Sensations and Stories
Written by Sarah Singer Quast- Somatic Therapist at Inward Bloom
For most of my life, I approached emotions and feelings as something that should be explored through analysis of the mind. If I was feeling something, I just had to think it through and find the cause of the feeling, acknowledge it to myself, and then I could move on from it. I was pretty good at this, thinking through something from every direction to find a story that would stick as an explanation for what I was feeling.
As I’ve moved into the world of somatic therapy, I’ve started to understand that this approach to exploring my emotions was incomplete at best, and may even have led me into a false sense of closure.
I thought because I had addressed this feeling or that emotion in my mind, I was done with it. What I’ve learned as a somatic therapist is that the body “speaks” a different language, actually our first language. Before we had words as babies, we had sensation. I’ve come to understand that although my mind might feel it’s found clarity, my body can have a whole different understanding.
It’s actually been freeing to understand and explore the ways that we can process trauma and emotion through the intelligence of the body – through sensation, through movement, through breath. When we connect with an actual feeling in the body, when we spend time with it, when we acknowledge and listen to it - and don’t move on too quickly from it or ignore it - we can move and change our perspectives and understanding. Weights that I hadn’t been in touch with can lift or shift.
With practice, I have learned to stay with the pains and sensations my body offers me. They are no longer elements to wish away or be fearful of, and instead messages to be curious about. What is my body trying to tell me? How can I be open to what it is sharing, even if that is inconvenient for me or inconsistent with the stories and frameworks that my mind has set for my life?
And I know these messages will never stop coming. This is what it is to live in a body. There is no singular moment of completion or closure. In many ways, what we can learn from the body is endless. I’ve come to think of my own understanding of the body as seeing the tip of the iceberg – there is so much more for us to understand about the body as an intelligence center and to feel and notice in our own bodies specifically.
I share what I've come to know in the context of a lot of unknown. Words sometimes tie us down to certainty in a way that has become increasingly uncomfortable for me. Even with what I think I'm coming to understand, there are still so many moments where I feel something in my body, and I don’t want it to be there, I want to explain it away, problem solve it away. I still can slip into the belief that if I can just identify why I’m feeling this way, then it will disappear. It is a patterned response that is challenging to shift. Awareness is just the first step. And there is a kindness I must offer myself in trying to continue moving into the somatic mindset and practices that I’m sharing here.
The journey is real. The destination is a mirage. The body offers new and exciting pathways for exploring life – in ourselves, in our connection to others, and in our connection to this wild place, Earth, that we all live on and in. This offers me solace, connects me to something deeper and larger. And I’m grateful to be working in a profession where I can continue to explore and learn about the power and intelligence of our collective human bodies.
Interested in exploring somatic therapy for yourself?
At Inward Bloom, we offer individual, trauma-informed somatic and integrative sessions that support healing through the body, nervous system, and lived experience.
