A Somatic Approach to Working with Trauma
No matter where you are in your healing journey, it’s important to take the time to slow down so your body can sense the threat has passed, and to provide it with a safe space to rest and heal. When the impact of trauma is addressed, the true nature of who you are begins to re-emerge.
“Having my defenses down felt good. I didn’t realize how much energy it took to carry my armor. My wall of protection kept bad stuff out, but it also kept good stuff from coming in. Guarding my heart is important, but not at the expense of being known by people who love me.”
- Shauna L Hoey
HOW WE
Resolve Trauma
Creating Safety
The long-term effects of trauma on the body can produce hypo-arousal (depression or collapse) or Hyper-arousal (anxiety or dissociation). You may often feel like you don’t have a lot of control over this, but with the right approach it’s possible to understand the mechanisms that hold these patterns in place and bring your nervous system back into a healthy range.
When you experience safety, your body is much less likely to be triggered. Through this process of slowing down you will begin to automatically sense that you have more choice and agency.
Building Resource
At any given moment you have many internal and external resources to choose from; like your sense of humour or a friend to call on. However, when you are triggered you may find that your body automatically defaults to your learned trauma response as a primary resource. This can feel limiting and scary.
Building new resources is an essential part of trauma recovery. When you learn how to tap into the resources you can depend on, your healing journey feels possible and safe. This helps your body separate the past from the present.
Manage Dose
You know yourself best, but trauma can get in the way of that relationship. When you create safety and take back agency, you will start to feel connected to your body and self again. Honoring that there is a pace to healing the injured parts of ourselves is essential.
When you reconnect with yourself you will make gains and find progress by choosing when to move forward and when to slow down. You will begin to see yourself as worthy of the kindness and the hope we all want to feel. The parts of yourself that were fragmented will start to integrate and you’ll feel the fullness of yourself again.
Experiencing Repair
You can't change what happened in the past, but you can change the way it’s held inside and how you make sense of it. When you explore traumatic past events in a safe environment, you can discover what was missing for you in those moments, honour the clever ways that you coped with things at the time, and develop new strategies and perspectives.
When we experience a new perspective or another possibility, change occurs.
This specialized treatment protocol (SRDR) was developed by Taryn Prodan
Understanding how your body and mind work together is important. When working on trauma, we want to learn to reconnect with the body in a way that feels safe so your thinking brain can learn something new.
“Your body does the work for you from a deeper part of your brain” - Brian Lynn, Feldenkrais practitioner
We do this by forming a foundation of Safety, building Resources, offering the right Dose of work and finding a Repair.
