Anxiety and Somatic Therapies

The Power of Somatic Therapies: Healing Anxiety from Within

Anxiety has become a prevalent issue in our modern society. Constant stress, pressure to achieve, and the demands of daily life can take a toll on our mental and physical well-being. While traditional therapeutic approaches are valuable in addressing anxiety, there is a growing recognition of the effectiveness of somatic therapies in helping individuals heal from anxiety from within.
Somatic therapies focus on the mind-body connection, acknowledging that our bodies store and carry emotional experiences. By working with the body, somatic therapists believe that anxiety can be released, allowing individuals to regain a sense of calm and balance. So, how do somatic therapies help in the healing process?

1. Sensing the Body

One fundamental aspect of somatic therapy is improving body awareness. Often, anxiety can disconnect us from our bodies, leaving us disconnected and out of touch with our sensations and feelings. By learning to tune in and notice bodily sensations, we can become more attuned to our emotional experiences and gain insight into the root causes of anxiety.
Somatic therapists may guide clients through exercises such as body scans, breathwork, or movement practices that encourage embodiment. These practices allow individuals to slow down, become present, and deepen their awareness of internal sensations, ultimately promoting a sense of grounding and relaxation.

2. Releasing Tension and Trauma

Anxiety often manifests as physical tension in the body. Somatic therapies provide tools to release this tension and address any underlying trauma that might be contributing to stress. Techniques such as Somatic Experiencing, Trauma Release Exercises, Breathwork, or EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) can help individuals process and discharge stored stress and trauma.
These modalities focus on accessing the body's natural ability to regulate itself. By allowing the body to complete the stress response cycle, individuals can release stuck energy, reduce anxiety symptoms, and create space for healing.

3. Regulation and Resourcing

Somatic therapies also emphasize building resilience and self-regulation skills to manage anxiety. When confronted with stressors, our nervous system can become dysregulated, leading to heightened anxiety responses. Through somatic therapies, individuals learn techniques to ground themselves, regulate their breathing, and establish a sense of safety within their bodies.
Therapeutic practices like Somatic Movement Therapy, Yoga Therapy, or Biofeedback can help individuals develop a sense of agency and control over their experiences. This empowers them to navigate anxiety triggers more effectively, fostering a greater sense of calm and stability in their daily lives.

4. Empowering Mind-Body Integration

One significant advantage of somatic therapies is integrating the mind and body in healing. Traditional talk therapy often focuses solely on cognitive processes. However, somatic therapies recognize that emotions are not exclusively generated in the mind but are also felt and expressed through the body.
By including somatic approaches alongside traditional therapeutic modalities, individuals can access a deeper level of healing by incorporating the wisdom of their bodies. This integration strengthens the mind-body connection, opening new possibilities for self-awareness, growth, and long-lasting change.

Final Thoughts

Anxiety can be debilitating, but it is possible to find relief and healing through somatic therapies. We can cultivate a profound sense of well-being and resilience by bringing attention and awareness to our bodies, releasing tension and trauma, developing regulation skills, and integrating mind-body practices.
Somatic therapies offer us the opportunity to explore anxiety from a holistic perspective, honoring the interconnectedness of our mental, emotional, and physical selves. If you're struggling with anxiety, consider exploring somatic therapies—your body and mind will thank you. True healing lies within, waiting to be discovered and nurtured through bodily awareness and practice.

What is Somatic Therapy Anyway?

Somatic Therapy: Discovering Healing through Embodied Awareness

Somatic Therapy, also known as Somatic Experiencing or Somatic Healing, is a therapeutic approach that recognizes the inseparable connection between the mind and body. It offers a holistic framework to address and heal the wounds, traumas, and dysfunctions that individuals may carry within themselves.
At its core, somatic therapy acknowledges that the body holds our experiences, emotions, and memories. It recognizes that these internalized sensations can be powerful indicators of our well-being. By paying attention to bodily sensations, movements, and patterns, Somatic Therapy invites individuals to develop a deeper understanding of themselves and their experiences.
One of the primary goals of somatic therapy is to help individuals become more aware of their body's responses to stress, trauma, and difficult emotions. Clients can recognize and release physical and emotional tension through this heightened awareness, allowing for healing and integration.
Somatic therapy sessions typically involve working with a trained therapist who guides clients through various embodied practices. These practices may include breathwork, mindfulness, gentle movements, and body awareness exercises. Individuals can gradually reconnect with their bodies and access their innate capacity for self-regulation and healing by engaging in these activities.
The therapeutic process involves a collaborative exploration of the individual's unique experiences, past traumas, and any emotional or physical symptoms they may be experiencing. Through compassionate listening, the therapist creates a safe and non-judgmental space for individuals to share their stories, fears, and challenges.
The core theory behind Somatic Therapy is based on the understanding that traumatic experiences, whether large or small, can become "stuck" in our bodies. These unresolved traumas can manifest as physical pain, chronic health issues, anxiety, depression, or various emotional disturbances. Somatic Therapy aims to gently release these stored traumas through regulated nervous system activation and integration.
Ultimately, Somatic Therapy aims to support individuals in building resilience, restoring a greater sense of wholeness, and promoting overall well-being. By helping individuals connect with their embodied experiences, this therapeutic approach facilitates profound healing and growth on multiple levels.
It is important to note that somatic therapy is not a quick fix or a one-size-fits-all solution. Each person's journey is unique, and the therapist's role is to meet the individual where they are and support them in their process. Healing through somatic therapy requires patience, commitment, and an open mind.
In conclusion, somatic therapy is an empowering and transformative modality that enables individuals to explore their internal landscape, release deep-seated traumas, and enhance their overall well-being. By harnessing the body-mind connection, somatic therapy offers a path toward healing, resilience, and a more authentic and embodied existence.

The Power of Breathwork

Exploring the Transformative Power of Somatic Breathwork

Breath is a fundamental aspect of our existence, an intimate connection between our body and mind. Breathing can profoundly impact our physical, emotional, and mental well-being. Somatic breathwork is a powerful practice that harnesses the healing potential of conscious breathing to facilitate profound transformation and holistic healing. In this blog post, we will explore the transformative power of somatic breathwork and the profound benefits it can offer.

What is Somatic Breathwork?

Somatic breathwork is an embodied practice focusing on conscious and intentional engagement with our breath. It draws from various somatic traditions, including mindfulness, yoga, and meditation. Somatic breathwork aims to cultivate awareness of the breath and its connection to our physical sensations, emotions, and thoughts. By consciously guiding the breath and engaging with the body's sensations, we can access deeper layers of consciousness and release stored tension, trauma, and emotions.

The Core Principles of Somatic Breathwork

1. Conscious Breathing: Somatic breathwork emphasizes the importance of conscious breathing, which involves paying attention to the rhythm, depth, and quality of our breath. By intentionally engaging with each inhalation and exhalation, we can create a deeper connection between our body and mind.
2. Body Awareness: Somatic breathwork invites us to develop a heightened sense of body awareness. Through focused attention, we explore the subtle sensations, tensions, and energetic currents within our bodies. This heightened awareness allows us to release blocked energy and restore harmony within.
3. Emotional Release: Our breath is vital to unlocking and releasing stagnant emotions. Somatic breathwork provides a safe container to explore and express these emotions, allowing them to be acknowledged, felt, and ultimately released. By deepening our breath, we can access emotional healing and create space for joy, love, and vitality.

The Benefits of Somatic Breathwork

1. Stress Reduction: Deep, intentional breathing activates the parasympathetic nervous system, inducing relaxation and reducing stress. It helps release tension held in the body, alleviating symptoms of anxiety, insomnia, and fatigue.
2. Emotional Regulation: Somatic breathwork helps regulate and balance our emotions. By cultivating a conscious breath, we can create a greater capacity to sit with and process difficult emotions such as grief, anger, or sadness. This process enables emotional release and supports emotional well-being.
3. Healing Trauma: Somatic breathwork is a powerful tool for addressing and healing trauma. By inviting the body to release suppressed trauma through conscious breath, we can begin to access and integrate unresolved experiences. This process promotes healing, resilience, and a renewed sense of empowerment.
4. Heightened Self-Awareness: Somatic breathwork cultivates body awareness and mindfulness, deepening our connection to ourselves and the present moment. It allows us to tune into our body's wisdom, intuition, and innate healing capacity.

Exploring Somatic Breathwork

If you want to explore somatic breathwork, MAVEN & MUSE™ offers guided 1:1 and/or group sessions. These sessions often combine conscious breathing practices, movement, and body awareness exercises to facilitate deep healing and transformation. Additionally, there are numerous online resources, books, and workshops that can provide guidance and support in integrating somatic breathwork into your life.
Remember that somatic breathwork is a profoundly personal journey, and everyone's experience will be unique. It's vital to approach this practice with an open mind, compassion for yourself, and a willingness to explore the depths of your being.
By engaging with somatic breathwork, you can embark on a transformative journey of self-discovery, healing, and empowerment. Take a deep breath and allow the power of your breath to guide you towards a more integrated and vibrant way of being.

3 Powerful Tips To Manage Everyday Stress

Often stress will manifest when we carry over yesterday’s concerns into our present day. An accumulation will almost always end up in a high-stress level. Therefore, we must be able to “dump” all our fears from the previous day or days and concentrate wholly on today.

So here are three stress-busting tips:

- Stress-Busting Tip #1

Resolve to release every thought from yesterday and be mindful of the now…. this thought only...this breath...this moment. Please take a deep breath through the nose and slowly release it through the mouth; now, repeat three times. At the same time feel every concern, every problem, and every unresolved moment, begin to dissolve. You can deal with them at a later time. For now, you are only to be in this very moment.

Now go to your quiet inner place. Go deep inside to a place where you feel at peace, and then relax, breathe in deeply, and enjoy being at one and peace within yourself. Use this particular time and place to be calm. Free your mind and body from worry, all regret, all disappointment, all anger, and grief.

- Stress-Busting Tip #2

Next, visualize yourself out in nature, at the beach or trail, taking in the warmth of the sun and the sound of the wind or waves. All the while, your mind is quiet and calm, and you are in your special place.

Visualization can calm the mind and central nervous system and improve concentration, memory, and brain power.

Mindful visualization is a quick and easy way to take you from fear and anxiety to a calm and relaxed state.

-Stress-Busting Tip #3

The best thing you can do for yourself is to eat, drink and rest – for your health! Stress is quickly brought on by not eating and drinking correctly. When you don’t get the number of hours of sleep that you need each night, you are only setting yourself up for additional stress.

Limit the amount of salt, sugar, caffeine, and alcohol in your diet.

Drink plenty of clean, pure water each day and do at least moderate exercise each day. This will breathe new life into your skin and hair and nourish your vital organs.

Take time to breathe correctly! Take deep belly breaths to send pure oxygen to all your body.

Laugh and then laugh some more. It is food for the soul!

Spend time doing the things that please you most.

Engage in healthy and fulfilling relationships and work on problems that would erode your closeness with someone special.

When we are content and living a balanced life, everyday stresses seem to pale in comparison. We are better equipped to deal with the unexpected.

9 Ways To Combat Fear

Fear gets to the best of us, whether it is fear of failure, fear of success, or even fear of fear. We all have experienced fear at some point in our lives and it can be a real stumbling block that holds us back from being truly successful.

Fear can’t hold you back forever if you don’t let it. There are several ways to overcome fear, here are my top 9:

1. SEPARATE REALITY FROM PERCEPTION

Ask yourself what is really going on, locate the facts and place them over your feelings.

2. IDENTIFY THE TRIGGER

 Figure out what it is in a situation that triggers you. Learning to identify it will help you learn to combat it.

3. KNOW WHERE FEAR LIVES IN YOUR BODY

A lot of times, fear takes over physically. It affects different people in different ways. Identify if/how it affects your physical body and do the work to take care of your body. Ex: if you hold stress in your back, you can learn stretches, foam rolling, etc. to avoid the pain.

4. PRACTICE GRATITUDE

Everyday, list out 1-3 things you are thankful for. It doesn’t matter how big or small it is, gratitude helps shift the mind into a positive light, which over time, overcomes fear.

5. LISTEN TO YOUR INNER VOICE

Monitor your inner conversations. If you wouldn’t say it to a friend, don’t say it to yourself. Speak positively to yourself and remind yourself of your strengths.

6. CREATE A NEW ASSOCIATION

Remind yourself that the feeling and the moment will pass. Focus on the positive outcome of the situation, rather than the scary in-between.

7. LOOK AT THE GLASS HALF FULL

Perception is a very powerful thing, and how you feel about your situation dictates how you respond to it. So think positively and you’ll give yourself a much better chance of success. This won’t happen overnight; practice with just one thought. What is one recurring negative/fearful thought you have? Work on reversing this one thought. Over time, this will become a habit.

8. PRACTICE BREATHING EXERCISES

Breathing helps center your body; when you stop breathing, your heart stops beating. You can do a grounding exercise, or even just take 5 deep, long breaths at any point to calm and center yourself. It is best to start your day with this, but feel free to practice all day long.

9. CREATE A SAFE SPACE

When you feel safe and secure, there is no room for fear. Find somewhere safe you can retreat to when ill feelings begin- whether this is a real place such as your bedroom, or a place in your mind such as the beach. This sense of comfort will soothe you and allow you to face your fear.

Please keep in mind, these are just 9 strategies, not everything works for everyone. But this is a place to start. Start implementing these techniques into your life and don’t let fear hold you back from reaching your goals and your highest potential this year!

3 Steps To Discovering Your Life’s Purpose

Determining what our purpose is in life can be one of the hardest things to figure out. Of course society, friends and family have their input on what we should be doing with our life, but what is OUR life’s purpose? What brings joy to your life? I remember just a few years ago I was asking myself these very questions, what is my purpose? In this article we will be going through a step-by-step process, exploring your feelings and options, and by the end, you should have a fairly solid tool you can immediately employ in your life, to help give it a meaningful direction!

There are three steps to the process of discovering the purpose of your life:

1. Understanding the principle of choice

2. Creating your “underlying principle”

3. Aligning your life with this underlying principle

Understanding The Principle of Choice

Norman Vincent Peale has this to say about the power of choice. “The greatest power we have is the power of choice. It is an actual fact, that if you have been groping under unhappiness, you can choose to be joyous, instead. And, by effort, lift yourself into joy. If you tend to be fearful, you can overcome that misery by choosing to have courage. The whole trend and the quality of anyone’s life are determined by the choices that are made”.

“Choosing” is the most important activity of your mind, because by making a choice, you are proclaiming your desires to your subconscious mind. Once the subconscious mind gets to know your desires, it is going to do anything to manifest them in your life. The choices you make in your life become your goal. And, if you are sincere in pursuing them, there is no reason why you should not accomplish them.

Indecision, on the other hand, not only creates frustration and anxiety but can also confuse the subconscious mind about what you want. But it is important that the choices you make are made by you, in accordance with your true desires, purposes, and aptitude. A lot of us let others make choices for us or make our choices according to what we think is ‘correct’, even if that means that we go against our wishes. What is right for someone else may not be right for you, and the way to know this is by listening to what your heart says.

To begin, make a list of things that interest you; things that you have always enjoyed, which make you feel better, which inspire you to surge ahead, no matter what obstacles you face. Do you like doing something creative, or something artistic? Do you enjoy nature? Do you like the sea? Do you enjoy helping others? Do you get pleasure out of making a difference in other people’s lives?

Whatever it is that interests you, write it down and answer these questions:

●     What thing do I love to do?

●     What is it that I love in this thing and why?

●     How could I do this for money, and make a living out of it?

Creating Your Underlying Principle

The next step is to examine the list you just made and find out if there is any recurring theme. Maybe, it is the contribution that keeps coming up, or an effect to seek or give love, or helping your parents cope with old age. Whatever it is, try to identify the central theme of the things you love to do, and try to put it in a short and precise statement. This will be your ‘Mission Statement’. It may even be a quote by a famous person, or a philosophy that has influenced you. Of course, as you grow up, this statement could evolve, but its soul will remain the same. Now, write down your Mission Statement.

Aligning Your LIFE With Your Underlying Principle

The final step in this journey is to map your path to your ultimate purpose and to begin implementing changes that help to align your daily life with your underlying purpose. By making these little changes in your lifestyle, you will start to be able to begin living this principle out each and every day. It might take a few days, but by becoming aware and intentional of this underlying principle of your life, you will certainly start to feel the difference in your enthusiasm for life as a whole. If you realize that you love being amidst nature, plan out your holiday. Maybe an outing with your children could be enough to recoup your energy. If you discover that you enjoy helping those in need, start to look for opportunities to volunteer in your community. On the other hand, you might even want to change your job or start a new business that is more in line with your mission.

So there you have it! By following along with the steps outlined above, you will be on your way to finding and living out your purpose. And, as you go through this process, just remember, “You were put on this earth to achieve your greatest self, to live out your purpose, and to do it courageously.” - Steve Maraboli