Somatics: The Body Remembers, The Body Knows

Somatics: The Body Remembers, The Body Knows

We live in a culture that worships the mind—thoughts, words, logic. But what if the answers you're looking for aren’t in your head?

What if they’re resting quietly in your breath?Tucked into your shoulders?Held in the curl of your spine or the clench of your belly?

Somatic therapy is the practice of listening to the body’s language—sensation, movement, rhythm, stillness. It’s about coming home to the body, healing from the inside out, and reclaiming the wisdom we were born with.

What Is Somatic Therapy?

“Somatic” comes from the Greek soma, meaning “the living body in its wholeness.”

Somatic therapy is not just about treating symptoms—it’s about developing a relationship with the body as a wise, feeling, and responsive part of the self. It works with the nervous system, the fascia, the breath, and the emotions that live in the tissues.

Rather than talking about your trauma, somatics invites you to feel it—safely, slowly, and with support—so it can move, shift, and eventually resolve.

This isn’t just therapy for the body. It’s therapy through the body.

How It Works

Somatic therapy centers around a few core principles:

1. The Body Holds Memory

Trauma isn’t just a story—it’s a pattern of tension, a charge, a survival response stored in the nervous system. Somatics accesses this through awareness, sensation, and breath.

2. Safety is Everything

Healing happens when the body feels safe enough to soften. That’s why somatic sessions emphasize co-regulation, titration (going slow), and choice.

3. The Felt Sense is the Guide

Coined by Eugene Gendlin, the “felt sense” is your body’s internal awareness of what’s happening. It’s subtle, but powerful—like a compass pointing toward wholeness.

4. Regulation Over Catharsis

Somatics is not about dramatic emotional release. It’s about regulating your system, completing survival responses (like fight/flight/freeze), and restoring balance.

5. Wholeness, Not Fixing

You’re not broken. Your body adapted to survive. Somatic work honors that—and invites your system to update now that it’s safe.

A Bit of History

The roots of somatics span many traditions—indigenous healing, yoga, bodywork, dance, and modern neuroscience.

But the formal field began in the 20th century with pioneers like:

• Wilhelm Reich – who linked muscular tension to emotional repression.

• Moshe Feldenkrais – creator of movement re-education practices.

• Alexander Lowen – founder of Bioenergetics, working with posture and emotional expression.

• Peter Levine – developed Somatic Experiencing, showing how trauma is stored in the nervous system.

• Pat Ogden – founder of Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, bridging talk therapy with body awareness.

• Bessel van der Kolk – whose research helped mainstream the concept that “the body keeps the score.”

These lineages now weave with modern practices like dance therapy, trauma-informed yoga, craniosacral work, polyvagal theory, and even wilderness-based healing—creating a rich ecosystem of somatic healing modalities.

What Does a Somatic Session Look Like?

It might involve:

• Tuning into body sensations (“What are you feeling in your chest right now?”)

• Tracking nervous system responses (like freeze, dissociation, or activation)

• Movement, shaking, sound, or breathwork

• Touch (if appropriate), like gentle holds to support regulation

• Exploring boundaries, impulses, or images

• Completing stress responses that were interrupted

• Resourcing—finding what feels good, grounded, safe

Most importantly: it’s led by you—your body, your pacing, your experience. The practitioner is just there to listen, mirror, and support the unfolding.

Why It Matters

In a world that tells us to override our instincts, disconnect from our bodies, and numb out instead of feel—somatics is radical.

It invites you to:

• Feel instead of fix

• Slow down instead of speed up

• Rest instead of override

• Connect instead of cope

It’s nervous system rewilding. It’s body-based liberation. It’s remembering that healing doesn’t have to be intellectual—it can be visceral, pleasurable, primal, and deeply empowering.

You Already Know How

Somatics doesn’t give you something new—it helps you remember something ancient. Something your body never forgot.

That your breath is medicine.Your spine is sacred.Your emotions are intelligent.Your body is not a problem to solve,But a place to return to.

Again and again, until it feels like home.