Our bodies are the first way we connect with other beings, our first line of protection in this world, and our physical container in which all of our life experience gets felt, processed and stored. Developmentally, we're a body-self before we become a mind-self. Yet, culturally our body-self gets denied and oppressed; and most of us grow up disconnected from knowing who we are as embodied beings.
It's our belief that we’re all limited or even traumatized in various ways because of this conditioned disconnection from our bodies. Why? Because safety, closeness, the ability to give and receive love, and psychological and emotional maturity all require us to know how to understand what the feelings arising from our bodies are telling us, communicate needs, and set healthy boundaries.
When we listen to the body within the context of the therapeutic relationship, we gain a deeper understanding of what we need and how to try to meet those needs; and we can discern whether our feelings are relative to the present moment or if they are old feelings arising from unmet childhood needs.
Frequently, feelings are confusing because some of them are arising from unprocessed past experience. Getting “triggered” is an indication of this. Psychological or emotional material remains unconsciously stored within the body-mind because we went through periods of time when we were alone and it was too overwhelming to process and feel our feelings. Or, our ancestors may have gone through trauma and we are processing this ancestral trauma now.
Any experience that is overwhelming and creates intense emotions that we, or our ancestors, are/were forced to bear alone is registered in the personal or collective body as trauma. To cope, our bodies survival patterns of fight, flight, freeze or fawn get activated. These patterns are initially mechanisms of protection; if they become chronic, however, they become mechanisms of ongoing stress and disconnection. These patterns often prevent us from being able to relate to ourselves and others in the ways we want to.
Healing the body-mind is both personal and relational work. Part of what this looks like is healing and regulating the nervous system. In simplest terms, regulation means learning how to work the “gas and brakes” of our nervous system so we can skillfully respond to situations with either more activated energy or more calm energy.
Self-regulation is important, but we tend to promote co-regulation in our work: being as attuned as we can in relationships by seeing, listening, empathizing, and responding to each other safely. Attuned relationships create “safe spaces” that we can retreat to and find emotional, psychological and physical shelter amidst the stressors of the external world. Once relational attunement and responsiveness is established, the body and mind naturally release pain and suffering.