Dive into the transformative world of somatic healing in this compelling episode of our podcast. Join host Alex as he engages with Stephanie Scarminach, a seasoned expert in somatic psychology from Santa Cruz, California. Stephanie shares her journey from personal struggles to finding her path in healing others through body awareness and psychological healing. This episode promises not only to enlighten but also to inspire anyone interested in turning inward to facilitate deep personal change.
In this insightful discussion, Stephanie outlines her academic and professional background, including her impactful studies at Naropa University—one of the few institutions offering a program in somatic psychology. She explains the concept of dissociation, the therapeutic power of physical presence, and her method of integrating body and mind to address trauma. Alex and Stephanie explore the growing trend of somatic practices in mental health and discuss real-life applications that demonstrate the healing potential of somatic work. The conversation is rich with personal stories and professional experiences that illustrate the significant benefits of somatic therapy.
Don't miss this opportunity to learn more about somatic healing from a leading expert in the field. To listen to the full episode and discover how somatic practices can enrich your life or aid in your healing journey, click here [Insert Link to Full Episode]. For more resources and information about Stephanie's work, visit her website at Stephanie Somatics [Insert Link to Website], and explore upcoming opportunities like her masterclass on understanding and applying somatic principles. Join us and step into a world where body awareness can lead to profound healing and transformation.
Key Highlights:
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Dive into the transformative world of somatic healing in this compelling episode of our podcast. Join host Alex as he engages with Stephanie Scarminach, a seasoned expert in somatic psychology from Santa Cruz, California. Stephanie shares her journey from personal struggles to finding her path in healing others through body awareness and psychological healing. This episode promises not only to enlighten but also to inspire anyone interested in turning inward to facilitate deep personal change.
In this insightful discussion, Stephanie outlines her academic and professional background, including her impactful studies at Naropa University—one of the few institutions offering a program in somatic psychology. She explains the concept of dissociation, the therapeutic power of physical presence, and her method of integrating body and mind to address trauma. Alex and Stephanie explore the growing trend of somatic practices in mental health and discuss real-life applications that demonstrate the healing potential of somatic work. The conversation is rich with personal stories and professional experiences that illustrate the significant benefits of somatic therapy.
Don't miss this opportunity to learn more about somatic healing from a leading expert in the field. To listen to the full episode and discover how somatic practices can enrich your life or aid in your healing journey, click here [Insert Link to Full Episode]. For more resources and information about Stephanie's work, visit her website at Stephanie Somatics [Insert Link to Website], and explore upcoming opportunities like her masterclass on understanding and applying somatic principles. Join us and step into a world where body awareness can lead to profound healing and transformation.
Key Highlights:
Links and Resources:
healing potential extends beyond just the past trauma work. It really gives us a sustainable recipe with which to be with ourselves, to move forward in our lives that I think the somatic work has the capacity to creatively adapt to whatever it is that you're meeting in your life. All right, everybody. I am excited to be sitting down this afternoon with somebody who formerly spent some time in Boulder, Colorado, where I am today. But today she's tuning in from Santa Cruz, California, where she lives now. My guest today is Stephanie Scarminach and Stephanie, is known, through her website and her work and her, online presence says Stephanie Somatics is a, and offers, one on one and group, and coursework in somatic healing. And Stephanie, her, time here in Boulder was when she was doing, a master's degree in, in, was it clinical psych or what was the, which program Yeah. And somatic psychology. somatic psychology here at Naropa University in Boulder, one of the very few somatic psychology programs in the country. so that this is definitely the place for that, but in any case, happy to be joined by Stephanie today. We're just going to talk about somatic healing in general. What's. Included within that talking, we're going to talk a little bit about how, somatics is having a moment in the overall zeitgeist to these days. it's a word that, that many people are hearing a lot about. So we want to talk about, the origins and, what, at least what's how Stephanie holds that term somatics and, for myself as well for, red beard somatic therapy. Stephanie, excited just to hear your story and hear about your work and thanks so much for taking time with us today. So glad to be here, Alex. It's always so fun for me to get to connect with other folks who exist somatically. This topic and this field is truly water that I feel so grateful to get to swim in and so to run into other fish in this water, it's always, a That's true. Yeah, we, it makes sense that we would, we'd get to know the other, somatic fish in the sea. Yeah. Awesome. Stephanie, could you, I always like to go back to the beginning a little bit, whatever beginning means in this case, it's something led you to, become curious and in psychotherapy and something led you to be interested in somatic work specifically, and then to develop the work that you are doing now. If so, if we just go back a bit, what, are some of the influences and things that led you in this direction? Absolutely. really the life experience is what led me here. And I think that's a really common story for those of us who find ourselves in the facilitator role as healers in this world. Now as helping professionals, we, needed help at some point. And I was really, significantly impacted by a somatic facilitator that I had the chance to work with in my early twenties. I'm, very grateful that I crossed her path at the time that I did. I really recognize the fortuitousness of that. Gosh, I work with folks who are, in their 50s, 60s, 70s, and just now realizing, oh gosh, my body is a part of this conversation. And I, didn't even know. I'm very lucky in that way to have found out earlier on in my healing journey, but that I had been going to, different therapists and different coaches really since I was 12. I, was a bit of, what we could call a problem child, had a lot of different, acting out behaviors and challenges at school and things like that. And really my parents were trying to figure out what is going on with our kid. And it really took until a somatic therapist said, Oh, I think your daughter's dissociated. I don't think she's in her body at all. I had received a lot of CBT and DBT and, could talk a good talk, but could not walk the walk. And that was really what made the biggest change for me was having somebody, in the beginning really hold my hand and show me what it was like to feel your feet and take those steps intentionally. Yeah. Yeah. So pause for a minute just cause I sometimes like to define terms as we go. And the insight from this therapist was that, Hey, I think Stephanie is dissociated. Yeah. Describe that a little bit. It's a term we hear a lot. So just, what do you mean in this case? Absolutely. I think it's really important to define it as well, because I think there's a lot of, buzzwords that we're hearing in the mental health space and the more pop psychology use of the term too. So the way that my facilitator had used it in regards to my own presentation was that I wasn't energetically in my body and that one of the indicators that really identified that was a sense of numbness. somebody, for example, I think something that I had physically done was I bumped into a doorway on my way in and hadn't responded to that. But normally someone would say, ouch, or, oh, there would be some sort of reaction from that engagement with the body, but I wasn't in there enough to have a response or reaction in that way. And so we can see it as physical cues, not coming in as loudly, but we can also see it more in the, auditory way. something sounds far away, or people need to repeat themselves a few times. You're actually having a hard time using the senses that your body has. I mentioned this analogy of feeling your feet to take a step. We have to use an internal muscle to do that. And if we have to be embodied to use that muscle. And so when we are in this dissociated place, we've literally distanced ourselves from all of the sensory cues and muscles and capacities that we have within our own body. Okay. Great. so, keep going a little bit. So, luckily you had this, Luckily, gosh, had this insight, a lifesaver. right? Yeah, really, a lifesaver. And, from there, I started studying, a style of group work called Family Constellations, which really piqued my interest because of the sort of, psycho spiritual magical quality of it, really found my own capacity in that kind of container. I had worked, with people in different capacities, just in different jobs over time and I knew I was a people person, but, and that I was empathetic and empathic in these ways, but sitting in a container like family constellation really requires you to just go with the feeling and follow whatever sort of comes up. And I was really, I'm really grateful to find that experience because it honed in on that sort of sixth sense skill that I think, allows us to tune into people, not only with our mirror neurons that all humans naturally have. And the deeper I got into that work, the more questions I had about, how do you work with this person? And how would you work with that person? And finally my facilitator said, Stephanie, I think it's time for you just to go to school. You're asking a lot of questions. I was, an eager student and the somatic was really the thing that had made the change for me. And the more that I shared about it with friends or with family members, I would just realize how uncommon this information, this knowledge was. And so when I found Naropa's program, somatic psychology program, like you said, is one of the few in the country. I just jumped at that opportunity right away and it was a really, a really intensive program. they really teach from the belief that if you were to ask somebody to do this work, you need to have done this work yourself and wooh that'll requires a particular type of doing. Yeah, no doubt about it. Having been, gotten the insight that, okay, Hey, maybe Stephanie's dissociated. maybe that's some of what's going on. And so then, somatic work and family constellation seemed like a big, a big catalyst for some changes. What do you remember or what could you describe about what's it like to reassociate, with the body or the nerve? What, was that process like for you if you can recall, Yeah, I love that question. Wow. The experience of reassociating. Oof. I, really, the biggest part of the memory that comes up as you prompt that Alex was just the pain of reassociating. I almost want to describe it, like a sore muscle in a way where like it hurts, but it hurts so good. And this experience of being out for so long, I could even use the analogy of, if you hold an ice cube and you're waiting for it to melt in your hand, there's a moment where the ice kind of burns before it starts to melt. And that was some of the experience of just, I had been out of my body. I was probably, maybe 20, 21 at the time when I started working with her and that I had been out of my body for such a long period of time at that point. And so coming back online, It, was hard. It was scary. It really challenged a lot of these survival instincts that were built and were present within me. But the, I want to really use that phrase again though, but that hurts so good experience. Yeah. Yeah. That there was really a sense of, I don't like being in here, but I know that I would rather be in here than be out. Yeah, maybe later in the conversation, I was going, maybe I'll push this a little bit later down the road, to me then, the next question is, what's, what comes after that or Yeah. what happens further down the line, but let's put that a little bit later in the conversation. So you went to Naropa. It's a deep dive. It's learning from the inside out. You had to, do that work. Yeah, any, anything that was, anything memorable about that, that process. And then, I guess in just a question of, then did you come out of, did you come out of that with a clarity around how you wanted to practice and what you wanted to do next? I definitely knew I wanted to work with folks somatically. That was very, clear, really the reason I pursued that program. But one of the things that stood out to me about this program, which is, partially what made me choose this particular program out of the other few that, that were available out there, was really the experiential way of teaching. And this idea, that I mentioned of asking the students to go through the experience before we ask others to go through it themselves was really prominent. And that means that we experimented with all the different ways that you could use the body to get curious. That might mean sitting quietly in contemplation and meditation, but that also meant using your body to take up space in a room. Yeah. When we talk about having, awareness in our body, tracking a sensation, having an embodied experience, if we were to show you what that experience was like, I can tell you, Oh, I felt sad or dissociated, but could you show me? What's sad and dissociated looks like without words, really put that on almost charades in a way that presentation of using the body in a variety of capacities, to really get creative and, start to work from the bottom up, right from the body first. And then the brain second Naropa really emphasized taking all these different pathways to understand how to do that from, from a variety of modalities, dance movement, therapy, body psychotherapy, Gestalt, Hakomi, they've really extensively brought us through a variety of experiences, to say, I don't want you just to know what this feels like. I want you to feel what it feels like. And that really stood out to me. And it's something that I now do with my clients. Sometimes that means we aren't sitting in chairs. We sit on the floor. Sometimes we stand, sometimes we move. And. it's, I think it's really important because it has, deconstructed my own nervousness about maybe making sounds when I'm having a feeling or expressing with my hands or making movements as I'm having an experience. And that I want to encourage my clients to do the same thing and that I have to be the first one to normalize that, as let me jump in for a second. Cause what I'm resonating with the very first conversation I have when I very, when I start working with people, I'm usually using somatic experiencing as the entry point. And sometimes there's a few other things that go woven in, but the very first conversation I have with any client is I say, there's all these things that we do, to be polite. We sit up straight. Sometimes we make eye contact where, we think we should, if we were going to yawn or sigh or make a sound, maybe we'd, we don't want the person to think we're bored or tired or something like that. And I say, you know what, tell you what, let's, you and I agree that those, as much as, we might have to, we might have to remind ourselves of this. But let's, let's agree that those sort of rules are off the table because here in this space, we want to give priority that, any kinds of gestures, sounds, all of that is okay. And I say that very deliberately. And I, often say the same thing as I hear you saying, which is, and I'm going to give myself that same permission to, you're going to see me yawning and moving around and fidgeting and stuff like that because my nervous system needs to be able to be responsive and that holds true for both of us. So I, anyway, I like the way you're describing that. Absolutely. Absolutely. I love hearing that Alex, cause I think that's really what. It makes somatic work so distinctly different. I don't want you to present well in this container. I want you to present as a human with a body and your body does normal, natural things. And those are welcome here. Yeah, I love that. I love that. So with you graduating and I was spending some time looking through your website and things like that and, you're you and your coursework and you've got a team now working with you. And I like how you spend some time really defining what somatic work and somatic healing is. And also, even though you have psychotherapy training and skills. You're distinguishing your work from talk therapy because it's somatic work. Talk a little bit about how you got the clarity that, that's what you wanted to be the focus of your practice. absolutely. the term somatic has become a bit of a buzzword, right? It, found its way into pop psychology for good reason. It works. This is research base and it's wonderful and it's a normal natural way of existing in your body. And so powerful for trauma work, and healing in general. But I'm finding that I'm seeing the word used across the board. Just to draw folks in. And I want to really make sure that folks understand the word somatic in essence really just means that your body is involved. I think a couple weeks ago I had seen an ad for a somatic workout. I have to laugh as I retell the story because any workout is somatic because you're using your body. Right? more concerned if there was a non somatic workout. I'd be very curious what that was exactly. that work? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And that if we are using this term somatic really from the therapeutic lens from this psychology lens that, we're more familiar with and that it coming into the mainstream conversation, then it's really in reference to being somatic. trauma informed about how the nervous system works, that for me is really what somatics has its biggest roots in that your body holds memory. Your, physical symptoms and manifestations are subjective responses from your body to the life that you've lived. And so when I was out in the field, starting to work, in different clinics, I worked in addiction for quite a while. And, I worked with teens and, kids, different kids who would have, they would be diagnosed with disorders that for me, once I started working with them, just didn't resonate. These are kids having human experiences. And that from the somatic lens. That's what I'm looking at. I'm looking at a nervous system that is responding to a human life experience. And so as I started, deepening into this work, it felt really important to distinguish the difference between classical talk therapy and the more experiential kind of therapeutic experience that I was offering with the somatic work, especially because I had this background with family constellations using this sort of sixth sense experiential information that sometimes does feel intangible. Sometimes doesn't totally make sense in the moment. And it is really common and frequent for clients to be sitting across from me and open their eyes and go, how did you know that? Yes, that is exactly what I'm feeling. Oh my gosh. That is exactly the analogy of what this experience is because I think that in order to do really good somatic work we as facilitators have to be in our own bodies and that is not a part of the classic talk therapy model for you to be you know, like we said, this is a human container. I want you to be in your human body in this space. I want you to yawn and I'm going to yawn and that's okay. No, that's fine. Yeah. that part of the experience for me is really, what ended bringing ended up bringing me to starting my own practice to calling it somatic healing rather than somatic therapy, that it is therapeutic in nature, but that I think the, healing potential extends beyond just the past trauma work. It really gives us a sustainable recipe with which to be with ourselves, to move forward in our lives that I think the somatic work has the capacity to creatively adapt to whatever it is that you're meeting in your life. And that's one of the reasons I love it so much. Yeah. it sounds like you maybe also tell, I, I'm curious if you resonate with this idea that, you know, in clinical work psychotherapy, you're very likely to be working from a diagnostic framework and, there's a, at least a history of, Thinking in terms of, particular, yeah, diagnoses or pathologies and something that I appreciate about certain models, somatic work. I'm, I, one of my big things is internal family systems work, which is pretty non pathologizing. and it sounds, and I wonder if that's something you resonate with as well, rather than putting a label or a, you fit into this particular box and Let's fix that, that, as you said earlier, Oh, you're having a, you're a nervous system having a human experience. Okay. Let's, see. let's what's possible from there, but does that distinction Absolutely. your, work as well? I'm glad you caught that. It really, I felt that way. generally coming into the somatic field, coming into the mental health field, I'd had my own experiences of being misdiagnosed in my teen years. And so when I started working with teenagers, that was one of the reasons I went to work with them was because I had the experience of being misdiagnosed. As a human, having a human experience to the environment I was in, and especially seeing teenagers be diagnosed with really, some big terms, bipolar, borderline, oppositional defiant disorder. It's a really big thing to lay on a kid. And, that oftentimes it's really more of a normal human response to the environment that they're in. And I find folks, it's like a, a unique case each time. I do know people who have really resonated with finding a diagnosis and having clarity and support from that. And that, that, the use of that as the first action step was really difficult for me. Yeah. said. said. Tell us a little bit, I have two questions at once. I have to pick one. I have to pick one of those two. That's the problem I frequently have. I can probably frequently think of three things at the same time. No, what I'm curious about is, yeah, I guess just who, do you serve, maybe very broadly, Maybe there's some specific areas of focus. I know you also have some team members and they may have some, but maybe just talk a little bit about the populations that you yourself, do a lot of work with both, both through your educational side of your work, but also your one on one therapeutic work. who is this for? Who do you work with? Yeah, gosh, my, my heart wants to say this work is for people with a body, but realistically to narrow it in on the folks that I work with best, right? I really just absolutely, deeply enjoy and have so much fun working with folks who are really cognitive, who are the active overthinkers that can come in and, recite the 10 self help books that they just read. And gosh, they've thought a lot about their diagnosis and here's all the reasons why. And they've got so much beautiful brain power that really the shift that they're needing, the help that they're needing is to come around this corner to be in their body. Is to drop down here. And some of that is because I resonate with that myself as a big thinker. but I find that those are also the folks who have been to therapy. They've done the CBT, the DBT, they've tried the, play therapy. They've tried, IFS. They've got so much languaging that sometimes it actually does them a disservice because we don't need to think harder about what's happening. I actually need you to think less and feel more. Exactly. Exactly. And it's really been a privilege to get to build a team of folks who work with people in different ways as well. I've got somebody on my team who's really talented at the classic somatic experiencing, cycles and movements and his nuances really in, in bringing in beginners, they're just having awareness that something might be happening, something might be wrong. And they're just discovering that I work with a woman who's really, talented at just holding the space for the complex trauma, for the complexity of different cultural backgrounds, different identities. And, that's really her, bread and butter. And it's so beautiful that our overlap is people with a body. But that our specialty gets to be all these different flavors, which is so wonderful, and not to mention getting to be on social media. Some of my presence there is just sharing this information exists. You have a body. Have you ever wondered, does my body have something to say? And just doing the psycho education about this information, is, something that obviously I can't get enough of. Yeah. Yeah. you can't stop yourself. so let's, that was my second thing in my two questions at once was about psychoeducation and that's clearly a big emphasis in your, In what you're putting out, through social media and your courses. And I assume it's also a piece, a major piece of your, therapeutic work as well, because in our earlier conversation, that we were resonating with it so much of the, so much of the, powerment that can happen through somatic work comes even just through learning some of these basic principles. I sometimes use the analogy of, it's, like you're a, this is, it's actually a really bad analogy. I need to think of a better analogy, but it's like you're, you get a really complicated microwave and you, but like no instructions. So you know, and once in a while, you know how to, you can heat something up, but not all that well. And sometimes I feel it's a little similar with our. With our autonomic nervous system specifically, nobody's I didn't grow up with somebody explaining to me, Oh, wow. It seems like you're in a bit of sympathetic, activation. And, oh, yo, could you be, could that be a little bit of a freeze withdrawal response coming in Alex? No, nobody was speaking to me in that way. And so I find it really cool. both for myself and with others. that, it's eyeopening to learn a bit of how our nervous system works. So I wanted to ask you that question. Like what, are some of the big themes of psychoeducation that you like to, share with people? What are some of the analogies and things that how you like to explain the work? I'd love to hear your experience with that. Yeah, I actually really that microwave analogy. It, reminds me I was in a rental car recently and it was a very up to date car. And my God, there were just so many, bings and dings and sounds and it was going off in all these ways and I had no idea what any of those sounds meant. But gosh, by the end of the weekend after, frankly looking it up in the book a couple of times, there was a sense of, oh, that's what this means. And, having a push to start cars, a totally new experience for me being a little out of date myself. Just, there's so many things to learn there and it was overwhelming in the beginning. And I think that's really how it feels for most folks when they originally come into this, not just the somatic world, but the healing world in general. There's so much information out there that it can really just be a bit of a landslide initially. but that once we, once we learn to take, our little one bite at a time approaches, having the education and the understanding of what's happening really does help us feel much calmer. And we have a sense of control, a sense of participation in what's going on. I think that one of the most core human fears is the unknown. And that when we get into the somatic world, a lot of it can feel unknown because I can't see it. When we say I have butterflies in my stomach, if I don't know what those butterflies mean or why they're there, that unknown piece makes those butterflies scary and a threat. But if I can understand, Oh, these butterflies are an indicator of my sympathetic nervous system being online. There's just some kind of activation here. Activation is normal. And there's an environment that has something engaging in it. And having that understanding is really where I see the brain buying in to the somatic information, right? And then even though that this is, even though this is. Even though this is a bottom up process and that we ideally want to work from the bottom up, sometimes it does need the top to agree. need some buy in. Exactly. I always joke that, getting it, getting a little bit of left brain buy in can even be set. You can even, that can, that itself can create safety or create settling that. So now the nervous system is more available. So yeah, totally with you on that. Yeah, absolutely. And even the word settling has a really sensory experience attached to it, right? There's the shoulders that relax. There's a sort of leading back that happens. I, I see it in clients all the time or they'll be having experience and open their eyes and look at me and go, why am I feeling like this? It's actually, I'm actually not surprised you're feeling this. This actually to me feels okay. This feels normal. Let's get to the why in a second and just hearing, Oh, this isn't startling. This is expected. This is normal, really settles, that left brain. That's going, okay, we got to understand it in order to be safe. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. you, when we spoke earlier, there was some analogy that I thought that there was such a nice one. It was a surfing analogy or something like, Oh, I forget if it was about the nervous system or about the healing process, but All of it, I'm, I would love to, gosh, I'm clearly a California girl through and through the surfing analogy is close and dear to my heart. Right. I really do see this work like, living in the ocean living on the sea and that when we first come to this work what often brings us here is the experience of I'm drowning. I'm out in the water and I can't save myself the every wave that comes through every ripple is scary every fish or piece of seaweed that goes by really terrifying and that as we do the healing work, we start to build ourselves a little raft and we can get on that raft and suddenly the fish underneath us aren't quite so scary because we're not in the water all the time. But geez, when a wave comes, it still really rocks our little raft. And so we get to work, we build a bigger, ship, we get a little boat and that little boat becomes a sailboat, that sailboat becomes a, a big vessel. And we keep going, we keep adding to not only our education and understanding of what's happening, but our capacity, right? That if we're building a bigger boat, you're becoming a more skilled sailor. And that as we sail on those seas of our emotions, our life experiences, we get more familiar with them. Oh, I see a wave coming. I know what to do. I know the experience of the wave lifting and then dropping me off the other side. That the familiarity with that experience is also what gives us the greater capacity. And so finally, one day we find ourselves aboard a great big, a cruise vessel and it's not that the waves are necessarily different. The waves are still there. The ripples are still there, but once you're on a boat that size, you don't even feel some of those waves. Right? And that really, that is the difference and what we are pursuing in this work. There will be waves. There will be weather. You live in this world and gosh, if I could control it and make it safer and more consistent and just more, more reliable, I would, but unfortunately we can't control those things. Because what I can control is my skills as a sailor. And how much time I spend building my boat. Yeah, I love that. Okay, good. even here, even better hearing it the second time. I love that. so I'm curious about your, so you do your one on one work and I don't know when you then developed the 30 day program that, people really based on some of the, you know, reading some comments and the testimonials and things like that. Tell me a little bit about, cause you shared with me earlier, there was a need for that, that you wanted to create that kind of container, something about, something with consistency, doing some of the educational work, give a little bit of what went into, what was the inspiration around creating that course? Why did you structure it the way you did and how does that serve, your, the bigger picture of your work right now? Absolutely. really the story of why I created that course, at essence is a love story. I had a client that I just adored. And she said to me one day, I wish I could see you every day. I feel like sometimes I don't need a whole session. I just need to hear your voice, go, you know what, it's gonna be okay. I've got your back. And when she said that to me, I had this thought of, yeah, I do wish I could be there every day for you in that way. I would, gosh, we. We get into this work because we care. I truly cared about this client and realistically, ethically, it's not helpful for me to be there every day. That wouldn't work for either of us. And so I, the more I sat and thought about this idea of how can I be there for her without, overextending or crossing any boundaries, what really came to me was the idea for this course. And so in the 30 days. I'm there every single day. You have 30 days of Stephanie. And what's really neat is that it doesn't expire. And so I've had quite a few clients who said, Oh, I really liked day 17. I go back and I do day 17 a lot. And that you have access to me in that way. It's this little blip of time where there I am with all my attention just for you. And the course covers all of the same things that I cover in the first month with a regular one on one client. The same psycho education, the same exercises, and that I actually demo them in the course, you get to watch me do them. And it's, it, it truly is a testament to my own belief that it's important for you to see your facilitators as real people. There are demos in there where I have an experience that sort of surprises me. I think there's one or two where there's a couple of tears in there. My voice gets choked up. I have a real human experience on camera because the idea is that I want you to know you are meant to have a human experience doing this activity. and so it has, gosh, so many worksheets and activities and experientials, and again, because it doesn't expire, it is really normal for people to go back and, do certain exercises over and over until they're ready to move on to the next one. That's also some of the feedback that I've received is, Oh, at the end of, let's say video 10, you say, okay, tomorrow we're going to do inner child. And that just made me so scared. And so I just did day nine over and over until I felt, okay, I'm ready for day 10. And the, care and the love that went into creating that, really, It was initially made as a gift to the clients that I do see, because I do want you to feel supported every day. I do wish that I could see you in that way. And, I once had a, one of my, one of my teen clients said that, when I'm having a hard day, I like to imagine that I have a tiny Stephanie in my pocket. And they described it as, one of those, like from Toy Story, those little green army men for all my millennials out there, Yeah. said, I imagine you like that. there's just a little plastic Stephanie and I just put her in my pocket. When I have a hard time, I just pull her out. I was like, Oh my gosh, that's exactly it. That's what I want you to have. this idea of not only the internalized therapist. but the sense of camaraderie. I'm here to have your back regardless of if it's therapeutic processing or just you humaning. I like that. Is it, is, what's the format? Is it, is, cause it's not two hours or something each day. It's it's a, is it a fairly. Yeah. They're realistic timeframes. I wouldn't make you do Two hours a day would be a lot to commit. No. no, they range between 15 minutes to 30 minutes. I think, maybe the longest day is closer to 35. but that some days are just Psychoeducation. Some days are a guided experiential. Some days are just about reflection. But that the idea was to make it doable and achievable. there's some statistic, like the majority of people who sign up for a course, won't actually finish it. And I didn't want that to be the case. I wanted folks to feel like this was possible for them to complete. Yeah. Yeah. Wonderful. I imagine that folks who do that course, and then continue into one on one, work with you or one of your team members, I imagine that they, come in with, with, at a much different starting point than, if they, hadn't is that common for you. Yeah, absolutely. It is something I recommend for folks, especially if the one on one work feels intimidating, which it often can the idea of, even sitting here one on one you and I, that this is a lot of energy to have someone so directly paying attention to you. And that having the course experience where yes, I'm there, but I'm not there in quite the same way. Let's folks acclimate to what it would be like, here's the steps we're going to go through. Because, like I said, we're going to do the same exact things. Right. And it is really sweet when I do get to work with somebody after they've done the course. Because they'll go, Oh, I remember you saying I already know you. Yeah. already heard you say that to me. And what's really beautiful is then they have, the groundwork. They've laid the foundation of the house and then we get to build the rest of it together. I love that. Super cool. circling back to an earlier theme, we had talked to you, you shared about your early days and then what, why somatic work was so pivotal for you. And I asked you about reassociating and, and you shared, eloquently the, the hurts of goodness of that. But, and I remember from our previous conversation where, I asked, what, was alive for you these days or what are some things you're thinking about? And one thing that you shared is that As at this stage of your career, you just recognize how much has changed for you even from those early days of what brought you to therapy, what, even what brought you into the original, your education in somatic work. Describe that a little bit. What's changed for you? I think you said something like, that, your, relationship to the wounded healer archetype is, something shifting around that. Could you speak to that Yeah, I think that, I want to just maybe start from there that the relationship to the wounded healer archetype is changing. That I have now been in soaking in this healing work so thoroughly for gosh, really 10 years at this point. And that the more I dedicate myself to this practice, the more I watch the ripple effect in my life. And that means that my reactivity, is lowered when something is wrong, I'm able to take feedback more successfully when I don't know what's going on. I feel more comfortable asking for help. I really do see in myself the changes that we all hope for when embarking on this healing journey, and I'm finding that in some ways, what has come up for me is the fear that I won't be able to really connect and be with folks when they are in those places of deep acute fear? And yeah. Yeah. And that some of that was part of my skill set coming into this field was I remember so tangibly. Yes, I can relate. I know what that hole is. when I talk about drowning the ocean, I remember that feeling because it wasn't that long ago. But the more I'm in this field, the farther I get from that. It, does become more of a memory than a lived experience. And what I'm actually finding is it shifts the way I'm able to offer work, not so much as what my fear was saying was, going to happen, which was, you won't be able to connect to your folks, you won't be able to connect to your clients, but rather I'm finding that it holds this greater container, because I have expanded my own capacity, sometimes I like to describe this healing work, as a bit of a spectrum that we have on one side, our pain experiences, our hurt experiences, our heart experiences, and on the other we have our joy and our thrills and our excitements, and that we all want our joys and our thrills to expand. We want that side of the pendulum to grow that side of the spectrum to increase. We don't want the other side to increase, right? Gosh, our, guttural fear when that idea comes in, but that actually, if the more we are able to tolerate our depth and our fears, the greater expansion we do feel for our joys and our excitements. And that's really what I'm finding now is that I've so truly committed to feeling the depths and the darknesses that I'm now experiencing what it can be like on the other end. That when the challenge and the pain and the trauma memory comes up, there isn't the same resistance in my body that goes kicking and screaming. I don't want to do this. Don't make me feel this again. I almost am really at this point relishing it. Oh my gosh, you're going to give me one of these, yes, I'm so excited because I know what coming out of the other end, the other side. yes, is the growth on the experience of joy and love and connection and thrill that I am going to get to be more alive after I go through this experience where my body remembers the time of my life where I didn't want to be alive. and the reciprocity just in the balancing act of the healing work. And so as I am stepping more into allowing that and trusting that experience to bring me as it needs, bring me to where it needs. I need to be with my clients. I find that my container is bigger for holding them. It's not that I don't remember anymore, but that I'm also standing on the other side going, you have no idea what it's like over here. And I know you can get here. I know you deserve this. And my God, I can't wait for you to do this work and then join me in this place where I get to show you all of these new colors. Totally. No, I, I so resonate with that. I feel like, something that attracted me to so much to trauma, focused work was, people will say, wow, that sounds like heavy, work that you do. And sure. Yeah, it is. at times, absolutely a hundred percent, but, what stands out to me much, I actually look at the trauma. Yeah. somatic world and trauma healing world as just containing this enormous amount of optimism. and, so that's my, that's like my biggest feeling with it is that, if I rewind 20 years and I look at, facing my own suffering or, sometimes even worse confronting the suffering of someone else when, before I had a perspective, that, that I have now and that you're sharing here with the somatic work is to me, there's this feeling of helplessness or powerlessness. It's just wow, that sucks, for me, or that sucks for people and, no doubt about it. The world is full of suffering. let's be real, objectively and subjectively and, in all ways, but the optimism that I get from this field, and I, I think. Is similar to what you're describing, which is that, yes, these, things are hard and there's our capacity to grow our capacity to, if something has contracted our compact, our capacity to, let that expand again, our capacity to connect to what was previously shut off or not accessible and, is such a tremendous growth process that, And the, what comes on the other side as you're describing so well, for many people is so rich. so, anyway, so when I get that question about, the boy, that's a heavy topic, this sort of work that you do, I say, yeah, but. Boy, the things I get to see and feel and bear witness to in terms of people's, reclaiming themselves is like the best. So I hear that a little bit in the way you're describing it. Yeah. I really believe that one of the most precious things that we get to give or receive in this lifetime is authentic human connection, like true connection with one another. And I think that is what I experience in doing trauma work with folks. The chance to connect with them. wherever they are, whether that be at the bottom of the sea or riding the waves or not even in the ocean at all, wherever they are, the chance to truly be and connect with them where they are is, yeah, I think one of the greatest gifts that I will get in this lifetime. Wonderful. what's, what's coming up for you? Is there anything on the horizon? Is there any, thing you're excited about? What's, what are you looking forward to? Yeah. I'm in the process of, hosting a masterclass in a couple of weeks. that is really a hands on experiential course, where course isn't quite the right works. It's 1 day. It'll just be a couple hours. But, in the experience of why somatics works and I'm, I'll be taking folks through not only the information about why this works, but then the experience. So folks will be bringing a theme or an experience or an instance that they'd like to work with, and then we're going to actively work on it all together so that they can see here, the steps that we actually follow in a somatic session, and then really be able to come out of that experience with new insight, new understanding. and really finding the root of why was I responding in the way that I was, which I think is really what makes so much of us, spin in circles on this work as we go. why is this happening? Why do I keep doing this? but that our body has, the answer. There's always something underneath about what your body thinks is going on. And so the masterclass will really be focusing on teaching folks how to find that. Very cool. You said in a couple of weeks, is that, are you still taking registration? Is that something we can put in the show notes Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. I will be, haven't launched tickets yet. So that works out great. We'll be happy to, extend that your way and, yeah, for listeners, if that are curious about it, that, it'll be on, I want to say May 4th, May 5th, on a Saturday morning. So online. Or is that, or is it local to where you are? it'll be online, but it'll be a live course. yeah. Really, so much of the facilitation is hands on. And so I really want folks to be, live and present. There won't be a recording of it, unfortunately. but it will be a live class, which is always so much fun. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, wonderful. Very cool. Stephanie, this has been a real pleasure hearing the sort of your journey and how you language things and what you emphasize. I feel like, I've, yeah, learned some things and also met a kindred spirit in the somatic world. Thank you so much for having me, Alex. It really, like I said, always a treat to meet a fellow fish. Yeah, absolutely. Very cool. Thank you. Yes. Thank you.