Integrative Somatics
We specialize in the therapeutic protocol of Somatic Archaeology© for neurobiological reorganization, memory recall, 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 and experience wholeness.
What is trauma?
Though everyone will respond to 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.
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 & affiliating stories, emotions & survival shock are held in the tissues 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, unhealthy coping strategies, disease, depressions, anxiety, somatic fixation, functional freeze, collapse, etc.
If you have CPTSD or other chronic challenges, either physical, emotional or mental, you might be feeling overwhelmed with where to begin healing your story. In this 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 learning to live well despite what happened to us, becoming whole again.
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.
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
