(#130) What Is Somatic Healing? A Beginner’s Guide to Nervous System Healing

What is somatic healing, and why are so many people turning to body-based healing practices to support anxiety, stress, trauma, and emotional well-being?

In this foundational episode, Rae breaks down the basics of somatic healing and explains how working with the body can create lasting transformation when mindset work alone isn’t enough. If you've ever logically understood something but still felt stuck emotionally, struggled with anxiety despite knowing you're safe, or found yourself repeating the same patterns over and over, this episode is for you. 

Rae shares her personal journey of discovering somatic healing through breathwork and explains how body-based practices helped her move through grief, anxiety, and emotional overwhelm while building a deeper sense of safety, self-trust, and connection to herself. 

In this episode, you'll learn:

•  What somatic healing actually is 
•  Why understanding something mentally doesn't always create change 
•  The connection between anxiety, trauma, and the nervous system 
•  What somatic practices look like in real life 
•  Signs you may benefit from somatic healing 

Whether you're brand new to somatic healing or looking for a refresher on the fundamentals, this episode offers a compassionate and practical introduction to the mind-body connection and how healing through the body can help you feel more grounded, regulated, and whole.

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Disclaimer: Please remember that the information shared on this podcast is intended to inspire, educate, and support you on your personal journey. It does not substitute for professional mental health advice. I am not a psychologist or medical professional. If you are experiencing distress, mental health challenges, or medical conditions, please seek help from a qualified professional.

Transcript

Why Somatic Basics Matter

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back to the podcast. If you are new here, I'm Ray. I'm a breathwork facilitator and somatic coach. And if you aren't new here, welcome back. I'm so glad that you are tuning in for today's episode. For today's episode, I wanted to bring it back to the basics for any listeners that want a little recap or foundation on what somatic healing really is. And I think it's important to revisit the basics, touch on that foundation because there is so much information out there. It's even quite overwhelming for myself sometimes, especially if you're active in the social media space. It's our fades are just overwhelming us with so much information. And so wanted to kind of create this space where you could intentionally check in and receive a bit of nice foundation, basic information on what semitic healing really is. So let's dive in.

Three Questions That Reveal Stuckness

SPEAKER_00 1:01

To kick off our conversation, I wanted to start with three questions that I think might be helpful to further give examples and explain what Semitic healing really is. So the first is have you ever understood something in the mind? You can logically understand something, but you still feel stuck emotionally or in the body. So you can logically understand, but you still feel stuck. Have you ever known in your mind you can understand that you are safe? So you know that you're in a safe environment, you know that nothing in the in that moment is currently unsafe. But physically in your body, you still feel very anxious. So an easy example might be after a long day at work, it's really hard for you to um what would that word be? Decompress. It's hard for you to decompress and you still feel quite anxious. But there's nothing unsafe or overwhelming happening in your current environment. And my third question for you is have you ever talked about your childhood or your past or previous trauma in therapy? But you still notice that the same patterns keep showing up. So you maybe you're familiar with your history, you know your past, you've you've processed some trauma, but the same patterns keep arising. And

My First Breathwork Breakthrough

SPEAKER_00 2:42

before we dive deeper into what somatic healing is, I really want to share a little bit about my personal story of how I found the world of somatics. So about 10 years ago, I was in this time in my life where I was really, really in the thick of overwhelming grief and overwhelming anxiety. And I was in this experience in my life where I was just very curious about so many different things and really just putting one foot in front of the other, kind of on this path of self-discovery and really, really, really working with this grief and anxiety. And so I end up going to a yoga festival. And at the yoga festival, there's this one class, and it's a breathwork class, and the description is like absolutely out of this world. And I'm like, I have to go to this class. This is exactly what I came to this festival for. It's my first yoga yoga festival. And if you haven't been to one before, it's basically like what I would call like spiritual camp. It's like you go and there's like hundreds of classes you can choose from. You like make your own schedule. It's really, really cool. You can try all these things, things probably never heard of, some things you have heard of before. It's not necessarily just yoga. Like you can go to the festival and not even do yoga if you wanted to. So anyway, back to the breath work. So I go to this breathwork class and it's like nothing I've ever experienced before. And I have this huge breakthrough. I have a huge emotional release, and I feel so much more connected to spirit, source, myself, my breath, my body. And I kind of that is kind of like the catalyst that opens up this whole world because I kind of continued to follow that nudge. I used to drive an hour and a half from my house to go find a breathwork class in Brooklyn. And now it's, I think, a bit more accessible. But even so, that's kind of what I was doing at that time. So I end up going, I end up having this thought where I'm like, you know what, let me go on Instagram and search for like an anxiety coach. And I didn't even know. I don't know how I thought of that because at the time I didn't even know that was like a thing. But that's what I do. And I find this woman and I end up booking a session with her. And I remember I was just like, at the time, I had a studio apartment. I'm sitting in like this basement studio apartment on my bed, and I'm sitting there crisscrossed, and I'm on the phone with her. It's not even like a Zoom, it's just like a phone call. And it was the first time where someone walked me one-on-one through a somatic process, and I end up discovering an inner child, and my first experience really feeling connected to an inner child, and everything really shifted for me in that moment because my anxiety had dissipated so much just from that one experience. And the next week I literally signed up for a somatic certification. I was like, I don't know what I just did. I don't know much about this at all, but I know that I need to know more. I was like, I know that this, there's something here for me. And that was kind of the catalyst. So I discovered the world of somatics from breath work to a session to a uh coaching certification, which led me into about two and a half years of somatic coaching certifications and breath work certifications and I Reiki and the whole thing. But most importantly, what it had allowed me to access was a sense of safety within myself that I really didn't know was ever there. It allowed me to learn tools to self-regulate. It allowed me to feel much, much more safe in very uncomfortable emotions. And what changed for me once I started including this part of my lived experience in my process, rather than only just kind of only navigating it cognitively, because that's all I knew at the time. It changed so much for me. My entire relationship with myself really transformed. So that's my personal story with somatic healing. Fast forward to today, I've been in my business coaching and doing breath work and parts work and inner child healing and all these wonderful things that I'll share a little bit more about in a moment here for about six years. And it's been such an incredibly eye-opening experience for myself, but also such a strong way for me to give back to other people and be in connection and be in community and bring people together and really support people through really, really, really transformational lifelong change in their lives. And I will share a little bit more about that in a moment. So

What Somatic Healing Actually Means

SPEAKER_00 7:49

let let us dive in to what is somatic healing. So somatic soma, the word soma, comes from the Greek origin, and that means the body. Soma means the body and the whole living organism rather than one part. So somatic healing is really working with the body. Instead of only focusing on the mind, somatics also includes noticing sensations, emotions, impulsive reactions, like our natural impulses, our breath, attention, and nervous system responses. So traditionally, approaches that are outside of the world of somatics would focus on the thinking mind, which can look like analyzing, making sense of things, whereas somatic focus somatics focuses on the experience of the body noticing things, feeling things, processing things, all using the body. And you might be asking, like, while why do we do that? Why would we why would we do that? So the body, the physical body, really stores experiences and remembers different forms of stress and emotion, overwhelm and trauma. And so the challenge isn't that there is something that's wrong with us because our body is, you know, stored and remembers these things. It's that the body is interpreting and responding as if something is happening right now that isn't actually happening right now. So that is kind of like the summary of what somatics is and and why we use the approach of working with the body. I know for me personally, elements that I also integrate into my approach for somatics in our child work, breath work, gentle movement, parts work, energy healing, subconscious restructuring. So there's a lot that goes into it that's not just we focus on the body and that's it. I like to bring in a blend of so many different elements to really meet the person where they are and really be curious around what's coming up for them in their experience. So, what

What Somatics Helps You Change

SPEAKER_00 10:10

does somatic healing help with? I've broken it down into four areas that I think somatics really dives into. The first is emotionally. So this can look like working with anxiety, stress, overwhelm, shame, grief, guilt, uncertainty, fear, joy, love, self-compassion, mentally. So that looks like the inner critic, different forms of processing and organizing of thoughts physically, so the physical experience of trauma, also how you feel about your physical body, and where trauma is stored in your body. And then spiritually as well. So having a strong connection to self, understanding of the universe, source, energy, love. And this will be different for everyone depending on like what their connection is to spirituality, but I do think it is something, especially in the work that I do, is weaved into the experience of working with your system and working with the nervous system and the body. And so these four areas, emotionally, mentally, physically, spiritually, they have a really strong effect on our relationships. So that looks like boundaries, communication, attachment, how you show up, how you relate to others, romantic and platonic relationships, family, parenting. These areas also affect your health. So anxiety, stress, burnout, overwhelm, general self-care, and how you how you meet yourself in your health. It also affects career and business. So that could look like confidence, self-expression, money, decision making, and then general life. This can look like self-trust, people pleasing, personal growth, the relationship that you have with yourself, the goals that you're setting, your future, the vision of your future, things like that. So somatic healing touches on so many different areas of life, so many different areas of our experience.

What Somatic Work Looks Like

SPEAKER_00 12:17

But what does it actually look like? So I mentioned that there are a few elements that I weave into my approach, things like inner child work, breath work, movement, parts work, energy healing, and subconscious restructuring. And I wanted to share a few elements that can also be helpful to tangibly understand what it looks like because it is very fluid and there are so many different things that could arise. So I just want to share maybe like a few different things more tangibly of what it looks like. So the first is having an awareness of the body. This can look like working with sensations, tension, identifying different emotions. The second is some element of breath work or connection to your breath. And this is really one way to create safety, safety in your body, safety with your breath, with yourself. Also, your breath is your life force energy. So having a strong connection to what your life force energy feels like and what it feels like to be in your own version of that is really empowering. Breath work is also helpful for quieting the mind. So if there needs to be like a volume knob of like the sound and the volume of our mind, breath work is gonna turn that volume knob quite down nicely, and it's gonna allow you more access to the body and being able to understand and hear the wisdom of the body. The third element is gentle movement. So this looks like understanding what the body needs, could look like shaking, stretching, or just gentle movements to complete some sort of process. Um, and those that arise that comes up and arises, you know, dependent on what the person is processing. The fourth element is grounding. Grounding can look like meditation, breath work, connecting with safety, orienting to the space that you're in, being in nature. There's so many different elements of grounding, but it's definitely integral to that sense of safety. And then the fifth element, I touched on this a little bit already, is parts work. Parts work is really helpful for understanding patterns, integrating sense parts of self, noticing different parts of self, really being in a strong, healthy, and self-compassionate relationship with self.

Signs You Might Need Somatics

SPEAKER_00 14:39

So you've listened this far, and maybe you're thinking, what are some signs that maybe you could benefit from diving into somatic healing? Maybe you are living in your head, you're overthinking things a lot, you might be struggling to relax, struggling to unwind after a long day, or you might be waking up feeling unrested, feeling anxious. You might have triggers that just keep reoccurring, and no matter kind of like what you try to do or how you try to navigate them, they don't seem to change. You might feel really disconnected from yourself. Maybe you're super busy, or maybe you're just feeling really disconnected from like what your vision and values are and what's important to you. You might be constantly putting other people before yourself. So maybe there's like a ton of self-sacrificing that's going on, or just always putting someone before considering yourself in the equation. Or maybe you're not really connected to yourself and you're struggling with really trusting yourself and really having a strong sense of self-knowing. So if any of that resonated, I'm gonna share in a moment some ways that I offer somatic healing um opportunities. But

The Real Goal: Wholeness And Trust

SPEAKER_00 16:02

before I dive into that, I want to share one more thing around why I think that somatic healing is something that people are interested in and really what is at the root of it, really what's at the core of it on the other side. So maybe any of those things that I just shared, you're experiencing. But when you start somatic healing, like what's on the other side of that? And why do people find this interesting? So, really at the core of somatic healing, I think, is this desire to feel more whole and complete. And I think we can reach this point where things just aren't going the way that we'd hope for them to be going. And so we start to seek an alternative. Maybe we're looking for more happiness, more expression, more wholeness, more spiritual curiosity, mindfulness, breakthroughs in one of those areas that I've mentioned. Maybe we're looking to feel more whole. I think that at the core of somatics is this feeling of wholeness, this feeling of aliveness, and this feeling of being complete and really being in a safe relationship with yourself, a safe relationship around how you feel in your body, how you express yourself, and how you feel with emotion. So really having a deep sense of self-knowing, a deep sense of self-trust, and a deep sense of self-compassion. So, somatic healing is one way that you can truly create transformation in your life in any of these areas, depending on what's coming up for you. And so

Ways To Work With Me

SPEAKER_00 17:36

I do offer a few different ways that you can experience somatic healing in my world using, like I said, the approach that I use. I don't know what everyone else is doing out there, but this is what I do. So the first is uh I offer individual sessions. So what that looks like is a one-on-one session. It's a 60-minute session, and you would show up with your intention of how you're hoping to feel at the end of our time together. So I'll use the example of anxiety. Maybe you're like, I'm super anxious. I feel like I can't even catch my breath when I'm on my way to work. And even when I get home from work, I still can't catch my breath. And so I'm really hoping at the end of our time together that I could understand what's coming up for me, feel more grounded, and just really feel better. I just I just want to feel better. I'm so anxious, I just want to feel better. And so we would work with that intention using any and all of the things that I've mentioned so far. So that could look like parts work, breath work, inner child work, energy healing, um, subconscious restructuring, somatic experiencing. So there's a lot of different tools and experiences that could come through. It's very TBD based on what's coming up for you and what direction we're headed in. So individual sessions can be used kind of like you can, I mean, you can book them whenever you want. You can do them monthly, kind of like just like you would maybe get a massage once a month. You can do it in that sense where you do breath work once a month or you do a somatic session once a month and kind of get curious around those deeper parts. And then the other option, which is the second way that you can work with me, is through the Return to Self Somatic Healing program. And this is a four-month program, and there are 16 sessions in it. And you can use those 16 sessions. Um, it can go longer than four months. Like if you're not looking to meet weekly, we can kind of stretch them out. It's really dependent on the individual. But what's really, really neat about the somatic healing program, Return to Self, is that it's a long-term relationship and a long-term opportunity, a container where you get to really be met in everything that's arising in that season of your life. So there's just you can go so deep and it there, it's just so vast, which is like pretty cool. And you can receive so much insight, so much self-knowledge from that experience that you'll have that with you forever. So whether it's you want to experience breath work or parts work or inner child's healing or energy healing, that is all included in the somatic healing program. And that is over an extended period of time, which is really nice. So if either of those opportunities interest you, the individual session or the somatic healing program, you can check out the show notes. There is a link there that you can you can just book right there, which is really neat. And there's also an option if you want to have a call or if you have questions beforehand, like which one is the right fit for me, there's an option to book a call there. Um, of course, if any of those options time-wise don't work, you just send me an email and we can we can figure out a better time for our schedules.

Closing Thoughts And Stay Connected

SPEAKER_00 20:58

And so that is what we have for today's episode. So I really hope that you enjoyed today's episode. I think it's a really, you know, helpful episode to have that foundation of somatics. If anything jumped out at you, please send me a note. You can email me, send me a DM, or you can schedule a session. I would be, you know, really happy and thrilled to connect with you. So um yeah, if you want to stay connected, you can sign up also in the show notes for the Somatic Healing newsletter. It goes out on the first and 15th of every month. And it's just another way for us to stay connected outside of the podcast and outside of social media. So yeah, I hope that you have an incredible rest of your day. I hope you have an incredible rest of your week. And I will talk to you soon. Thank

Rate Review And Follow On Instagram

SPEAKER_00 21:45

you for being here and tuning in to Somatic Healing for Wellness Focused Women Podcast. If you were moved or inspired by today's episode, please take a moment to leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. It truly helps the podcast grow and helps more people find me on their healing journey. Make sure to check out the show notes to sign up for the monthly newsletter, links to more resources, opportunities to work with me, and ways that we can stay connected. If we aren't already connected on social media, head over to Instagram to follow me at Ray the Somatic Coach. Send me a DM. I'd love to connect with you, and I answer each note that comes in. I am so happy you're here, and I cannot wait to talk with you on our next episode of the podcast.