How I spend the majority of my time right now, as a Somatic Therapist

The journey for everyone I have the utter privilege of working with is completely unique.

My private Somatic Therapist practice is developing in ways that I get to support people with working through many things from birth trauma to developmental trauma and everything in between.

But do you want to know the one thing that is the common thread throughout all of that right now?

Without fail it is helping women reclaim their fire. That is, it.

Fire.

Sacred, transformational fire.

Fire through healthy anger that helps create boundaries.

Fire that is key to our sexual drive.

Fire that creates art, music - the actual life force energy and vitality that literally keeps the blood pumping through our veins.

Let's take a little meander through some of the conditions that may be behind what I am seeing in private practice:

Through the biological lens

When we experience something so overwhelming and go into freeze response, our whole system prior to this has gone through the threat response cycle of being alert, then fight and flight (spoiler alert - it is often both not one or the other). So, this then gets suppressed by the freeze (clever freeze response keeping us safe), BUT in part because of our lack of connection to nature, community, and space to 'move through the freeze' - the energy is suppressed and gets tightly bound and stored in our system.

We need space to work through this and metabolise this energy in a way that does not overload the system when we peel back the layers. We call this titration.

When we do the work of healing from traumatic events it is not just the energy of the trauma that we are metabolising to heal from the trauma. We are also reclaiming the same energy which is life force energy, and rerouting it so we can move through life with its power. This is why I do not use the words 'release from trauma' and instead use the word metabolise. When we can tolerate a little of this energy coming into the system, metabolise that which didn't get chance to metabolise we are also saying yes to a greater sense of vitality and joy. We gain it back. We metabolise. AND this is empowerment.

Through a developmental lens

This energy may be further bound and hard to claim if things were absorbed as a child or there was a lack of emotional attunement. Things could have been absorbed, such as seeing anger coupled with violence, so there is some meaning making in the mix that says anger always = violence - when in fact anger is an emotion that can support fire energy to transform or create boundaries. In the case of lack of emotional attunement, it might be that when we were little ones our emotions were not validated to help us learn to be with them as moving energies.

Through the systemic lens

Here is where this gets interesting and yet another layer. We simply have very few role models for women who hold sacred fire. In fact culturally we have shamed and shunned this. A woman with boundaries, fire or anger is often labelled a 'bitch', and the language of what it takes to be a 'good girl' starts young.

Through the lens of ancestral trauma

This suppression of anger and fire goes way back in this part of the world a 'Scold's Bridle' was an instrument to stop troublesome women from talking. Troublesome meaning had some fire. And there was so much of this.

I am not saying all women experience this. They don't. But MANY of us have had to do the work, and honestly, it is the single biggest thread in my private practice and has been for some time.

If this resonates with you, here are some self-inquiry and somatic tips to help you start that journey:

Tip 1: Consider your resources If this feels new or big to you, then you must 'fill up your cup' and create some islands of safety and resource. So, notice what is good in your life, what feels nourishing to you. This can be anything from the sound of a friend's voice to a place you go to, a furry friend, a memory anything that can help regulate the nervous system. Engage with them and watch how your nervous system and overall 'you-ness' responds when you do. Engaging this way means you can consciously go back to them if this journey begins to meet some edges of uncomfortable activation.

Tip 2: Engage in self inquiry

When you begin to feel fire, it can feel new in your system. Sometimes it can feel a lot, especially anger. If you start to notice this and things feel a lot, perhaps you feel physically hot, feel contractions, or want to distract from the feeling somehow, take note of this. It is all grist for the mill and good information. Befriend the sensations and emotions a little. Begin to discern what this feels like in your system and name the emotions. Go back to tip 1 when you need to - titration.

Tip 3: Resource through self-touch

When this fire is moving in your system, place a hand on your chest or somewhere that feels good and supportive to you and say, "It is safe for me to feel this way" or "It is safe and human for me to express anger" or words that resonate with you.

There are sooooooooo MANY more ways of working with this at a deep level that honours your own natural and organic intelligence.

If you're craving more of this work - nervous system health explored in a compassionate, no bull manner, alongside other women doing the same, then ANGRY WOMAN is open now.

This is a five-week embodied container for reclaiming exactly this kind of fire: the fire through healthy anger, through boundaries, through life force. We work with it in the body, together, week by week, from nervous system education that doesn't gaslight you into being calm, to unshaming anger, to a group medicine circle, to taking it out into the wild.

You were never the problem. Your fire was never the problem either.