Why Somatic Experiencing: Anxiety Reduction
A Body-First Approach to Calming High-Functioning Anxiety Online
Key takeaway: You’re not the only one. Explore why anxiety can feel so isolating and how nervous system awareness can shift your experience of being “too much.”
Victoria Wallace Schlicht-mixed media poster art
What is Somatic Experiencing
Somatic Experiencing® (SE) is a holistic, naturalistic, body-oriented therapy that directly addresses the manner in which your body and nervous system have stored your life experiences, including trauma and other stressors, and held them in the body. All your experiences, positive and negative, are held in your body. At some level, we all already know this.
These unprocessed, often unrecognized experiences fuel your anxiety, panic, sensations, physical and emotional pain, thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors. Based on 45 years of research and clinical application, Somatic Experiencing allows us to therapeutically harness your body as a primary healing agent and start to release and break down these stuck impulses in your nervous system.
Why Body-Oriented Therapy Beats Talk Alone for Anxiety
We can use Somatic Experiencing, your own mindful regard of your body and its sensations, to notice and track what is happening in your body, to allow these experiences to resolve. More importantly, and more powerfully, you can utilize SE to notice what is always already whole and well in your body and in your life. You can notice and champion your own innate well-being and strengthen your resiliency. This. This is the path to healing, wholeness, and a more deeply realized life.
Healthy Anxiety vs. Runaway Anxiety—Know the Difference
Dennis Alvear Perez —unsplash
Why are men and women using body-oriented psychotherapy for anxiety and panic attack? Because it works. If you're anything like the highly anxious adults I see in my practice every day, your experience of anxiety is felt strongly in the body. Overwhelmingly so. Anxiety can be a highly uncomfortable way to exist. You experience it in your gut, in the tightness in your chest and throat, breathlessness, through your racing heart, in your racing thoughts, and in the type and quality of thinking that is stealing your balance and happiness, and in your sense of debilitating overwhelm. At its worst, you may find it hard to even function and perform your daily tasks. High anxiety has the potential to steal your joy in the present moment, rob you of comfort and connection, disrupt your primary relationships.
When Anxiety Runs the Show, Call a Nervous-System Trainer
When anxiety has taken over, dictating how you feel, what you can and cannot do, some expert support is overdue. In addition to being trained as a Depth and Systems therapist, I have been fully trained in and daily utilize Somatic Experiencing, a body-oriented trauma and healing modality. In fact, I am a certified Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (SEP). It is a 3-year, post Masters, training working with the nervous system to support the healing of big and small traumas. It is also priceless for working with highly anxious nervous systems.
Hermes Rivera—unsplash
Next Step: Online Somatic Therapy for Californians
One thing I love about holistic body-oriented approaches is everyone I know already has a body. No need to acquire one. You already have everything we need in order to create more calm, peace, and comfort in your life. Wouldn't it be nice to learn how to work with both your mind and your body to reduce your anxiety and begin to reclaim your life? Start now and harness your body awareness to learn the deep, deep skills of self-regulation, cultivate resiliency, and get your life back on track. Maybe for the first time. We can do it together, one step at a time.
Ready to calm your body and mind? Book a free 15-minute consult and learn how online Somatic Experiencing® therapy can shrink anxiety—no commute, anywhere in California.
I help people who feel bad feel better. Let’s talk. Learn about online anxiety therapy in California.