Have you heard? Grounded Health now offers Somatic Healing sessions!
In light of this exciting development, I wanted to share more about my personal and professional journey to somatic healing.
Growing up, I was a classic nerd. Books were my safe place, where my brain could run, play, and explore. Anything academic was my wheelhouse. The rules were clear and structured to me and I knew how to push the buttons to get the Gold Star. Finish the chapter? Gold Star! Write the whole group project yourself? Gold Star!
I loved academics but…
I hated, HATED gym class.
It was my least favorite time of the day.
If I could skip gym and read a book instead, I would’ve gladly done so.
I was so comfortable living in my brain, that I literally could not access my body. The messaging around me was that I could not trust my body either (social messages as well as family ones).
If you had told 12 year old me that movement was going to be an integral part of my weekly routine I would never have believed it. Me? The one who fakes an asthma attack to get out of playing dodgeball?!
(I still stand by a hatred of dodgeball- why?!)
Periodically throughout high school and college, I would re-engage with “fitness”. But mostly to “lose weight” or make myself smaller. Occasionally as punishment for “over-indulging”. These were very unhelpful behaviors that only served to increase the disconnection between my mind and body.
Hopping on an elliptical for 45 minutes and slogging along to Fergie’s “Glamorous” did little for my hatred of exercise. It felt like something I had to do, not something meaningful to me.
This all started to shift in 2011 when I graduated from undergrad.
Navigating my new career in mental health while living in my first “real apartment” (with three roommates) while also working three other jobs to support the low-paying mental health job while also dating the same sh*tty person over and over again (not really the same person, but also very much the same person if you know what I mean) was starting to wear on me.
I found myself breaking down into fits of crying constantly. I barely slept. My body was in pain all of the time. I was taking ibuprofen daily. I wasn’t eating enough and I felt like I could never catch my breath.
And then, one day on my lunch break at the methadone clinic where I was working- I got an email from Groupon. For a dance class. And I thought: “sure why not?”.
Boom.
My world changed after that first class. It was a simple routine but when the instructor demo’d it for us, something shifted in a big, big way.
It was the first time I witnessed presence: the up-close, deep and yet vulnerable connection of the mind and body. It was the first time I thought, “wow, what can my body do?” not just “what does it look like?”.
I instantly signed up for the introductory series.
It’s wild to think that that was 13 years ago. The way movement changed my life, is hard to put into words.
There have been plenty of ups and downs since 2011 and throughout it all: movement has been there for me.
I no longer think of it as “fitness”, it’s Movement. It’s a chance to play, to ground, and connect my brain and my body. In a world that profits off that disconnection.
My relationship with movement has deepened personally and professionally over time as well. I started teaching movement in 2013. As my mental health career marched forward, so did my skills and abilities as a movement instructor.
And in 2018, all of a sudden I couldn’t unsee how deeply connected these two things are: the mind and the body.
For the past six years, I dove into trainings, workshops, books, and classes that delved into this brain-body connection. It’s helped me heal from my own experience of trauma and I’ve seen it do the same to countless of my clients.
Last year, I completed the Embodied Recovery certification. The training named so many things I’d seen, so many things I’d felt over the last decade. It gave me the language to describe what I’ve seen play across the therapist’s couch as well as the yoga mat.
Somatic healing (or embodied movement or somatics or whatever you want to call it) is the link that ties it all together for me. And I’m so excited to share that with y’all.
Starting now, Somatic Healing sessions are available. They’re half talk therapy, half somatic embodied movement and 100% on healing.
This post has gotten wordy enough, so in the next installment- I’ll share an example of what these sessions could look like for you. I’d love to learn more about your relationship to your body, movement, and healing. Feel free to email ehamiltonwohl@gmail.com with any comments or questions!
Comments