Your body remembers what your mind tries to forget.
Maybe you’ve spent months in therapy, talking through your experiences and gaining insights about your patterns. You understand why certain situations trigger you, where your anxiety comes from, and how your past affects your present.
Yet when you walk into a crowded room, your chest still tightens. Your shoulders carry the same familiar tension. Sleep remains elusive despite your best efforts to quiet your racing thoughts.
You wonder if there’s something wrong with you, if you’re somehow failing at recovery because you still feel it all so physically.
There isn’t, and you’re not.
What you’re experiencing points to something that traditional talk therapy doesn’t always address: the way our bodies hold onto experiences long after our minds have processed them. This is where somatic therapy comes in, recognizing that healing often needs to happen through the body as well as the mind.
What Your Body Has Been Trying to Tell You
The word “somatic” means “of the body.” Somatic therapy works with your physical experience as a pathway to healing emotional and psychological wounds. It’s based on the understanding that trauma, stress, and difficult life experiences don’t just affect how we think and feel. They create lasting changes in our nervous system and show up as physical sensations, tension patterns, and bodily responses.
When something overwhelming happens, your body responds automatically. Your heart rate increases, your breathing changes, your muscles tense or collapse. If the experience is too much to process fully at the time, these physical responses can get “stuck,” continuing long after the original event has passed.
Think about how your body reacts when you’re startled by a loud noise. Even after you realize it was just a car backfiring, you notice your heart still racing, your hands shaky. Now imagine that same kind of activation happening with more significant experiences and persisting for months or years.
This is where somatic therapy steps in. Rather than trying to think your way out of these stuck responses, it helps your nervous system complete what it started and find its way back to a regulated state.
Learning to Listen to What’s Already There
Instead of sitting and talking about your experiences, somatic therapy invites you to notice what’s happening in your body right now. A therapist asks you to pay attention to your breathing, notice where you feel tension or ease, or become aware of how your feet feel against the floor.
These aren’t abstract exercises. They’re ways of reconnecting with your body’s wisdom and helping your nervous system regulate itself. When you learn to track physical sensations without judgment, you start to recognize your body’s signals before they become overwhelming.
Your breathing reflects your emotional state more directly than you realize. When you’re anxious, your breath becomes shallow and quick. When you’re depressed, it becomes heavy and restricted. By working with your breath, you can influence your nervous system directly.
Movement becomes part of the process too, though not in the way you’d expect. Rather than prescribed exercises, somatic therapy follows your body’s natural impulses. That could mean stretching, slow rocking, or even subtle shifts in how you’re sitting. The movement emerges from what your body needs in the moment.
The pace is always directed by you. Somatic therapists understand that pushing the body too hard or too fast can recreate the overwhelm you’re trying to heal from. Instead, they work with small amounts of activation at a time, helping your system build tolerance gradually.
When Your Story Lives in Your Body
If you’ve experienced trauma, you know that understanding what happened doesn’t always make the fear go away. Your body learned to protect you during those difficult times, and it’s still trying to protect you now, even when the danger has passed. Traditional talk therapy provided insight without relief from the physical symptoms that persist.
When you feel disconnected from your body, constantly on edge, or experience unexplained physical symptoms, working somatically offers a different path forward.
Anxiety lives not just in your thoughts but in your chest, your stomach, your shoulders. Panic attacks are intensely physical experiences that benefit from approaches that address the body directly rather than trying to think your way out of them.
Chronic stress shows up physically in countless ways. Research shows that 77 percent of people report experiencing physical symptoms and 73 percent report psychological symptoms related to stress in the last month. Headaches, back pain, digestive issues, and sleep problems can all be connected to how your nervous system is functioning. When these symptoms don’t have clear medical causes, somatic approaches help address the underlying nervous system patterns.
You don’t need to have experienced major trauma to benefit from this work. Many people find it helpful because they’ve become disconnected from their bodies through years of living primarily “in their heads.” Learning to reconnect with physical sensations can enhance your overall sense of well-being and presence.
What Happens When You Start This Work
Somatic therapy sessions often begin with a check-in about how you’re feeling physically in the moment. Your therapist asks you to notice your breathing, scan your body for areas of tension or relaxation, or become aware of how you’re positioned.
From there, the session involves exploration of sensations, perhaps some breathwork, or small movements that help release held tension. Everything happens at your pace and with your consent. You’re always in control of how much you explore and how quickly you move.
Some people have dramatic releases in somatic work, while others notice subtle shifts that build over time. Neither is better or worse. Your body knows what it needs and will reveal it at the right pace for your system.
Physical changes often precede emotional insights. You notice your shoulders relaxing before you understand what you were bracing against, or find your breathing deepening before you realize how anxious you’d been feeling.
These shifts can feel surprising at first. After months or years of carrying tension, having it release can feel unfamiliar. Your body is remembering how to feel safe, and that process takes time.
How We Approach Body-Centered Healing at River House
At River House Wellness, we understand that healing happens on multiple levels. Our therapists integrate somatic principles into their work, and recognize that lasting change often requires addressing both the mind and the body.
We combine somatic approaches with other therapeutic methods like EMDR and traditional talk therapy, creating personalized treatment plans that honor your unique needs and comfort level. Our team is trained in trauma-informed care that prioritizes safety and client autonomy above all else.
The work always starts with building safety and trust. Before exploring deeper somatic work, we ensure that you feel comfortable and in control of the process. Cultural sensitivity and respect for body autonomy are fundamental to how we approach this work.
We’ve seen how powerful it can be when people reconnect with their bodies as allies in healing rather than sources of distress. Your body has been working hard to protect you. Somatic therapy helps it learn that it can relax that vigilance.
Is This the Missing Piece for You?
Consider somatic approaches if you notice physical symptoms that don’t seem to have clear medical explanations, if you feel disconnected from your body, or if traditional therapy has helped you understand your patterns without providing full relief from symptoms.
It works beautifully alongside other forms of therapy by offering a complementary pathway to healing that addresses different aspects of your experience. You don’t have to choose between working with your thoughts, emotions, or body. Integrated approaches often provide the most comprehensive healing.
The willingness to explore your physical experience with curiosity rather than judgment is really the only prerequisite. If you’re interested in understanding how your body holds your experiences and what it needs to heal, somatic work could be valuable for you.
Starting slowly and building comfort with body awareness is always possible, even if you’ve felt disconnected from your physical self for years. Your body has been waiting patiently for your attention, and it’s never too late to begin that conversation.
At River House Wellness, our therapists understand that healing isn’t one-size-fits-all. We integrate somatic approaches with other therapeutic methods to create a path that honors both your mind and body.
Contact River House Wellness at (772) 209-3829 to learn more about somatic therapy today.
