Integrative Somatic Healing
We specialize in the therapeutic protocol of Somatic Archaeology© for neurobiological reorganization, memory recall, complex trauma and abuse recovery + more.
New Narrative of Trauma + Abuse Recovery.
Bridging neuroscience, integrative somatic healing, social theory, holistic and traditional wisdom, we’ve created a new narrative of trauma and abuse recovery, helping people and the land heal, regenerate, experience wholeness and learn to live well.
Origins of trauma
Though everyone will respond to and cope with traumatic events differently, dependent on their own developmental, relational, ancestral and historical histories, this graphic shows many common events or ways that trauma manifests in the neurobiology, affecting the body, emotions, mind and spirit.
To heal with and integrate trauma, we must be willing to move beyond the binary that trauma is bad and be willing to find the gift within the wound. The wound never goes away, but our relationship to it changes.
Healing complex trauma with an Integrative Somatic
Healing approach requires looking at and healing
layers beyond the nervous system.
It will heal the endocrine system.
It will heal the immune system.
It will heal the reproductive system.
It will heal the circulatory system.
It will heal the emotional body.
It will heal the mental body.
It will heal the spiritual body.
Becoming whole in brain, body + spirit.
We keep it simple and go slow.
How Complex Trauma Is Stored + Integrated
Trauma is stacked in the neurophysiology ~ in the brain and the body.
Memories and emotions are stored in the limbic region of the brain, with affiliating stories, emotions and survival shock being also held in the cellular memory of the body, or soma ~ fascia, blood, cells, bones, lymph, organs, skin, tendons, immune system, etc.
These stories and cellular memories become fragmented, stacked and frozen in the body, often stored without cognitive recall in the brain in order to protect us, to keep us alive.
These stories are held in the tissues ‘out of time,’ meaning even old stories play out in present time as adaptive neurobiological conflict, disease, depression, anxiety, etc.
Over time, unaddressed complex trauma acts out as auto-immunity, chronic illness, complex challenges, unhealthy coping strategies, disease, depression, anxiety, somatic fixation, functional freeze, collapse, etc.
If you have C-PTSD or other complex challenges, either physical, emotional or mental, you might be feeling overwhelmed with where to begin healing your story.
In our consent-based, somatic approach, the body decides where it is ready, has capacity, to begin.
Trauma is integrated layer by layer through a bottom-up approach of somatic dialogue & processing ~ a skill for life ~ brain, body and mind working together to reclaim choice in present time.
A felt-sense of safety is created each time a person with trauma finds empowerment in unearthing & integrating painful memories or stories, making room to dream forward and live with greater wholeness.
The memories remain, but the emotional charge they carry and the relationship to them changes.
We can’t get rid of trauma, but we can integrate it, heal with it and learn to live well despite what happened to us, becoming whole again.
O N F R A G M E N T A T I O N
“People subjected to prolonged, repeated trauma develop an insidious progressive form of post-traumatic stress disorder that invades and erodes the personality. While the victim of a single acute trauma may feel after the event that she is 'not herself', the victim of chronic trauma may feel herself changed irrevocably, or she may lose the sense that she has any self at all.”
— Judith Herman, Psychiatrist & Author