Unlocking the Body's Secrets: A Journey Through Somatic and Trauma Therapy with Charlene Meyer

When the burdens of past traumas weigh heavily on both mind and body, the path to healing can seem shrouded in mystery. Together with Charlene Meyer, a seasoned therapist with a diverse toolkit of somatic and trauma-focused therapies, we explore the profound connection between our physical states and emotional scars. Charlene, with her deep expertise in marriage and family therapy, art therapy, EMDR, and somatic experiencing, illuminates the transformative process of somatic therapy, which transcends conventional talk therapy by addressing how our bodies harbor and manifest trauma. Our discussion reveals how incorporating movement, such as running, into therapeutic practices can not only catalyze emotional release but also fortify mental resilience against anxiety and depression.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:10

Welcome to Ella Go. My name is Lisa. Join me on the journey in having real, raw and uncomfortable discussions about fitness, health and everything in between, Because, let's be honest, this journey would suck if we don't get our shit together. All right, welcome back to the Elegoo Podcast. I am your host, Lisa, and today we are going to discuss a topic that I hold near and dear to my heart. And today we are going to discuss a topic that I hold near and dear to my heart.

Speaker 1: 0:48

As you all know, I am a trained therapist and, even though I am not practicing professionally, I implement a lot of techniques in my running life coach business appropriately. With that being said, something you don't always hear is that therapy is multifaceted. When people think of therapy, they immediately go to talk therapy. There are so many forms of therapy, as well as many different approaches to therapy, so it goes beyond the typical sitting on a couch and talking out your issues. So today we are going to be talking about another type of therapy called somatic therapy. What is it and how it can help you?

Speaker 1: 1:25

Joining us today to discuss this topic is Charlene Meyer. She is a licensed marriage and family therapist, a registered art therapist, a certified EMDR therapist and a somatic experiencing practitioner. Welcome, Charlene. I'm sure everyone's like, oh my God, what are all those things? Welcome Charlene. I'm sure everyone's like, oh my God, what are all those things? So it's been a long time coming because Charlene and I have spoken like months ago and we wanted to do this podcast episode. We kind of just kept going and then, Charlene, I kid you not, I was putting something together regarding somatic running and I was putting a post together and as I'm writing it I'm thinking whatever happened to Charlene? And then she texts me and she goes. We got to do the podcast.

Speaker 2: 2:17

We're on the same wavelength. We are on the same wavelength.

Speaker 1: 2:20

Okay, so let's talk a little bit about, like, your background, like how did you get into therapy? Like how did that journey, where did that journey begin?

Speaker 2: 2:33

Um, I will try to keep it to the short version. But, um, when I was younger, I always felt good helping people and um, but I also recognized that I wasn't doing it in a healthy way. So I had an art degree and I heard about art therapy and I thought, oh, I like art, I like helping people, I'm going to study to be an art therapist, and so that's how I entered the field, and it's been quite a journey ever since, after discovering all of these other types of therapies, like mind-based somatic therapies, and continuing my own healing journey, which has really, really informed my work.

Speaker 1: 3:21

I love that. I think all of us go into this journey. Obviously we want to help people, but then it's our own healing journey as well. So I love that. So let's get down to it, because I think that, like I was saying in the intro, that when people think of therapy, they go straight to the typical person laying on the couch and the therapist sitting with a pad of paper and there's so many different therapies and then on top of that, there are so many theories, there's so many techniques. People don't even realize that. So let's start with the somatic experiencing. You're a somatic experiencing practitioner. Start with the somatic experiencing you know you're a somatic experiencing practitioner. Like, what is somatic therapy and how does it work?

Speaker 2: 4:11

So, with somatic experiencing, mental health professionals that you know, healing arts professionals, body workers I've I've seen like licensed acupuncturists, physical therapists, like the whole range of healing professionals can get trained and become certified in somatic experiencing. So it it works directly with a person's nervous system and we use the bodily felt sense to help the body get unstuck from trauma. So, um the energy that's stuck in someone's body that can manifest as a mental health disorder, like anxiety or depression, for example, um helping that energy get unstuck, um noticing and feeling into the bodily felt sense and allowing the body to heal itself. It's really incredible.

Speaker 1: 5:11

I reached out to you because of my own journey with releasing trauma through running. Running wasn't just me, like I'm running away, I was just I'm going to run. No, I literally like, because I hold my trauma, my stress. I know exactly where. It's like the shoulder, it's right here Anytime I have any issue. It's like right there and it feels like someone's got their foot up my back and they're just like pressing on it.

Speaker 1: 5:40

And when I did my own, you know, had my own journey, I had to like visualize that moving through my body and almost like move, like moving through my body and moving out, and even as I'm stomping the pavement, I had that visualization of it, of me stomping it out of me, you know, and it was so therapeutic. So when you say like could you give us an example because I'm talking about running and maybe people are like I don't get it Like give us an example of how I gave you the example with my, my shoulder, but give us another example of how someone might hold that trauma or that stress and what are some of the things that you would do to help them release that?

Speaker 2: 6:33

Yeah, so gosh. There are so many ways a person may experience these symptoms or may experience these issues, but some different ways Let me think, like physical pain, even headaches, stomach aches. Those are very common ways that our body communicates that something's not right. Holding tension right, like you were saying, the sensation that you carry here in your neck or your back. That's also a common place. When we are able to kind of slow down and tap into what we feel in our bodies, whether it's connected to like an emotion or just the felt sense, it can be anything from numbness that's a sensation to like a buzzing feeling or a sharp feeling. It could be something like temperature, cold, warm, hot, boiling. Any of these descriptive words can be something that we experience physiologically.

Speaker 1: 7:52

Can you just give the woman who's listening to this right now what are some of the ways that a woman can stop for a second and say hold on a second. Is this really pain or is this something going on? I'm going to give you a great example, charlene. So when I'm in a very how do I say this toxic relationship, I get so much anxiety I can't even explain it. The person's being nice to me and I'm thinking what is wrong. It's the anxiety and then the stomach aches.

Speaker 1: 8:41

Why am I getting a stomach ache every time I'm with this person? Or why am I all of a sudden getting these issues so like I'm more self-aware that I'm going to stop and say hold up. What's going on here? Right, how can we? How can a woman who is not self-aware like what are some of the things that they can do? You know, I guess you know to to think to themselves. You know, maybe this is my body telling me something that, um, I shouldn't be in because I'm feeling this pain. Am I really feeling this pain? Am I really like hurting, or is there something else going on? I mean, what are some of the things that we can say to ourselves?

Speaker 2: 9:24

Yeah, it's really. It can be really difficult to learn to trust ourselves and trust that felt sense, or trust our intuition, trust that gut feeling, um, in addition to listening to our bodies, like listening through the felt sense. So, um, gosh, what are some recommendations? Um, it can be uncomfortable for some people to get still and feel, um, someone who's experienced, um, some type of like physical trauma or sexual trauma, it might not be safe to feel into your body because of because of the trauma. Safe to feel into your body because of the trauma. First of all, if you have experienced a trauma that severe, of course getting support from a professional, a mental health professional, to help you with processing through it.

Speaker 2: 10:21

But, yeah, just practicing, and so many, there's so many times, people that I work with, they don't believe that what they're feeling is, they think that they're imagining it and, um, I have to encourage them to just I use the word listen, but listen by feeling, or listen by noticing and being curious. Sometimes I might ask, like gosh, if that feeling or that sensation had a voice, what would it say? But you were mentioning, like you were visualizing the energy and the trauma, leaving your body out through your feet onto the pavement, and so some people are more visual. So if there's a visual, there's a symbol or an image that comes up for you using that. So I mean I could go on and on people who relate to music and like movement and dancing, right, that's one way to process through it and to get it out and to connect with emotion and sensation and your body. There's so many different ways to do it motion and sensation and your body. There's so many different ways to do it.

Speaker 1: 11:25

So let me ask you this question. So again, you know, when I first started looking into this, at first it sounds a little like woo, woo, like like how is it my body, what, what is what do you mean? My body is telling me something Like how does that work? I mean, what's the science to this?

Speaker 2: 11:50

So our brains, our emotions and our body, they're not separate from each other, Like we are a system of systems. So within our body there's different systems that are functioning. And the way trauma is stored in our body it's, you know, the, the memory of it is emotion, it's images, it's the felt sense. Yeah, that you know there's. We have a visceral reaction that's connected with emotions. So, you know, when we experience a shock, like we're crossing the street and then we don't see a car coming, that's our eyes taking in the information, our sense of hearing, all of our senses. Sometimes it's our sense of taste, sometimes words are involved, sometimes words and language aren't involved. So there's all of these different ways that our brain and our body takes in this information from moment to moment, and especially during these moments when there's, like you know, these significant events or traumatic events.

Speaker 1: 13:13

You know, you mentioned something. Well, you mentioned shock and I think maybe people can understand that, because when you think of someone going into shock because they saw a traumatic event, or I mean they're not in it, they're like on the outside watching and they go into shock Like talk about the mind body connection, like really, that's what this is, it's the, it's the mind body connection. Like that person is having all these feelings and their body just goes into freaking like crazy response mode Fight, flight, freeze, yeah, and it's like they're not even like I remember learning that even in biology class when your body goes into shock and then I'm like, well, wait a minute, they're not in the accident, they're not experiencing the pain, and yet they're watching it and their body just go and freezes. So you know, I think that is a great example of how connected the mind and the body is. I don't think we talk about mind-body connection, but I still think people don't really either don't understand it or don't believe it. But I think that example that you just gave with being in a shock is a perfect example. So thank you for that.

Speaker 1: 14:35

The other thing I wanted to ask you is so a woman is feeling these signs and she's like whoa, my body is saying this and I noticed that it does this when I'm like with this certain person or in this relationship. Um, what are some of the things that she could do? If she doesn't understand it, like you know, I I mean the thing. The first thing is she could go to the therapist right.

Speaker 2: 15:05

Yes, of course. Yeah, Things can get so there's so many layers to this and my mind just goes to like attachment styles and attachment trauma and our nervous system, how our nervous system responds in relation to other people. Or, you know, in relationships, unhealthy attachments or attachment trauma, or, you know, childhood trauma, a safe person might feel unsafe to them because their brain has been wired a certain way because of their earlier life experiences. And then you know, sometimes we do know, like you were saying, having these unhealthy relationships when your body alarm goes off like this isn't right and it can be very confusing for us because our body is saying one thing and then we have our brains that speak another language or trying to talk us in or out of something. So I'm not sure I answered the question.

Speaker 1: 16:18

No, I think you did, and I think that one thing came to mind is you really need to know the difference because, like you were mentioning the attachment style with someone who is used to having a chaotic, you know relationship with people, and when things are not chaotic, they're like oh, something's wrong.

Speaker 1: 16:37

This is not right. But I have to say from my own experience, the body never lies. The body never freaking lies In my mind. I could say, oh, I'm not sure and that's my commitment phobia. But my body is not feeling an anxiety, my body is not saying leave, I'm not having any reaction and it's more of my mental thoughts. So I have to say that there has to be some trust with yourself and, because of it being so confusing, I'm going to say yes, go see a therapist, go talk to a therapist about it to help you navigate through that, because you don't want to go through that by yourself and it can definitely definitely be confusing. So the other thing I saw on your website, and I know nothing about this, is brain spotting. What the heck is that and how does it work?

Speaker 2: 17:38

Brain spotting is amazing. I cannot say enough good things about it. Brain spotting involves focusing on a visual spot and when. Where you look affects how you feel, you feel. So when you locate a visual spot that allows you to access memories, emotions, body sensations, trauma, traumatic memories, it accesses this deep part of your brain and allows your brain and your body to heal itself. It releases these memories, the trauma, and it's this really beautiful process and by me explaining it to you, it doesn't do it justice.

Speaker 2: 18:26

I've experienced it as a client working on my own trauma and now as a therapist helping my clients work through their trauma, and it's this beautiful experience. We were just talking about learning to trust yourself, and so it's not just at least in my work, it's not just helping someone heal from the trauma, but it really does come back to the self and helping them reconnect with them with their most authentic self, and learning to trust themselves so that they, when they go back into the world, they can like the decisions they make are from that healed part of themselves versus like the wounded, traumatic parts of themselves. So I hope that made sense. So how?

Speaker 1: 19:11

okay, yeah, I did, but how? How is that? How is that different from EMDR? Ah?

Speaker 2: 19:20

yes. So the way I've been describing it to my clients, brain spotting, is EMDR and somatic experiencing had a child together. So the person who developed brain spotting he actually was an EMDR therapist and in traditional EMDR the clinician will move their finger left and right in front of the client and they track the therapist's finger with their eyes. So the left and right movements stimulate the brain. But David Grand, who developed brain spotting, had discovered one time when he was training a client that there was one spot in the visual field that he noticed a response in his clients and so he conducted all this research and he did consultation with Peter Levine, who developed somatic experiencing, and so through his research and experience we now have brain spotting. So with EMDR it's the bilateral stimulation or bilateral movements. With brain spotting it's typically a visual spot. Sometimes we might use a couple but keeping it simple, traditionally one visual spot.

Speaker 1: 20:42

That is God Charlene this is like so I know it's so. Like, oh my God. And as we're talking about this, you know people need to also understand that you are rewiring your brain. You are rewiring Like when we people say, oh, I can't change, I'm never going to. No, you can and you, you can live at peace, you can release that trauma, you can be at a place where you are, at a happy place. You deserve that. And to think that there's these techniques that truly rewire the brain the way you think is just ridiculous. It's crazy, I mean. So let's just go back to EMDR and just give us the not so science-y definition of that.

Speaker 2: 21:44

So EMDR stands for eye movement desensitization, reprocessing. So, like I was saying, it uses bilateral stimulation. Traditionally, the therapist will move their finger left and right in front of the client, so their eyes track left and right and those bilateral movements stimulate the left and right sides of the brain. So, basically, emdr reprocesses memories. So instead of feeling like you're still stuck in the past, experiencing things in the present, as though you're in the past when that original trauma or the traumatic events occurred, you're able to uncouple the big emotions from the memory network or from a trigger, and so the memories and the negative beliefs that we have about ourselves and the memory gets reprocessed and we strengthen new neural pathways, the positive neural pathways, to develop a sense of internal calmness or internal safety. So another incredible therapy and so incredible to help trauma survivors and a whole range of issues.

Speaker 1: 23:09

Yes, I love it, I love it, I just love it. And the other thing I love about you is that you're so eclectic. I mean, you have the talk therapy. You've done the talk therapy, then you got all these other techniques that you're able to help other people. So would you say that with all the different things that you have in your toolkit, is there like one better than the other for certain people Like, how does that work?

Speaker 2: 23:41

Well, I am biased, um, like, how does that work? Well, I am biased, so brain spotting is, um, one of the most. Uh, I have been incorporating that the most in my practice, but I think you know that's hard for me to answer for everyone that's listening, because it really you. It's not just the therapeutic tool itself, it's also the person you're working with. So it really the foundation of it is finding a therapist that you resonate with, that you feel comfortable with, who you know, who you feel safe enough to develop this working therapeutic relationship with. And in addition to that, if they have these other therapeutic tools, then that's a bonus, of course. One thing that stands out see, if you have a seizure disorder, emdr, you would want to get medical clearance. I'm sure I'm leaving things out. No, that's fine, there's like so much.

Speaker 1: 24:47

I know, and it's so interesting. It's just so interesting and that was actually a trick question, because obviously not a trick question, but I wanted people to hear from you that it's not a cookie cutter situation. Everybody, you know, works differently and every and there's different. You know therapies that will work better for some and not so well for others. And you know you have to be open to the idea that if you have this therapist and I've often hear this oh, I don't really like them, they're not helping me then go seek another one and seek someone that will help you. Don't just give up, and someone who's willing to try different techniques with you is just so important. But no, this is great. I'm so glad that you were able to come on and talk about all this great information.

Speaker 1: 25:49

In regards to therapy, again, people think therapy, psychology, sitting on the couch, and there's just so much more. And Charlene is not saying all the other things and all the different techniques. I mean there's so many things out there that can help you and I don't want anyone to think that they're not. I don't want anyone to not to give up on getting that peace and happiness that they deserve. So I want to thank you, charlene, for coming on here. I really appreciate we finally get to do this and I really love the work you do. I love your website. I love the things that you say and it's just like just reading it I can tell working if anyone was to work with you. It's just such a very peaceful and safe place. So thank you so much, thank you, thank you. So tell us, where can we find you? Do you have your website? Tell us your website, and are you on social media? What are your links?

Speaker 2: 27:02

Yeah, so my website is LunaArtarttherapycom and I'm on Instagram. I don't do the best at keeping it up, but I do have one so you could get a feel for who I am. It is at therapywithshar on Instagram, and if you live in the Beach Cities area of Los Angeles, that's where.

Speaker 1: 27:27

I'm at, so yes, so if you are in that area, please reach out to her, and, of course, you can always reach out to her on Instagram and on her website. So thank you again, charlene, for being on here. I really appreciate it, and thank you everyone for listening and until next time, bye, bye.