What is Somatic Healing?

Dear Awesome Woman,

I speak often of Mindbody Wellness and somatic healing, but some of you might not know what it is and why I use those terms. Mindbody refers to the intimate connection between our thoughts and our bodies—the effect they have on each other, while somatic refers to the body. I use the terms interchangeably.

I’ll elaborate. Our bodies bring us messages in the way of “emotions” which can be defined as “energy in motion.” They are presented to us as physical sensations. 

For example:

• Excitement—An uplifting of the chest that energizes you positively.
• Nerves—A mixture of excitement, vulnerability and fear of the unknown.
• Fear (dread)—A message from your body asking you to pay attention to something that doesn’t feel safe. It may be felt as a sinking in your stomach.
• Anger—A surge of energy trying to set a boundary. Asks for action to be taken—words to be said or physical distancing—a protection of sorts. It may be felt as a constriction in the chest, a tightening of the jaw, a furrowing of the brows, or a tingling in the extremities.
• Joy—an expansion or sense of comfort and safety.
• Sadness—a sensation of loss, a desire to bow forward, often being expressed in the eyes and chest.
• Shame—a desire to shrink inward, get smaller.

These are general explanations, but perhaps you have also experienced these in the way described? And of course, each one of us is different and our bodies have unique expressions as well.

One of the important things to keep in mind is that because emotions are energetic, they have the ability to flow and shift as well as give us golden information. They can reveal to us how our thoughts and belief patterns are creating our lives. They can reveal to us how people and situations are affecting our health, for the positive and negative. Emotions can also let us know how to redirect our paths to get relief and get more effective results.

My job as a Somatic Healer is to help empower my clients to tap into this flow and wisdom to energize positive change in their relationships, careers and health. We cannot necessarily control what the universe, or G-d, brings our way, but we can respond with inner empowerment to release what holds us back and move forward with divine purpose. It is my fervent belief that no circumstance, relationship, or situation is merely a product of coincidence so why not access healing and retrieve our emotional and soul wisdom to get clarity, guidance and relief?

There are Kabbalistic, divine energies that come into the world and are expressed through our bodies. One of these spiritual energies is Hod, which can be defined as “giving space.” When you practice giving space to your emotions, you are taking notice as to the physical sensations that are arising in your body. This is mindful, directive and empowering. Whether you have an interaction with a co-worker, a boss, a friend, a partner, a child, or a stranger, making space to notice with honesty what emotions are coming up for you is a healthy part of the human experience. Denying this part of ourselves can lead to health issues, relationship funks and career limitations, G-d forbid. 

Perhaps you have heard of the famous doctor, Dr. John Sarno? He was a physician who revolutionized the medical field with his radical approaches to healing back pain and other physical ailments. Some of the Mindbody approach I was trained in is grounded on his incredible work. He coined the term TMS, tension myositis syndrome, to describe a circulatory constriction in blood vessels that results in pain in the body. This is also known as mindbody syndrome.

To sum up what Dr. Sarno has written in one of his many books, The Mindbody Prescription, and taught for over 30-plus years, the brain will cut off blood and oxygen flow to different parts of the body in order to distract the individual from recognizing and feeling emotions that they are trying to avoid. This lack of blood and oxygen flow is the direct cause of pain. In order to get relief from the pain, a person will go running around to different doctors and scouring the internet to get answers and diagnoses for help with pain relief, when the healing is within their reach and within their own body. They just need to feel to heal. 

This is not to say AT ALL that the pain is only in the mind. The pain is real and the symptoms are real. But the healing comes from turning inward, getting honest about our emotions—especially our very human emotions of anger, fear, sadness, and grief. Most of us have the very normal habit of ignoring, repressing, and suppressing our emotions.

But according to Dr. Sarno, when we give the message to our brain that we are not afraid of our emotions, it won’t try to distract us by constricting blood and oxygen flow and causing pain or dysfunction. We are freeing ourselves from the suppression-pain cycle and are able to live a more vibrant, healthy life.

When you have aches, pains, autoimmune symptoms, migraines—by all means, go to massage therapists, physical therapists, doctors, homeopaths, or nutritionists. There are many channels of healing and your healing can come from a doctor, a pill, or a chiropractic adjustment. However, in my coaching/healing practice and my own experience, I’ve come to learn that without delving into the underlying emotions, our relief is often short lived. Pain brought on by emotional distress, even unconscious emotional distress, will hop around, as a headache today and plantar fasciitis tomorrow.

As I mentioned earlier, emotions are “energy in motion.” This is crucial to understand because they show up as physical sensations in the body, starting out very quiet and subtle, almost vibrational. When ignored, the tension in the body gets louder and louder until it “screams” as a migraine, backache, or some other pain or weakness in the body. The key here is to notice as soon as possible and as often as possible what we are feeling and what our emotions and body are trying to communicate with us—I call this somatic healing and mindbody wellness. Being honest with ourselves is where healing starts and then blooms from there.

In sessions, I will help you access the messages that your body is bringing you regarding particular situations and relationships. We will also discover the wisdom of your emotions and intuition as well as process things in such a way that results in healing and clarity in each session. Mindbody Soul sessions are very different than talk therapy because of the somatic process. You will experience greater health, clarity, and joy. Mindbody Soul sessions are simply life-changing!

Here’s an example from a situation that my husband experienced:

My husband was once irritated over a situation. He had a couple of difficult interactions with someone in his profession and felt annoyed.

He shared with me what happened and kept searching his mind for a solution. Seeing that he was visibly unsettled over it, I gently asked him if he wanted a somatic healing/coaching session. He agreed.

We sat down and before we started, I set a spiritual healing intention. From my multiple trainings and hundreds of hours of client sessions, I have learned how to access a higher part of me that is not a wife, a friend, an advisor or even just a listener. I’m not just going to show up as regular old me with my ideas, advice, and limited personality traits. These sessions are about the other person (about YOU!). And with that higher place accessed, I’m able to guide and lead my client (or family member) into the solutions that their body, emotions, mind and soul want them to have. Not mine.

And so I did this with my husband. I set an intentional space for healing and coaching.

Then we dived into the present situation being guided by his emotions, his thoughts and his body. I also led him into the past where a memory surfaced—a memory of him as a child in a difficult interaction with a parent.

Why did that specific memory pop up? Because the energy of the emotions that this irritating present situation brought up was related to something in the past. His past emotional baggage.

This all was accessed because we tapped into his body’s information, not just his mind’s.

Memories pop up when our bodies are ready to process the emotional energy of a past event. Most of the time it’s because we felt powerless or victimized in that past situation—we were young so how much empowerment does a child have?  

Emotional energy is stored in the cells of the body and our body wants to complete actions that it couldn’t when we felt powerless to do so. For example, sitting in a classroom getting criticized by a teacher; being bullied by a friend and not recognizing it as such. We felt helpless to make changes, but our body knew we were scared, angry, and/or sad.

As adults, we are empowered. My husband’s body said, “Hey, we’re ready to handle this now.” And so by accessing that memory, we were able to follow through with processing emotional energy that had been stuck in his cells for decades. He gave his body and younger self what it needed.

Freedom flowed, healing happened and higher wisdom was accessed. Solutions were found and he finished the session with the ability to take action free from past emotional baggage.

Need a helping hand in accessing the golden wisdom of your emotions and body? Schedule your Free Clarity Call today! and let’s heal those old wounds, release outdated beliefs, process stuck emotional energy and get clarity. You can live a much freer life. As a Somatic Healer, Relationship Expert & Clarity Coach, I empower women to create vitality and joy in their relationships, careers, and health. I also specialize in helping women to recover from trauma, grief, anxiety, and physical pain ailments as well as access their awesome intuitive powers.

“Miriam Racquel has the unique ability to invite you to HEAL. Releasing pain, dismantling mental distortions and replacing those with truths, and gaining new perspectives improved my emotional well-being, physical health, and personal/family relationships. She is a pleasure to work with: I leave smiling and encouraged! She has breadth of training & resources, which I’m grateful to continue to learn from. Thank you, Miriam Racquel!” 

• L.H., Utah