How Somatic Experiencing Training Retraumatized Me

Somatic Experiencing is hard to explain in words because how can you describe an experience happening within your body?

For those not familiar with somatic experiencing, it is a healing modality to release trauma energy stuck in your body.

As humans, we flow in and out of our sympathetic nervous system as a natural part of survival.

But our brains are so complex and relational, leading us to get stuck in fight/flight/freeze in overwhelming circumstances…especially when we are children.

It’s a human physiological response to trauma that can be released with the right environment, guidance, and support, through somatic experiencing.

A modality I just finished my beginning 1 training in earlier this week.

This intensive training was 7 hours a day for 4 days. It involved using our nervous system and practicing this modality on each other through all the roles as client, practitioner, and observer.

Of course, I feared retraumatization, but thankfully, these practice sessions were monitored by an assistant to make sure we were all safe.

On the 3rd day of our training, I played the role of client, and my fears came to life. I was retraumatized…but in a strangely empowered way.

During the practice session as the client, my nervous system became activated into a freeze response, and I was slowly guided back down to the present moment by orienting my body to the room I was in.

As the SEP (somatic experiencing practitioner) in training told me to look around the room, I found myself staring at a paperweight in the shape of a cherry blossom tree.

The paperweight brought me unexpected joy as I felt my heart opening to a memory of seeing cherry blossoms in Japan, my last vacation with my emotionally abusive ex, days before he dumped me.

Although the vacation was with someone who caused me deep emotional pain, my heart stayed open for the beauty of the cherry blossoms around Tokyo.

I remember the petals dancing on the trees and gently falling onto the ground. The trees grounded amid the storm of my tumultuous relationship. They blossomed around me and they blossomed for me…a reminder to have hope.

I could feel their rooted support in my chest as I continued staring at the paperweight, being guided to feel in deeper towards the radiating warmth.

After the training ended, I began crying, not knowing why.

I put my hand over my face and into the darkness of my palm, a distant memory came back of me locking myself in the room after a fight with my ex. I was staring at the door, laying on the bed, with tear-stained cheeks, as I see the doorknob attempting to turn.

“Are you serious, Maryann, you locked me out?” my ex-shouts trying to get in.

The noise muffled against the door. I curl up tighter into a ball on the bed. Frozen. Crying. Feeling stuck in my body. Stuck in this relationship.

I open my eyes and lift my palm from my face, and I remember where I am. In DC, with my now safe boyfriend, staying at his aunt’s apartment.

I walk out to the room, and he sees my dissociative state and pulls me into his arms in a hug that allows me to release my breath I had unknowingly held captive.

I am safe now.

I am safe with him.

This memory of my ex kept repeating throughout the rest of the night, as I pulled in all my resources of cherry blossoms and oceans to ground myself into the present moment. Just like the training taught us.

As I was brushing my teeth before bed, I kept eyeing the ledge of the bathtub. Suddenly, I had an urge to sit on the ledge.

I follow my instinct and sit on the ledge. Immediately I am transported back in time to where I had locked myself in the bathroom after a fight with my ex, crying and sitting on the bathtub ledge.
My ex opens the door as I realized I didn’t lock it. He looks at me. Emotionless from his weaponized words he had thrown at me moments before.

He closes the door, leaving with his apathy, as I sat crying on the bathtub ledge. Folded over my stomach breathless. Rejected. Neglected. Abandoned.

I’m now back to the present moment sitting on this bathtub ledge remembering I’m at my boyfriend’s aunt’s apartment. I feel my feet on the floor, planted, stable, and ready to move.

Go. I say to myself.

My feet planted on the floor, I firmly lifted my body and walked towards the bathroom door.

My fist punched the air above me, in the spot my ex’s face would be if he were to pop his head in through the bathroom door.

I exhaled. Relief meeting my body’s instinctual need to finish this fight. I slept well that night not once replaying those memories.

This was Somatic Experiencing. A gradual guide to your body’s innermost truths and honoring its needs. One imaginary punch in the air was my reminder the power has always been inside of me.

I am excited to announce I am officially a somatic experiencing practitioner in training. My 3-year training has begun, and I now have the credibility to incorporate this modality into coaching people to write their memoirs from a grounded place of safety.

If you’re interested in writing your memoir and have hesitations about reliving hard memories, I am now including somatic experiencing tools as part of my 1:1, 3-month coaching container.

You will learn to regulate your nervous system as you write your story and build a toolbox of resources you always have access to.

Book a clarity call here if you’re ready to write your memoir and share it with the world.

Remember, everything you need to write your story is already inside of you.

Sincerely,

Mary

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