Co-created by Michelli Ramon, Psychotherapist and Lea Ann Tinney, Reigstered Massage Therapist and CranioSacral Therapist
SOMATIC ReSTORYING is a therapeutic process that incorporates wisdom and techniques from a variety of person-centered and body-centered therapies including Narrative Therapy, CranioSacral Therapy, Reikki and Felt Sense Focusing. It is designed to help people who have suffered from trauma and chronic emotional or physical pain.
Trauma disrupts the body’s natural rhythms and severs ties between important body systems. In response to trauma our bodies create patterns or STORIES that enable us to cope. These patterns are an important aspect of our survival. The challenge is that they sometimes weave themselves into our core dialog and often persist long after the painful experience has passed.
Somatic ReStorying (SR) assists us in discovering the NATURAL RYTHMS of our bodies. Using guided meditation and grounding exercises, we learn to connect more deeply to our own INNER WISDOM. As we move through the SR process, this inner wisdom helps guide the uncovering of old stories and sensations in the body. With the assistance of a trained body worker and psychotherapist, we connect those body sensations with emotions and stories that reside in the psyche. The body worker’s role is to help shift energy and release tissue memory, while the therapist’s role is to help explore the meaning of the stories and the validity of the related emotions.
Guided by our natural healing abilities, we are EMPOWERED to re-story the trauma according to our present strengths and circumstances, moving out of the past and into the present. SR also addresses issues of polarity within our bodies by helping to balance existing energies and assimilate new information. This gives the body a feeling of equanimity, CALM and well-being. The benefit of using two practitioners is that one is listening to the body while the other is listening to words. Tending to two dynamics at once helps to bring the body and the psyche back into alignment.
Another aspect of SR healing is the participation in an SR group. In the group setting clients are asked to hold the space and become LISTENERS for one another. Through this process of listening, clients receive support for their own inner wisdom. As they learn to sense the somatic rhythms of other clients, they begin to understand their own boundaries, beginnings and endings more deeply. The feedback listeners receive from one another provides valuable information regarding their own perceptions, feelings, distortions and STRENGTHS.
These are some of the benefits of Somatic ReStorying:
- Learning to relate to your body in a new way
- Understanding how and where your body holds memories
- Understanding the power and presence of tissue memory
- Finding and releasing tension in the body connected to trauma
- Re-establishing lost connections with the body
- Being held in a community of fellow survivors
- Increasing self-awareness and affirmation of healing
- Moving into the present and no longer feeling stuck in the past
