I have always thought of myself as a person of the mind. I process the world through thoughts and words. So, when a lingering sense of unease settled in my life long after a difficult period had passed, I tried to think my way out of it. I analyzed my feelings, I talked about my past, and I understood the origins of my anxiety on an intellectual level. Yet, my body did not seem to care about this understanding. My shoulders remained a permanent knot of tension. A sudden noise could send a jolt of electricity through my chest, leaving me breathless. I felt trapped in a state of high alert, and my rational mind was powerless to shut it off. I was fluent in the language of my thoughts, but I was illiterate in the dialect of my own nervous system.

For years, I carried a constant hum of anxiety in my bones, a story my mind had forgotten but my body refused to release. Then I discovered Somatic Experiencing, and I learned to listen. My introduction to Somatic Experiencing came from a therapist who observed me carefully as I spoke. She noted how I would hold my breath, how my fingers would clutch the fabric of my pants. She gently suggested that trauma is not just the story of what happened to us. It is also the energy that gets locked inside the body during that event, a physiological response that was initiated for survival but never completed. The body, she explained, is hardwired to fight, flee, or freeze. When it cannot do any of those things, the immense energy meant for survival has nowhere to go. It becomes trapped, and the nervous system gets stuck in a loop, forever replaying the alarm without the all-clear signal. This was a revelation to me. My anxiety was not a character flaw; it was a biological record.

The work itself was unlike any therapy I had ever known. It was not about reliving the traumatic event. In fact, my practitioner was careful to avoid that entirely. Instead, we focused on the present moment sensations in my body. It began with simple, almost mundane observations. She would ask me to notice the feeling of my feet on the floor, the weight of my body in the chair, the rhythm of my breath. At first, this felt absurd. But as I practiced, I began to perceive the subtle landscape of my internal state. We learned to track sensation. A tightness in my stomach would arise, and instead of spiraling into the story of why it was there, we would simply observe it. We would notice its size, its texture, its temperature.

The most profound moments came when we worked with what my practitioner called pendulation. We would gently touch into a place of discomfort or activation, and then we would deliberately guide my awareness to a place in my body that felt neutral, or even safe. It felt like a nervous system seesaw. We would dip a toe into the chaotic energy, and then retreat to a resource of calm. This slow, rhythmic process was teaching my body that it could encounter intense sensation without being overwhelmed by it. It was building a new tolerance, a capacity to hold discomfort without shattering. I began to experience little tremors in my legs, a gentle shaking that felt organic and releasing. My practitioner called this a discharge. It was the trapped survival energy, the aborted flight response, finally finding its way out.

I do not claim that my life is now free of stress or fear. That would be untrue. What has changed, however, is my relationship to these sensations. My body is no longer a mysterious enemy that betrays me with panic. It has become a source of information. I now understand that the tightness in my chest is a signal, not a sentence. I have the tools to listen to it, to be with it, and to allow it to move through me. Somatic Experiencing did not erase my past. It gave me the key to a prison I did not even know I was in, allowing my body to finally complete the story it had been trying to tell for so long.

References

Nuvista Mental Health. (2025, April 14). The power of somatic experiencing therapy. Retrieved from https://nuvistamentalhealth.com/blog/the-power-of-somatic-experiencing-therapy-healing-through-body-awareness/

Somatic Therapy Partners. (2025, August 27). The complete guide for using somatic therapy for trauma. Retrieved from https://somatictherapypartners.com/somatic-therapy-for-trauma-healing-guide/

TraumaHealing.org. (2025, October 21). SE 101. Retrieved from https://traumahealing.org/se-101/

GoodTherapy. (2023, September 21). The remarkable benefits of somatic experiencing. Retrieved from https://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/benefits-of-somatic-experiencing/

Verywell Mind. (2021, October 19). How does somatic experiencing therapy work? Retrieved from https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-somatic-experiencing-5204186