doctor, your body's not broken and you
Speaker 2: won't stay stuck in that place. You just need to
Speaker 2: find a way to get it back to its baseline
Speaker 2: and get it out of its stress response.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so, I know sometimes when you're going through things,
Speaker 1: it can feels so permanent, Yes, And to know that
Speaker 1: things are temporary and that you can move through them.
Speaker 1: It just sometimes you just need a little bit of hope,
Speaker 1: Like you need someone to say that to you, Yeah,
Speaker 1: to remind you that, Okay, this chronic pain, this hair
Speaker 1: loss is, whatever it is, it's possible to heal as
Speaker 1: possible for it, and it's not just through the conventional way.
Speaker 1: Sometimes we get told no wrong so many you know,
Speaker 1: people that you're told to trust, and then you realize
Speaker 1: that there might be other pasts or other routes to
Speaker 1: help heal that issue.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, Thank you so much, Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: This is amazing. Thank you for all your wonderful tips
Speaker 1: and everybody go grab when the body speaks. How somatic
Speaker 1: healing sets you free.
Speaker 2: Thanks, thank you,