Understanding Somatics
Somatic therapies are evidence-informed approaches that recognizes the body as an essential part of the healing process. Stress, trauma, and overwhelming experiences don’t just affect your thoughts, they can also shape our nervous system, physical sensations, emotions, and patterns of responding to the world.
Your body remembers what your mind has had to survive. Long after a stressful or traumatic experience has passed, your nervous system may continue responding as though the danger is still present.
The goal of somatics isn’t to force your body to relax or push through difficult emotions. We will work together to gently increase your awareness of physical sensations, build a greater sense of safety and regulation in your body, and help your nervous system discover new ways of responding. Over time, many people find they feel more grounded, connected to themselves, and able to move through life with greater flexibility, resilience, and ease.
What is somatic therapy?
Somatics can be helpful for:
- Complex trauma and developmental trauma
- Anxiety and chronic stress
- Panic attacks
- Emotional overwhelm
- Dissociation and numbness
- Burnout
- Grief and loss
- Chronic muscle tension
- Hypervigilance
- Relationship difficulties
- Life transitions
- Difficulty relaxing or feeling present
Somatic therapies are helpful for people who find themselves saying:
- “I feel anxious all the time.”
- “I can’t seem to relax.”
- “My body reacts before I can think.”
- “I always feel on edge.”
- “I’m exhausted from being in survival mode.”
How somatics understands the nervous system:
Your nervous system is constantly asking one important question: “Am I safe?”
When life feels manageable, your nervous system can move flexibly between energy, connection, rest, and recovery. However, overwhelming experiences can teach the body that the world is dangerous.
Instead of returning to balance after stress, your nervous system may become stuck in a survival response.
Fight
This is often the most empowered survival response, because it motivates you to take action to change your situation. However, getting stuck here can feel like being angry all the time, irritability, perfectionism, or a constant need to stay in control.
Flight
When your brain and body don’t think you can protect yourself through confrontation, the next option is to run away from your problem. Getting stuck in this survival response makes people become restless, anxious, over-productive, constantly busy, and unable to slow down.
Freeze
If you can’t run away, then your body freezes. There are levels of freeze: if you’re stuck in a “functional freeze” you may feel numb, disconnected, exhausted, or unable to make decisions. When pushed too far, this survival response can look like total dissociation or shutdown.
Fawn
Of all the survival responses, being stuck in “fawn” mode is often hardest to identify: it makes you automatically prioritize other people’s needs, struggle with boundaries, and feel responsible for everyone else’s emotions. It can lead you to think, “If everyone else is alright, then I can be okay too.”
Regulation
These responses are intelligent survival strategies your body developed to protect you.
One of the core ideas in somatic therapy is that lasting healing happens when the nervous system feels safe enough to process difficult experiences.
Rather than pushing through painful memories before your body is ready, we work gently to increase your capacity to stay present with your experiences. As your nervous system develops greater flexibility, emotions become less overwhelming, relationships often feel safer, and life requires less effort just to get through the day.
What somatic therapy feels like:
Your body is always trying to protect you, and it can keep working hard to protect you even when the danger has passed.
Somatic therapy helps your body complete unfinished stress responses, develop greater regulation, and discover that safety is possible again. When your body is “stuck” in a survival response, it needs help bringing that response to completion.
This can look like working with your breath, tension in your body, or other sensations, and giving them the attention they need. Sometimes these sensations become bigger and more uncomfortable before they transform into something else, other times they relax quickly and gently. By combining structured somatic exercises with improvised embodiment and following the body’s signals, people often leave sessions feeling tingly, alive, tired, or relaxed.
How somatic therapy works:
Somatic therapy is often slower and gentler than people expect. Rather than spending the entire session talking, we’ll also pay attention to what is happening in your body in the present moment.
This might include noticing:
- Breathing
- Muscle tension
- Posture
- Movement
- Temperature
- Sensations
- Impulses to move or withdraw
- Feelings of openness or constriction
Somatic therapy focuses less on the stories and memories of what happened, and instead helps your nervous system build new experiences of safety in the present moment. It helps your body complete unfinished stress responses, develop greater regulation, and discover that safety is possible again. When your body is “stuck” in a survival response, it needs help bringing that response to completion.
In my experience, it can be a lot harder than expected to slow down, and a lot more challenging to stay in the present moment than people often expect. That’s normal: “in your body” and “in the preset moment” are exactly where every bad thing has ever happened! But it’s also where every good thing has happened… and learning to actually experience the good things feels so powerful!
My approach to somatics:
I integrate somatic therapy with EMDR, Internal Family Systems (IFS), attachment theory, and trauma-informed care.
This includes:
- Moving at a pace that feels safe
- Working collaboratively rather than pushing for change
- Increasing nervous system regulation
- Building awareness of bodily sensations
- Supporting self-compassion and emotional resilience
- Integrating mindfulness, movement, and grounding practices when helpful
- Honouring your personal values, spirituality, and lived experience
What change can look like:
People often begin somatic therapy feeling:
- Constantly anxious or overwhelmed
- Stuck in survival mode
- Disconnected from their bodies
- Emotionally flooded or emotionally numb
- Chronically tense or exhausted
- Frustrated that talk therapy or personal insights alone havn’t created change
Over time, you might notice:
- Greater nervous system regulation
- Increased emotional resilience
- More calm and steadiness
- Improved connection with your bodies
- Less reactivity to everyday stress
- Greater self-compassion
- Feeling more present in relationships and daily life
Is somatic therapy right for me?
Somatic therapy may be a good fit if:
- Your body reacts before your mind can catch up
- You feel constantly anxious or on edge
- You experience chronic tension, fatigue, or burnout
- Talking about your experiences hasn’t been enough on its own
- You want a gentle, body-centered approach to healing
You don’t need to be “good at mindfulness” or body awareness to benefit. We’ll begin wherever you are and move at a pace that feels manageable.
Getting started.
Your nervous system has spent your whole life trying to protect you so let’s give it some compassion. Somatic therapy offers an opportunity to reconnect with your body, build greater safety from the inside out, and discover that healing doesn’t have to come from pushing harder. Healing can it can begin by listening to your body and connecting to what you find there.
If you’re ready to feel more grounded, more connected, and more at home in your own body, I’d be honoured to support you.
You do not need a diagnosis to access trauma therapy.
I use a non-pathologizing kind of therapy model that does not require diagnostics. Of course, any diagnosis you have received, agree with, and/or suspect is important to incorporate. Still, this work is open to everyone regardless.
• How EMDR therapy works •
The basics of what to expect.
1. Free Consult
A 20-minute video call. We talk about who you are, what you’re looking for, and answer your questions.
2. Intake
A full session to map your history, current life, therapy goals, and what safety looks like for you.
3. Modules
Weekly or biweekly sessions following your unique treatment plan: IFS, EMDR, somatics, and skills.
4. Reassess
We check in regularly about how your life is changing, and modify direction and pace to get you great results.
Resources and Tools.
Whether we’re doing somatic therapy together or not, you may find these resources and tools valuable.
This video from “Somatic Skills with Emily” leads you through one of the foundational somatic exercises: connecting to your environment and the present moment through the sight, sound, smell, and touch.
Internationally recognized clinical psychologist, EMDR expert, and author Laurel Parnell, PhD demonstrates a simple bilateral tapping technique to calm yourself down when you feel anxious.
A flow chart adapted from Ruth Lanius, MD, PhD, illustrating how the nervous system figures out what to do during a crisis. Your nervous system needs to make the choice between flee, fight, freeze, or collapse almost immediately.
Frequently asked questions.
I still don't get it, what is somatics?
Somatic therapy starts from the idea that your body and nervous system remember life’s experiences just as much as your mind does. Sometimes, after chronic stress, trauma, or overwhelming experiences, your nervous system can get “stuck” in survival mode. You may logically know you’re safe, but your body still reacts as though danger is everywhere.
In a somatic therapy session, we gently notice what’s happening in the present moment. You might become aware of your breathing, muscle tension, posture, or physical sensations while you explore your experience. We may also use grounding, movement, or mindfulness exercises to help your nervous system experience greater safety and flexibility.
Many people are surprised by how simple it feels. Somatics help you reconnect with your body’s natural capacity to heal, regulate, and recover. It’s just an experience: you don’t have to memorize exercises, it’s not meant to be about “teaching coping skills”. Just show up and be present, it’s harder than it sounds!
Are you a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner?
No, I have learned from SE Practitioners, but I have not taken Somatic Experiencing trainings at this time.
My somatic therapy foundations come through my Clinical Specialization in Trauma-Informed Practice through the University of Calgary. Current evidence shows that somatic healing is an essential element of all trauma therapy, so almost every class in my degree focused on integrating somatic supports in Social Work. I read textbooks, wrote papers, and had experiential workshop with my classmates all on the subjects of breath, postures, movements, and exercises that connect people to their bodies.
I also taken courses through The Embody Lab’s “Integrative Soamtic Trauma Therapy” program, and learned through my mentorship with Hakomi Certified Therapist, Pragya Sharma.
What is EMDR?
EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. It is a trauma therapy originally developed for veterans, which has since expanded to support people living with all kinds of disturbances and traumatic life experiences. If it’s the right fit for you, EMDR can successfully transform depression, anxiety, phobias, nightmares, flashbacks, and all kinds of negative beliefs we hold about ourselves.
EMDR is a structured 8-phase treatment which is often best used in extended 75 minute sessions.
You can learn more about EMDR here.
What is IFS?
IFS stands for Internal Family Systems. It is a mindfulness-based therapy originally developed for behavioral concerns like self harm and eating disorders, which has since expanded to support people living with all kinds of self-protective behaviours and internal conflicts. If it’s the right fit for you, IFS can successfully calm your nervous system, build self compassion, and help you connect to your true self.
IFS is a practice that can be incorporated into other therapy models, or done as a whole session on its own. Like other practices (imagine: yoga, writing, exercise), IFS gets easier the more you do it, and benefits from consistent attention. This is why I like to use IFS as a stand-alone therapy module, as well as a ritual for beginning or ending sessions, and for reassessing treatment goals.
How do you integrate nature?
I am trained as a Certified Forest & Nature Therapy Guide. This means that, if it’s a good fit for you, I love to take walk-and-talk sessions on good weather days. Being outside in a quiet, green area is naturally supportive to human healing.
I also offer intensives and community events which lead you through quiet nature invitations. These are amazing for slowing down and quieting the mind and body, and they are also joyful, connective, and fun to experience with family and friends. If you are interested in a nature therapy intensive, let me know during your treatment planning, or email me anytime at milo@therapywithmilo.com
How do you integrate personal spirituality?
Spirituality is intensely personal, and always something that is client-led in my therapy sessions. Many trauma survivors, especially those who have experienced religious trauma or cult abuse, have a lot of protection up around the idea of spirituality in general, and that makes so much sense! Spirituality is never mandatory, and atheists are extremely welcome in my practice.
At the same time, many trauma survivors experience a lot of relief and transformation connecting to something “bigger” or something that can bring meaning to the pain that they have been through, and spiritual or cultural practices are one way this can be done.
Many of my clients identify as pagan, witches, astrologers, tarot readers, or mystics as part of their path toward reclaiming spiritual agency after a lifetime of abuse or neglect. Others connect to their cultural roots, folklore, ancestors, or spirits of the land. Still others dive deep into a large religious tradition like Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, or Hinduism, whether or not it was the tradition they were raised in. I am trained in ways to utilize your personal spiritual beliefs as a powerful resource in your trauma healing, as well as support you in using them in session to make therapy more effective.
Feel free to ask me how we can adapt this practice to your needs.
How can you tell if it's CPTSD, BPD, OCD, autism, or ADHD?
Each of these has specific diagnostic criteria, but in my practice, I do not currently offer assessments for psychiatric conditions. That said, I have a lot of fluency in neurodivergence and trauma, and there are plenty of ways to make sure that the work we are doing is safe for the specific brain you have.
No one’s brain is one-size-fits-all, so the therapy we do together will always be adapted to your needs. If you already have a diagnosis you agree with, that it great, we will make sure to incorporate accommodations into the therapy work. If you aren’t sure exactly what your suspected neurodivergence might be, that’s okay too. There are lots of ways for us to test and experiment to make sure that the therapy we are doing together is creating the kind of results you are looking for.
Can I have trauma even if I wasn't physically abused?
Yes. Physical abuse is one experience that can sometimes be stored in the body as trauma. However, it is not the experience itself that defines whether or not something is traumatic: it’s the way that your body adapts to the shock of nervous system overwhelm.
A very incomplete list of things that can cause trauma:
- Serious accidents or injuries, or witnessing a serious accident or injury.
- Neglect, or being left alone for long periods of time as a child.
- Emotional neglect, growing up without emotional support, validation, or consistent care.
- Witnessing domestic violence or experiencing high-conflict relationships.
- Sudden or complicated losses.
- Bullying or ongoing harassment.
- Ongoing microaggressions, sexism, racism, homophobia, ableism, or transphobia.
- Serious illnesses, hospitalizations, or surgeries.
- Repeated exposure to violence or disturbing events through the media.
- Living in unstable or unsafe conditions; going without food, clothing, shelter.
How do I know if I'm dissociating?
Dissociation our brain learns how to do in response to overwhelming stress, trauma, or emotional overload. Your mind creates distance from an experience that feels too intense, threatening, or difficult to process in the moment. Sometimes, though, people notice that the dissociation starts to happen more frequently, even when life feels safe, being triggered by things you might not classify as “objectively overwhelming”. It can be frustrating!
It looks different from person to person, but it’s generally characterized by your brain involuntarily creating distance from your emotions, body, memories, surroundings, or sense of self. This can look like numbing out, losing track of time, or finding it difficult to remember parts of your day. In more extreme cases, it can feel like you’re watching yourself from outside your body or experiencing the world as foggy, dreamlike, distant, or unreal for long periods of time.
Often, it can show up in relationships: struggling to stay present when discussing difficult topics, or even spacing out during what could be positive interactions like cuddling, hugs, or sex!
If you think you dissociate, definitely let me know, because it will probably happen during therapy too. We can put a plan together to go slow and keep you grounded through trauma processing.
Do I have to talk about my trauma in therapy?
No! You do not need to share every detail of what happened to benefit from therapy, but you are welcome to share anything you would like.
I am trained in some specialized techniques like Flash (a kind of EMDR), Deep Brain Reorienting, and somatic IFS, on top of other somatic therapies, which can successfully resolve trauma without ever having to tell me what happened.
It makes sense to worry that trauma therapy might mean retelling painful experiences over and over again. While I want to understand you and your history, I don’t want you to have to relive anything, or go into that intellectualizing mode where you “recap” the story in the same way you always do.
You are never expected to share more than feels safe. Also, you can tell me anything, and it won’t be too much for me.
What if I am in crisis right now?
If you are having thoughts of suicide or a huge emotional reaction that you are not sure how to respond to, call one of the numbers below. You can also call if you have a loved one who you think needs help, but aren’t sure what to do. Here are some options:
- Brite Line 1-844-702-7483. Edmonton’s LGBTQ+ mental health and wellness helpline, available 24/7. Answered by trained LGBTQ+ volunteers and allies. If a staff member is not available to answer, your call will be directed to the Edmonton Distress Line, 211 or 988 dependent on your needs.
- Distress Line: 780-482-4357. Trained volunteers respond to individuals needing emotional support, information, and/or referrals. Uses call tracing and will call 911 and/or police if caller is at high risk to imminently harm self or others.
- Alberta’s One Line for Sexual Violence: 1-866-403-8000. Talk, text, and chat service that provides emotional support, information, and referral to anyone who has experienced or been impacted by sexual violence. Uses call tracing and will call 911 and/or police if caller is at high risk to imminently harm self or others. Available 9am-9pm.
- Access 24/7: 780-424-2424. Run by Alberta Health Services, available 24/7. A central hub for urgent services and centralized intake for all AHS-funded mental health services. Available to concerned friends and family. Interactions with Access 24-7 appear on your health record. Collaborates with police if there is concern that a person requires hospitalization due to high, imminent risk to self or others.
Begin when you are ready.
A free 20-minute consultation is a chance to ask questions and see if we’re a fit. No pressure and no commitment.