#somatic therapy

[edenrestoredbyjesus]

When she discovers body freedom at college and comes home for the summer.

[chronicallycouchbound]

PSA: Please don’t ask participants to do grounding/mindful/somatic/etc practices at your events

Grounding exercises should not be an activity in large group settings, especially unsolicited and without warning, especially if you’re not aware of every single person in the space’s mental health conditions, physical health conditions, and personal relationship to their body.

Practices such as mindfulness, grounding, somatic exercises, breathing techniques, body scans, etc. are very helpful therapeutic tools to help manage stress. They can (and do!) help plenty of people– when taught safely and used effectively!

HOWEVER for people with conditions that cause psychosis and/or dissociative conditions such as depersonalization/derealization, these techniques are contraindicated and can make their symptoms significantly worse. They should only be used with guidance from their mental health team and adapted to their needs. For people with conditions like anxiety and PTSD, being aware of breathing can trigger a trauma response or anxiety attacks.

And for people with conditions that cause chronic pain or other uncomfortable bodily sensations, becoming re-centered with their bodies can cause more awareness of the pain they are in, which a level of (ideally functional) dissociation is actually helpful. For people in wheelchairs and powerchairs, touching the ground beneath their feet isn’t always an option. For people with cardiac and pulmonary conditions, deep breathing can be impossible or can trigger asthma attacks. For disabled people in general, doing body scans can be impossible due to paralysis or limb differences. They can bring awareness to things the person wasn’t aware were wrong to begin with (which is helpful in certain spaces, but not a great ice breaker at a retreat!)

And for trans people, binders and other garments can restrict breathing, and taking repeated deep breaths while binding can cause rib damage (which is why you shouldn't bind at night, while coughing from sickness, while exercising, etc). Becoming centered in a body that makes you dysphoric can be deeply distressing, again, a level of functional dissociation helps.

This also goes for plenty of other people in marginalized bodies, such as people of color, people who use substances, queer people, and more. Becoming grounded in your own marginalized body can be a heavy weight to carry, and needs appropriate and individualized care to be a beneficial experience.

As an alternative, I suggest doing a round of gratitudes instead, it allows for people to choose their level of vulnerability in spaces, while not being generally contraindicated for many people. Doing fun (and appropriate to the setting) icebreakers are great. Ask what brings someone to the space. Check-ins about basic needs such as if people need to use the restroom, eat, drink water, are rested, etc. can be more appropriate body check-ins for folks to do.

I don’t recommend doing these exercises even with a warning beforehand. If I'm in the room while someone is leading a breathing exercise, even if I try to ignore it, I (and most people) would automatically become aware of my breathing. The same goes for any other techniques. These techniques can cause real, life-threatening levels of harm for some people, and can even just be deeply uncomfortable or distressing for others. Dissociation is not inherently evil or bad or harmful. It is the way the body and mind naturally respond to adverse experiences (note: it can also cause distress and at higher levels, can be disordered) it is best to allow people to exist as they are in communal spaces. Let people show up as they are.

Most spaces are not equipped or appropriate to respond to emergencies, difficult feelings, and all the varied responses that can come from folks doing mindfulness in group settings.

I personally do some things before large gatherings and events to feel centered on the activity I’ll be doing, and afterward, I decompress. Encourage participants to lean on their natural supports and offer suggestions for it! Be creative in your caring!

This also doesn’t mean to discourage these practices! If you see someone doing deep breathing, check in with them, offer a space for them to decompress, care for them! Worksheets or posters on techniques like square breathing and 5 senses check-ins are great for a quiet room or spaces where participants can decide if they want/are able to engage with those tools. It should be a fully consensual opt-in, rather than being forced to opt-out. Having to leave a room when a group leader says “We’re going to start a mindful breathing meditation, please feel free to leave if you have psychosis, chronic pain, or are trans” is obviously othering and outs people.

Sincerely, someone who has psychotic symptoms, dissociation, chronic pain, is trans and whose body is marginalized in many ways and is really tired from trying to explain this at every event I go to

[aurorafromspace]

the stars... they live within your biological system.

do you ever feel a physical tremor in your center when life feels chaotic, or a literal tightness in your throat when you try to speak your truth? do you spend your life reading about your "difficult" astrological placements, feeling like they are a list of excuses for why you are stuck?

the existence of planets is not limited to the sky in an astronomical sense. birth charts provide data on a mathematical plane, but your chakras carry the integration of those energies within your body.

this is celestial anatomy the bridge between mathematical data and biological reality.

if you have planets in detriment or fall, these are not blocks. they are invitations to a specialized expertise. they are areas that require special attention to refine their "unique languages" into their most sophisticated form.

the somatic shift:

your sun (solar plexus): transmute your willpower into physical stamina. learn to stand tall within your own center, regardless of external chaos.

your moon (sacral chakra): stop treating your sensitivity as a glitch. learn the art of feeling as a conscious discipline and mother yourself with genuine tenderness.

your venus (heart chakra): dismantle the walls around your heart. realize that you do not have to "do" anything to be loved; your worth is inherent.

your mercury (throat chakra): disperse the sensation of constriction. hear your own inner voice and start using your words as bridges rather than weapons.

healing isn't about making the pain disappear, it's about changing your relationship to it. a birth chart is a living, breathing totality. a useful shift happens when the question moves from “why did this happen to me?” to “how do i live with this in a healthier way now?”

stop using your astrological placements as an alibi. stop overthinking your stars and start feeling them in your bones.

celestial anatomy: the complete somatic astrology guide

this 80-page comprehensive manual combines birth chart analysis with custom yoga asanas and sacred rituals to help you move the energy out of your mind and into your body.

available as a digital guide in my shop: 80 pages of depth.

[jesusinstilettos]

Your life gets significantly better the day you stop pretending you’re a robot. You’re a silly little mammal, act like it motherfucker. Your ancestors made tools with rocks and sticks, ran around a lot, had sex, lived in communities, ate when they were hungry, rested, chanted together, felt the sun, breathed outside air, listened to the trees and birds. You have biological needs bitch!!!

[a-generation-lost--in-space]

could’ve followed my fears all the way down

[blushingxfae]

[excurseon]

my new years resolution is to hum and sway more

[medicinanocturna]

Ayahuasca Felt: A Somatic Encounter with the Medicine

The experience of passing through an ayahuasca ceremony is always a long journey across several dimensions, yet only a few of them are accessible to our description. One of these dimensions is the bodily one, which receives little attention, both in specialized literature and the books. Here I deliberately attempt to address it using terms drawn from body-oriented psychotherapy—something I did not encounter even once during the entire two years I spent living in the Amazonian selva. Although many curanderos most likely intuitively understand much of what will be described below, it would simply not occur to them to explain it this way, due to cultural differences in how these processes are perceived.

So, if we look at the ayahuasca ceremony through the dimensions of our physical and astral bodies, we will undoubtedly see that the astral body—the body of emotions and dreams—becomes extraordinarily mobile. Of course, it cannot truly leave us, yet at times it does seem to create its own double and travel far beyond the boundaries of the maloca. Considerable attention is given to this in the curanderos’ own descriptions of ceremonies.

What happens to our physical body during the ceremony, however, tends to remain outside the field of careful observation, or else is interpreted superficially. And yet ayahuasca may be the only entheogen that works with such intensity and intimacy upon our most precious vessel.

The human body and its energy holding patterns can be mapped in many ways. Wilhelm Reich did this work long ago, and the seven zones he identified still offer a simple way of understanding muscular armor. Reich described in great detail what blockages in each of these zones signify and how to work with them. These blocks exist, to varying degrees, in every one of us. Moreover, they do not merely restrict us—they also serve an organic protective function, without which we would quite literally collapse at our own feet.

The issue lies elsewhere: these blocks can become excessively rigid, creating imbalance, stagnation, and, as a consequence, a loss of connection with parts of ourselves—and ultimately with the energy of love and the capacity to experience orgasmic pleasure from life itself.

While the medicine works with the body as an integrated whole, it remains valuable to distinguish the specific zones and processes through which it acts, as each person experiences them with varying intensity.

Thus, there are seven possible blocks we carry within ourselves as unconscious ways of regulating sensitivity: the ocular block, the jaw, the throat, the chest, the diaphragm, the abdomen, and the pelvis.

The Ocular Block

The ocular block is associated with an unwillingness to see the truth, a denial of one’s own feelings, and a deep undercurrent of mistrust and control. This block encompasses the area of the eyes, the forehead, the back of the head, and the bridge of the nose. It may manifest as a tense or empty gaze, narrowed and squinting eyes, mental fog, or twitching eyelids.

The most powerful way the ocular block is released is, of course, through tears. During ceremony, they may appear in various combinations together with other releases. But quite often they simply begin to flow on their own. Most commonly this happens at the very beginning of the ceremony (since release always moves from top to bottom). Many years ago, this was my first area of work, and so every one of my ceremonies began with unstoppable crying that was not emotionally grounded in any way. Tears would simply pour from my eyes; there was a slight burning sensation, the sinuses would become congested—but there was neither sorrow nor joy. Pure physiology. And yet after these tears, my eyes felt weightless and more vivid. 

The Jaw Block 

The jaw blocks aggression, strong feelings, requests for help, crying— all unspoken words and emotions that have already been recognized but not voiced. It manifests through a clenched jaw, teeth grinding during sleep, difficulty in self-expression, and various dependencies (food, smoking, and so on). The jaw block is one of the most common, rigid, and painfully resistant to intervention in the body-oriented therapist’s office. It is shaped not only by childhood trauma, but also by cultural and social conditioning. For this reason, almost everyone encounters it during ceremony. The medicine works with this block in a completely different way than therapists do. The lower jaw relaxes to such an extent that it becomes almost impossible to hold it in place. It seems to melt downward from the face, often accompanied by abundant salivation. The jaw block is connected to the pelvic block. As is well known, when lovers kiss, the opening of the mouth is mirrored below, as the pelvic region fills with blood. Accordingly, during ceremony, alongside salivation in the oral cavity, a similar, metaphorical “salivation” often occurs in the sexual organs of women. At first, yawning appears—strong, deep, all-pervading. Then the jaw relaxes, grows heavy, flows downward together with the chin, and becomes generously lubricated with saliva. This may be accompanied by mild or sometimes more pronounced vibrations in the area of the chin or lower lip - a true sign of the jaw block releasing itself.

The Throat Block

If in the jaw we block what we have already consciously recognized but cannot yet articulate, then in the throat block our feelings and emotions have not even reached the level of understanding. As in the previous blocks, anger and protest may become lodged here—but so can love. This block manifests as stiffness in the neck, a suppressed voice, coughing, or the sensation of a lump in the throat.

In traditional body-oriented therapy this block is not given as much attention as, for example, the chest or diaphragmatic blocks. In the shamanic medicine, however, it is of immense importance—along with the “periphery” of this zone, namely, our voice. The throat and neck are among the most delicate and sensitive areas of the body. This zone is the primary conduit of energy from the heart to the head. Here, feelings can become blocked, never reaching the mouth or the eyes—or never finding their way into words or awareness.

During ceremony, this area of the body undergoes a profoundly deep, and often sweet, release. Physiologically, it is experienced as a numbness of the vocal cords, which gradually gives way to a sensation of radiating warmth in the throat area; the cords themselves become hot and unusually elastic. The throat opens and breathes. The vocal range expands by at least an octave and a half. Singing during ceremony brings immense pleasure and takes place through the entire body rather than through the vocal cords alone. Yet it is the throat that conducts this current of energy, having undergone a deep release.

The Chest Block

The chest block is considered one of the most important in any spiritual practice—and rightly so, for it is here that our most powerful generator of electromagnetic energy is localized. It encompasses the chest, shoulders, and shoulder blades. This is where our deepest feelings are held: love, sorrow, trust, intimacy. When this block is constricted, it is felt as heaviness in the chest, emptiness, shallow breathing, and a difficulty with openness at certain moments.

What happens to this zone during ceremony is always an all-encompassing sensory experience—orgasmic in the most cosmic sense of the word. The ribcage burns with such intensity that it feels as though a fire could be lit upon it. Moreover, one can distinctly sense both the force of this burning and its vast reach, stretching far past the boundaries of the maloca.  At the same time, the arms and hands —being the primary periphery of the chest block—also become hot. They literally begin to ring, sensing the etheric energy of space as if almost palpable.

Because energy moves from bottom to top, it is often the release of the heart that amplifies sensations in the upper zones: trembling of the jaw, tears, the fluttering of the eyelids. Here tears always come with deep feelings, and laughter may come too. 

The Diaphragmatic Block

Body-oriented therapists pay particular attention to the next block, known as the diaphragmatic block, which encompasses the solar plexus and the upper ribs.

It conditionally divides the body into two parts—upper and lower—which, in a deeper interpretation, correspond to want and must, the unconscious and the conscious, the animal and the human, pleasure and morality, orgasm and love. Conflict in this zone is ubiquitous for the modern person of Western civilization. It is therefore unsurprising that its release can be particularly difficult, and the body’s most effective instrument for this process is intense vomiting.

Speculations that vomiting during ceremony only serves to cleanse the stomach or expel energetic entities are entirely unfounded. Anyone with experience of ceremonies knows that for some people vomiting is unbearably difficult and brings great torment no matter the length of their prior diet.  All gagging and vomiting reflexes during ceremonies (as well as during subsequent procedures) primarily engage with this very block—the one that allows us to breathe fully, both literally and metaphorically, and to conduct vital force freely through the body. Nine years ago, in my first ceremony, I vomited with fierce, uncontrollable spasms, though my stomach yielded nothing but water. I will never forget that first breath afterward. 

The Abdomen Block

The next block encompasses the abdomen and lower back. Here, impulses of “I want” that rise from the pelvic area can become blocked at the diaphragm. A tense abdomen, a sore lower back, and digestive issues are, among other things, manifestations of blockages in this area. It is not hard to see that spasms of the internal organs and bowel movements during ceremony are not merely processes of physical cleansing—they also reflect the release of this block. This zone can also manifest through an incredible spectrum of bodily sensations in the abdominal region, so intense that they can even provoke anxiety and fear. The abdomen is intimately connected to our sense of basic security.

The Pelvic Block

Finally, the pelvic block encompasses the pelvis, hips, and buttocks. This is where our sexuality, joy, aggression, and vitality are stored. A blocked pelvis may appear as a profound sense of disconnection from the world around you, difficulties with intimacy and orgasm, tension in the pelvic area, cold feet. Many pseudo-adepts of Kundalini yoga believe that activating energy here brings profound liberation. However, as my cherished mystic-philosopher Sri Aurobindo, as well as Reich, emphasized, true release should occur from top to bottom, not the other way around. Otherwise, emotional vortices blocked for years rise from the bottom upward, often producing unpredictable effects: loss of center, and sometimes even a temporary flirtation with madness. During ceremony, the work with the energies of the pelvic block is always felt very intensely. Many participants describe “dancing legs.” Curanderos tend to interpret this mythologically—as the spirit of the medicine dancing—while others prefer a transpersonal perspective, suggesting it resembles a regression to an infantile state, when a baby kicks and wriggles its legs. Without fully endorsing or rejecting either view, I want to stress that this is exactly how the pelvic block begins to release, together with its peripheral zones: the knees and feet. Often, this occurs simultaneously with the release of the jaw. The legs move unpredictably, kicking and trembling in a childlike way, and then begin to flow. The deep muscles of the pelvis seem to smooth out, and a strong warmth is felt in the genital area, sometimes resembling tickling. Occasionally, this is accompanied by all the physiological signs of arousal, including natural wetting in women, yet entirely free from any erotic intention. The tips of the feet seem to receive currents from the center (the pelvis), becoming increasingly sensitive: the release of blocked energy always flows from the center outward to the periphery. Abundant sweating is also very normal while the medicine is active.

The sequence and the intensity with which the blocks in these seven zones are unpacked during ceremony is entirely individual and can vary greatly. Yet it can be said with certainty that in the first ceremonies, everyone experiences their bodily processes as equally challenging. Metaphorically, this work can be imagined as an orgasmic curve—the build-up of tension in a particular zone to a peak, in order to trigger its release. In modern approaches, there are body-oriented therapists who favor a gentler, more gradual engagement with a person’s processes, placing emphasis on conscious choice and self-regulation rather than on energetic release. I have no doubt that, for some, such a paced approach is indeed more suitable—but this is rarely how the medicine works. On the contrary: it offers no mercy, and the ability to remain centered emerges only after the first, essential blocks have been cleared.

Learn more from the book:

The Echo of Ucayali

The novel The Echo of Ucayali is both an anthropological journey into the world of Amazonian shamans and a mystical adventure non-fiction, b