SOMATIC HEALING & YOGA

As a former dancer, I combine my love for dynamic movement with my devotion to the deeper and more subtle healing aspects of spiritual practice. I completed my 200-hour Yoga Teacher Training at Laughing Lotus Yoga Center in NYC in 2009 and have received additional training in Restorative Yoga, Yoga Nidra, Ayurveda, Chakras, and Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy. I strongly believe in movement as medicine. Over the last several years, I have devoted myself to studying the nervous system in completing my three year training to become a Somatic Experiencing (SE™) Practitioner.

I felt called to seek deeper training in trauma and supportive touch after witnessing how so many of my clients in eating disorder recovery would work incredibly hard to follow a certain meal plan/behavioral protocol, gain stability and improve physical health, but would then be disappointed by their experience of “recovery”, or what from the outside looked like “getting better”. Nothing about their experience felt good internally and they continued to lack trust or kindness towards their body. I noticed some of my clients would remain stuck in a “quasi-recovery” state that required constant management to feel ok, as well as others whose food recovery had blown open unaddressed and unprocessed trauma buried underneath years of compulsive behaviors.

I felt strongly that the nervous system was not being addressed in treatment, and that a bottom-up (body-based) method needed to be included to come back into a wholesome and more expansive relationship with oneself. This knowing led me to pursue my training as an SEP (Somatic Experiencing Practitioner).

Somatic Experiencing (SE™) is a body-oriented, naturalistic approach to healing trauma. In this model, trauma is defined as a the way the nervous system responds to an event, not the event itself. When we encounter something that feels too overwhelming for our nervous system, our innate biological survival responses become interrupted or repressed. The nervous system becomes stuck in an incomplete survival response that has not had the opportunity to discharge high amounts of energy (activation), leading to dysregulation and symptoms commonly associated with PTSD. In other words, the body continues to respond in the present day as though it is still under threat from the past.

During an SE™ session, we work together to create time, space and support for the completion of these thwarted survival responses in order to address the root cause of trauma. We draw upon the “felt sense” in the here and now, accessing sensations, imagery, movement, body memories and resources that are occurring in the present moment, and gently develop an increased tolerance for body sensations and emotions. Supportive touch may also be a part of the session, if appropriate. Experiencing the sensations related to the traumatic event in a safe way allows the body to fully process and integrate the trauma.

The focus of SE™ is to restore vitality and healthy energy, which has been bound up in trauma, by supporting greater resiliency and capacity within the nervous system, paving the way for more aliveness. For those in recovery from disordered eating & trauma, somatic healing sessions offer a powerful way to heal the connection between body, mind + spirit.

If you would like to learn more about how I work with SE™ and whether this may be a good fit for you, please schedule a free consultation by either emailing healwithanastasia@gmail.com or using this contact form.