So we look at armoring in the arms and hands—where has our capacity to reach and yearn, make boundaries or self-protect, been hindered?

Time is vast compared to a human lifetime.

Enlivening processes are those that invite and allow aliveness and energy to move through the soma.

We can increase our somatic awareness and take on new somatic practices, yet if we do not open and process the contractions that have held a certain embodiment in place, transformation does not happen.

Our aim in understanding and honoring these automatic protective responses is to get to know them on their terms, honor how they have protected us, and through somatic processes, free up the contractions and withheld energy so that these survival responses are not “over-applied.”

Somatic bodywork allows places that have been stuck, clogged, numbed, or contracted to begin to move internally again.

This energetic field that we live in is measurable through science and is perceptible by others. This field and what feels comfortable to us are shaped by time, culture, and context.

Somatically, the survivor will usually hold this “No” in their somas deep in the body. It may be in the pelvis, behind the heart close to the spine, up and down the anterior of the spine, or even deep in the intestines and abdominal tissues.

Sensations are the building blocks of our experiences—meaning, at the base of every internal experience is sensation. Understanding sensations as a foundational language, we can then feel emotions.