Somatic Therapy(Breath work)

Somatic therapy or breath work practice helps create awareness to our physical body, emotions, and spirit. Our body keeps memories of everything that happened in our lives. Every time someone told us to shut up, swallow our pride or our crying, to put our heads down, to stop yelling, to not express our feelings, that anger was bad, or that we shouldn't express anger, etc. Most of us spend our lives without being able to express anger, feeling guilty about our own feelings or feeling that we're horrible people whenever we want more from life, or put ourselves first.

However, those feelings have to be let out, so that we, and our souls, can occupy our bodies, so that we have space for the new and for more, and that we can understand ourselves. The first strategy of breath work is: to close our eyes and just feel our body, try to see where we carry too much weight/pain/stress/heaviness, or where our body hurts. The therapist tells us to experience the pain without judgement. For example, in me, it was my lower back that was hurting.

Then, we focus on our emotions that are connected to that pain, or place in our body. Listen to the body, how does it feel? or what emotions are there? Don't try to explain anything! Do not listen to the story that our minds are telling us, just feel the emotions! Don't judge! Just say for example, I feel heavy, I feel sadness. I feel anxious, I feel guilt, etc. After that, we focus on our mental process. Now it is the time to explain and hear the stories our brains have been telling us. So, now, explain! Why are we feeling this way?

After the mindfulness strategy, the breath work exercises start. The goal is to put our bodies through stress and keep pushing our bodies more because some of our emotions only come out during stressful moments. See, when we are having fun, in a party, or calm, watching a movie, we might not feel everything because our bodies are "pretending not to feel" or "distracted". Whenever, we get stressed, exhausted, angry, then we allow the "shit in our bodies go". That is why when we are angry we say things we wouldn't say in a regular/normal day, but that "shit" has to get out too. Breath work worked with my shit and allowed me to heal faster from a very traumatic moment I experienced.

During the breath exercises, I felt dizzy, coughed, cried, trembled, I wanted to yell/scream, and I did. I allowed my body to do whatever it wanted to do. I allowed my body to release in its own way all the anger, guilt, blame, stress, anxiety, sadness, screams, suffocating thoughts and images, shame, failures, etc. When I allowed my body to express itself, I was able to feel and to let go of those feelings that were inside of me.

After going through that stressful moment, the "guides/leaders/therapists" guide us into a relaxing state. That is teaching our brains how to relax whenever stress happens. We learn to control our emotions, release the feelings that are limiting our lives and calm ourselves down. We also visualize how we want to be, feel and live, so that image brings us love and joy. Whenever, we want to feel calmer, we can always visualize that image again and feel the same way. It was a great experience and I still feel the same way. I do the regular/simple breath work exercise once a week.

See, that same month, I had just gone through a very traumatic experience. What happened with my family made me feel that I was inside a movie, a fiction book, and i thought I was dreaming, but it was real! I was having PTSD symptoms and I knew it was because of the trauma. I was feeling my body electric, giving shocks, and I was trembling a lot, very alert, any sound would trigger my body into reacting and shocking itself. I was going through regular therapy because I needed to talk about the experience and let those thoughts out of my mind, but therapy takes longer. After the somatic therapy, everything was gone, disappeared, like hypnoses. I was able to breathe better, my body felt clean, and I felt so much space inside of me. I felt clean and spacious from that day on. I had no idea that our emotions took over that much space within us. Soma+iQ is a good place to go if you want to learn more. Feel free to read, practice and explore to find the best treatment for you. You can do this too!

I love you and thank you.

A poem for you, feel inspired! #WhyMeAndWhyNotMe

My thoughts

Sinélia Peixoto

I close my eyes and you are there

When sleeping you are in my dreams

Without reason, you're everywhere

Fleeing from thee is such extreme.

I see not what I see

I feel not what I feel

I just know what I need

And what I need is you.

I cannot breathe with you, but I dare

to be near you and to feel the pain

of being breathless. This I can bear

and I feel all the strains.

With or without thee, I can't live

anymore, I know, I need to give

myself peace, and forget the last

thought of my ordinary past.

I cannot move forward

without cleaning my past

without loving myself

and without understanding and accepting who I am

Just ME!