Movement as Medicine

Traditional talk therapy has its limitations.

Sometimes, just “getting insights and a load off the chest” doesn’t solve the looping patterns of our lives. We can talk about our problems and only stay at the level of our problems.

When your insights and awareness come from your mind, only your mind gets healed.

But what about our bodies?

After all, we’re more than just talking heads! If that’s all we were, talk therapy alone would be sufficient. But we’re not.

No matter how much talk therapy you do, you’re still going to carry that soreness in your lower back… or that tightness in your neck.

That’s because trauma is stored in the body. It literally lives in your cells.

And if you’re going to release it, you must treat the body.

The body unlocks the brain. Here’s how we’ll do it…

Resourcing and grounding…

You’ll anchor your mind to the present by accessing your five senses with INTENTION.

Mindfulness in a nutshell: learning to rest attention on sensation. In the moment. Moment to moment. It’s straightforward, and also, it takes practice.

Resourcing is a skill whereby we identify tangible support (family/friends/community offerings/etc.) and images that support (ex: installing a comfortable place in the mind, specific to you).

When the psyche is in crisis, these resources stabilize the brain.

Creating through the body…

The body stores information in its cells. We access the body through tapping, buzzing, humming, or shifting focal points. We are telling the mind/body system that we are ready to release something on a cellular level. Sometimes the body wants spontaneous expression through knee-jerk-like movement. Sometimes, the body wants expression far behind that.

Clearing the trauma…

One avenue using the body as a guide could be Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR). The pieces of resourcing, grounding, accessing the body through the buzzing, tapping, etc., are the same. In this modality, we create a container of safety usually developed during many preparatory sessions (4-6 sessions on average).

From there, you’ll identify, on average, the major 3-5 cycling incidents that need clearing.

Here is the good news: the brain is extremely efficient. We don’t need to clear every instance of pain for the brain to take down the entire related pain structure attached to it. All we need to clear are the most insidious experiences to break down the maladaptive structure. Think of it as a ringing bell. Once you stop the sound of the actual bell itself, its reverberations also begin to cease. Hallelujah. Amen.

Good news, number two? I, as the clinician, don’t even have to be made privy to the nature of what we are clearing (in a linear, let me tell you the storyline, Lauren) sense for it to be cleared. You can keep what you want to keep private. Omg. Yes. I’m serious. This is not about rationally getting someone outside of yourself to understand the pain; instead, it is about feeling safe enough to feel all the associated feelings so that the experience can process through your body seamlessly.

It’s the equivalent of successfully taking a sh*t.

No joke.

You eat food, you sh*t it out.

You eat difficult-to-digest food (think traumas/abuses/etc.), and that sh*t has more difficulty leaving the body.

What do you need to allow difficult-to-digest food to leave the body successfully?

Rest, Safety, Relaxation, Flow

EMDR prep is like that for the mind.

Once you identify what you would like to clear, I ask you to bring up the worst of the incident to your mind and allow it to free-associate all. At the same time, the body continues to be stimulated (buzzing/tapping/etc.), and you are in the established safe container (therapy room). You bring up as little or as much as you like. And I use guiding questions and scaling techniques to assist the body-mind in processing the thoughts/feelings/pain. When your body-mind identifies the initially painful experience as having a 0 charge, we know when to stop.

In other words: the pain has left.

After an evaluation, we’ll determine whether Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is right for you.

Apart from EMDR, another avenue to clear trauma through the body includes Expressive Arts Therapy, usually by viscerally exploring and expressing emotions such as grief, rage, celebration, and stillness. If either modality interests you, schedule a complimentary 15- to 20-minute consultation to learn more.

Developing a movement practice…

It’s not an “exercise plan” (although it might have some of those elements if it aligns with your lifestyle and goals). To learn to move the body means to develop a communication line between the brain and the body. The brain asks the body how it *wants* to move, checks in with the body *during* movement, and creates an open pathway whereby the individual often feels *supported* by the body instead of chained to it.

And when you unlock your brain…

You’ll have access to a boatload of valuable information. Think about it like this: it’s going from being the sole captain of a ship – in charge of all the tasks, tired, overstretched, and unsure of decisions – to accessing and allowing a whole cast and crew along for the ride.

When your brain center, is distinguished from your Heart center, is distinguished from your Gut center, is distinguished from your body as a whole: my god, then you’ve got people! (Finally). There becomes a whole avenue for communication and information getting. Decision-making becomes a piece of cake. Clarity is laser-focused. You’re tuned in, tapped in, and turned on. Life has ease and flows to it.

And when you have access to this information, you can effectively live through your intuition.

When you trek to the fridge in the middle of pulling an all-nighter deadline, you now would know how to access the body information and instantly detect – if the body, nutritionally speaking, needed food or if your stressed mind was getting involved.

When you access your gut, you can sense – instantly – whether the bigger payoff is to spend the night struggling to finish or to replenish with sleep. When you talk to the heart, you can get information about whether your support systems were adequate and if you needed more time living in the body – in nature – for added support.

These systems could be operating at your fingertips, flipping between information and comparing notes. No longer cut off, confused, foggy, and suppressed with pain.

Get back into yourself… and work me out of a job!

Think about it:

In this life, what’s the ONE THING you have to take with you literally everywhere you go?

Imagine if you could TRUST that resource because you were operating out of equilibrium any time you needed it?

The medicine of movement – the healing potency of the body – is what I want for you!

Let’s do this together. Call me today to schedule your free consultation: (402) 937-0027.