Mind-Body Connection

It’s the link between your thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations.

Imagine getting a sharp pain in your back when you start to think about dating…

What if you got cold when you thought about your childhood?

Think of how your chest might tighten or how heat might flood your face when talking about your work-life…

When you’re stressed, anxious, or upset, the body may respond in a way that might tell you something isn’t right. Tightness in the chest, pain, heaviness, and temperature changes are all ways that the body communicates to us.

Think of them as an invitation… a message… to listen and dive deeper.

Our body responds to the way we think, feel, and act.

And while many of us may be comfortable thinking and feeling, most of us want to avoid the uncomfortable physical sensations in the body.

Maybe you learned to ignore or avoid the body’s sensations, or the body’s physical sensations are so loud its overwhelming and distracting.

We live in a busy and demanding world. Maybe you have become really good at pushing through at all costs to get it all done, but your body is fatigued, exhausted, and needs rest.

For those who have been through traumatic events, the resulting stress may be stored in your body. You carry around tension and experience pain, headaches, and fibromyalgia.

Here’s the thing: The body has a lot to tell us.

I am a trained professional in EMDR, Somatic Experiential Therapy, and the Attachment, Regulation, and Competency model.

I help clients connect to their bodies’ sensations. I know how to help you discover the important message your body has for you.

Beth* came in struggling with feeling down and blue most days, worried about her partner leaving the marriage, and having difficulty falling and staying asleep. Beth shared that she started to feel itchy every night when she went to bed, and it would get so bad she couldn’t get to sleep.

Inadequate sleep can have a significant negative impact on emotional and physical wellness, so we started exploring and spending time with her “itchiness” using a modality called somatic experiential therapy to see what kind of message it would have to give to her.

Through this process, we learned that growing up, Beth had a bad experience that involved sleeping on itchy carpet. As a stress response in her present, her body remembered this sensation when she was trying to go to sleep.

Using another experiential therapy method called EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), we spent time on this memory and allowed her brain to resolve this stored memory and heal itself. After resolving this difficult memory, Beth’s itchiness when going to sleep ceased, and she began to have a full night’s sleep. As a result, she naturally began to have more energy and feel more hopeful.

While doing this work together, we also learned that Beth had a history of being left by romantic partners. Since this has happened so often, it was impacting her ability to trust and be intimate with her current partner. This allowed us to do some deeper work on attachment styles and process her experiences with abandonment, resulting in a more fulfilling relationship with her partner. All this healing started with exploring “itchiness.”

Susan* came to her first session sharing that she felt locked up, numb, and that something wasn’t right, but she just didn’t know what. At the beginning of sessions, we began to practice some practical skills together of breathing and relaxation training. We paid attention to body sensations increasing Susan’s ability to tolerate her own experience in her body.

Once she felt ready, we began to explore the “numbness” Susan regularly described. Where did she feel it? What did it feel like? Did it have weight, color, or temperature? If it could speak, what would it say?

Through this process, we learned that Susan grew up in a home where feelings were not expressed. Kids were not allowed to be heard or seen. Crying was a weakness. As a result, in adulthood, Susan would become overwhelmed when she would feel… whether it was excitement, joy, sadness, or anger… it was so overwhelming… as a way to cope, she would shut down, resulting in numbness and feeling a shell of herself.

Increasing Susan’s ability to identify and tolerate her feelings, she began to accept her feelings, her body, and experience. She began to tolerate emotion, opening her up to live the life she had always wanted to live. Susan was able to engage with life because she learned to enjoy the times where she felt happy and content and the times where she felt angry or upset, because either way, there was a message for her to receive.

What messages might your body have for you?