This article offers a depiction of in person individual appointments. The information depicted was done with the utmost respect for the client practitioner relationship. All information was gathered with permission from a client who desired to share their process for educational purposes.
I have been a witness to client’s process in healing and there are some core principles that I have learned that quicken and aid people in their journey to recovering from past traumatic events, helping them find their way back to safety, regulation, empowerment, and resolution even in the midst of flooding emotional states, feeling trapped in uncontrollable circumstances, the unceasing recollection of memories from past events, and feeling completely disempowered by their own capacity to manage the conditions in their current life. In these moments of sitting with clients when everything seems to be spinning into dysregulation and overwhelm, an attentive guidance toward safety can restore regulation to the client’s nervous system and lead to a greater capacity to manage their own physiology in the midst of fear and overwhelm. Through this article, I hope to provide a spotlight into Somatic Experiencing Appointments, provide information on what promotes our healing and what does not in the midst of moments of powerlessness, and to offer tools to support you in your own healing journey. These moments spent engaged with clients can be precious windows into how to utilize our body felt experience to stabilize our nervous system, how to promote regulation of our central nervous system, and the importance of managing our overwhelm first before telling the stories of our traumatic past.
Sometimes we feel consumed by our survival responses as our nervous system interprets threat and mobilizes for self protection.
When we are in a state of fear and panic, our body begins to mobilize its resources to deal with the threat that is present. Mobilization is characterized by our sympathetic nervous system; in relation to perceived threat, the body felt experience is sent through our viscera via the Vagus Nerve to our brain. The part of our brain called our Limbic System then produces stress hormones through the hypothalamus, which activates our nervous system to mobilize. Based on the body’s response and the brain’s interpretation of threat through our limbic system, our body activates to deal with the external conditions that cause our fear and overwhelm. The heart rate quickens, breathing patterns increase to bring oxygen to our muscles, pupils dilate to focus on external threat, the stomach tightens and twists as an internal signal of alarm, emotions flood as a mobilization of fear, panic, anger, rage, and hurt, and our hearing dials into lower frequencies in order to hear sounds of threat; these are natural responses to life threatening situations. Within this activation, or our autonomic nervous system regulation in the form of a resting heart rate, relaxed breathing patterns, social interaction in the form of eye contact and a warm smile, a sense of ease in the stomach, peaceful emotional states, hearing the voices of a supportive person, and a calm present thought process are placed in the background of our experience. They are a distant light in a tunnel of spinning, overwhelming physiology that is completely engaged in keeping us alive in the present situation.
Regulation can seem like a distant light in the midst of overwhelming thoughts, feelings, and emotions.
As I have worked with clients that are overwhelmed by their own survival responses, they do not often interpret their reactions as necessary and valid. They feel overwhelmed by their own reaction, afraid of the feelings they are experiencing, embarrassed and ashamed by their own vulnerability, and feel a lack of safety and control. In every single moment of sitting with a client they are desperate to bring an end to their fear and panic. The problem is that the autonomic nervous system is interpreting threat and the client becomes a victim to the part of their physiology that is trying to keep them safe and protected from harm. This becomes a very powerless situation and a frightening prospect to be caught in a continuous process of being exposed to overwhelming internal experiences that we do not have control over and are often too much for us to handle. In one situation, a client came into the office and sat down and began to cry. In a normal day-to-day interaction our natural instinct would be to ask why are you crying or what’s wrong. My instinct as the practitioner was to focus more intently on my own physiology, to ground myself, and to listen rather than ask the client to explain the circumstance that caused her emotional expression. As the client sat, the tears increased as the client began to fold her head down to her lap as a means to withdraw from my attention. The shame of expressing emotions was palpable in the air. I knew in this moment that the flooding of emotions had caused a process of collapse and freeze as the recurring experience of “too much” began to flip into down regulation and disconnection from the body’s felt experience. Freeze occurs when we are completely overwhelmed by our own physiological responses and feel trapped in a situation that continues to expose us to more overwhelm than we can currently process and regulate. Our autonomic nervous system naturally flips into freeze to preserve our body’s resources and to disconnect from the internal felt experience of too much and the external circumstance of too much exposure. Freeze in relation to fear and panic leaves the residual of our own mobilizing energy trapped within our autonomic nervous system. Too much could be seen in the client’s process as a folding over, a challenge in speaking and forming sentences, a difficulty identifying emotions, changes in her complexion as a loss of color on the face and forehead, dizziness, numbness, and the emotions and tears beginning to reduce in a moments notice. These responses of down regulation were not because the client was feeling more calm and safe; they were caused in relation to fear and panic. At this time in the appointment, my questions, input, or suggestions would have added to the exposure of being noticed and would have caused further overwhelm and disconnection for the client. In this moment, I began to open my awareness to aspects of the physiology to encourage the distant light of regulation in a tunnel of fear and shut down, attempting to find something in the session that could help the client expand their sense of safety, increase a safe resourcing of their environment for support, gain more capacity to hold and validate their emotions, and to touch into their story while maintaining emotional regulation and clarity of thought.
Finding a resource of regulation
In the first five minutes of the appointment, it felt as if we were on a razor’s edge of spinning into more and more overwhelm. As I sat with the client, I noticed the client’s hands opening and closing in the midst of her fear and panic. I asked her to notice her hands and gave her time to report her felt experience. She described feeling warmth in her hands and I asked if she could stay with this experience of warmth. Through time and attention on a feeling that was outside of her overwhelm, there were some subtle changes that occurred in her body. A deep breath was noticed, a slight sense of ease was felt in her chest and throat, and the warmth in her hands extended up to her arms. The emotions that were too much began to become slightly more level, manageable, and relaxed. My impulse was too encourage and expand this experience of regulation for the client. I asked her what the extension of her fingers and movement of her hands reminded her of, as we attempted to create imagery and tactile experience to her feelings. She spoke about art and painting, sculpting, and using her hands to be creative and expansive. We quickly highlighted together that she felt completely free when she was engaged in art and unencumbered by the burdens of her life. It was clear to me in this moment that the client had found a source of regulation and a sense of freedom that was not the overwhelming, restricted, and trapped feelings of her flooding emotions. In resourcing her hands, the client was asked to recreate and slow down the movement of opening and closing as if working with a sculpture. The client began to sit more upright, her feet planted on the floor, her face regained color and a little twinkle came into her eyes. I gently asked her to report her experience. She described feeling warmth across her chest, opening in her throat, warmth in her face, and a slight shaking in her hands and chest. In this moment a sense of regulation was encouraging the client to bring her attention to areas of her body that were previously unapproachable and too much to hold and touch with her awareness.
Regulation emerging through the clients nervous system response
At this point it was clear that the client might be able to touch into the emotions that she was feeling. I asked her if she could slowly speak about what was bothering her as she first arrived in the appointment. She spoke about her life feeling out of control, her relationships falling apart, and the inadequacy she felt in managing her own stress. The client was able to clearly articulate what was occurring, how her emotions were tied to external circumstances that felt out of her control, and was able to speak while maintaining a connection to safety and regulation. As she talked, she was guided toward noticing this profound difference in her stress management. We then took some time to notice if she could feel any stirring emotions that resulted from her touching into the experiences that were causing her distress. She reported the emotion of sadness in her chest as tears began to slowly flow down her face. She was guided to allow the tears and to feel the emotion as it gradually moved through her felt experience. The client reported feeling a sense of ease as her breathing became deeper and her body relaxed into the chair. A sense of peace was felt in her chest and abdomen as she honored and validated her emotions. The client was able to report that for the first time she was able to feel her emotions without experiencing them as too much or out of place. We highlighted her new capacity to hold her own emotions without being swept away by the external circumstances that added to her dysregulation. The client spoke about some solutions in approaching her stress differently, slowing herself down so she could feel her body, finding more time to place a hand on the specific areas in her body where she felt her emotion, and finding ways to communicate about her needs for honesty and authenticity in her relationships. The client noticed a feeling of more control, freedom, and empowerment; similar to how she felt when she was free enough to express herself through art. The distant light of regulation was expanded in her felt experience, as she was able to develop a greater capacity to respond and regulate her own emotions in her body.
Regulation can exist as a warmth, tears, open chest, smile, deep breath, or flowing energy.
There are a few really important things that occurred for the client in this appointment that can be extremely helpful when we are afraid and overcome by our own stress physiology. The first thing that occurred in this appointment was responding to the nervous system and observing that initially asking the client to explain herself would have increased her physiological response of overwhelm. This would have led to more powerlessness for the client and reinforced her familiar experience of emotions being too much, disregarded, and out of place. The second aspect of the session to highlight is the navigation toward aspects of safety in our physiology. The client was able to find safety in her hands; as she focused on safety it led to an expanding of warmth, a slightly deeper breathing pattern, and a small sense of ease in her chest and throat. The focus on regulation allowed the client to start to notice her body as a safe resource to connect with and allowed her to expand her attention outside of her stress response. The third thing that occurred in this appointment was slowly approaching emotions and her recalling her story through body awareness in order to process and regulate through tracking the felt experience. The client was guided toward telling her story and supporting her emotions once she had a solid resource of regulation. Regulation allowed the client to clearly tell her story and identify the emotions in her body. This clear identification of the emotions allowed her to then gently place a solid hand on the body and feel her emotional experience completely. The attention to feeling the emotion led to a slow and steady expression of tears, a sense of ease in her chest, and a return of color to her face. So many important new messages were being sent through the client’s process. She received the message that her emotions were safe and manageable; with time, they could lead to relaxation and regulation; through management of overwhelm, it could lead to clearer thought processes and solutions; and through connection with me as a practitioner, she observed that people can stay present for her even in the midst of the expression of her emotional experience. When we bring these principles of regulation into our process, we develop new and more consistent approaches to self-care.
Tools for supporting the nervous system can lead to new approaches that support the freedom of our emotional expression.
When we experience stress and overwhelm, it is important to remember that our autonomic nervous system is attempting to protect us from harm. While these experiences can be overwhelming and debilitating to feel and process, it becomes essential to have tools and resources to manage, control, and regulate our nervous system. Tools allow us to let go of the continuous mental focus on what is causing us harm and to remember that telling the mental story will increase our stress physiology. Within our body felt experience, there are always aspects of our nervous system that are within regulation. Calm or less tense aspects of our experience become a resource to bring regulation into the forefront of our experience. Like a distant light expanding into our felt experience, regulation brings our stress into a realm of control and management. Touching into the feelings of stress through regulation allows us to express our feelings with a sense of support, regulation, and acceptance of our experience. Like my client, regulation is then able to expand into more regulated physical expressions, more regulated emotional states of healing and resolution, and clearer regulated thoughts and approaches to current stressors. Through practicing these basic principles, regulation expands through our nervous system and fear and overwhelm become distant and manageable felt experiences of how we used to deal with stressful life occurrences.