What does Somatic mean? The term comes from the Greek word “somatikos” meaning “of the body”. Somatic is the experience of sensing the body from the inside – ie the felt sense of it. All human beings have the ability to sense their own body from within and be guided by that felt sense towards a healing state.
Somatic Yoga
Somatic Yoga works directly with the felt sense of the body rather than the mind to release deep muscular tightness, stress and trauma.
In a somatic yoga session we are repatterning tight muscles by working with the somatic sensory cortex of the brain. At the same time as we are releasing tight muscles we are also releasing accumulated stress.
This is quite a deep and empowering healing process where the you get to know your own body on a deeper level.
I use somatic exercises one to one in my yoga therapy clinic and also incorporate some somatic movements into my general yoga classes.
Somatic Experiencing
Somatic Experiencing® was developed in the 1970s by Dr Peter Levine and is now considered a leading therapy for treating PTSD, trauma and chronic stress.
It is body-centred, or ‘bottom up’ approach acknowledging that all trauma is located in the body. Therapy focuses on recognising and exploring the sensations of trauma in the body, rather than just thoughts, feelings and memories.
I am an intermediate-level student in the SE™ Professional Training program and I integrate Somatic Experiencing® techniques into my practice as a yoga therapist.
