April 7, 2026 • 37 mins
What if your anxiety isn’t just in your mind, but in your body?
Why do certain pains never fully go away?
Can tiny movements actually release stored trauma?
What if your body isn’t broken but just protective?
In this episode of A Really Good Cry, Radhi sits down with somatic healing expert Liz Tenuto to explore how emotional stress and trauma live in the body, and how to safely release it.
Liz explains that “soma” means body, and somatic healing focuses on small, intentional micro-movements that help regulate the nervous system. Unlike traditional workouts or even yoga, somatics is about restoring agency, reconnecting the mind and body so you feel safe inside yourself again.
They discuss how unprocessed stress can show up as jaw tension, tight hips, gut issues, panic attacks, and chronic pain. Liz breaks down nervous system responses like fight, flight, freeze, and dissociation, and explains why shaking, or neurogenic tremors, can actually be the body completing a stress cycle.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
- How trauma gets stored physically in the body.
- Why jaw, neck, and hips hold stress.
- What the freeze response actually feels like.
- How to calm panic through simple body-based tools.
- The difference between nervous system safety and intensity.
- Why healing is about regulation, not perfection.
This episode is a reminder that your body is always trying to protect you - and with the right tools, you can teach it that it’s safe again.
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https://www.linkedin.com/in/liz-tenuto-0619a4b8
https://www.instagram.com/theworkoutwitch
Follow Radhi:
https://www.instagram.com/radhidevlukia/
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
If there was one thing you wanted people to take
away from this podcast about sematic healing, what would it be?
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Your body isn't broken, it's just trying to protect you.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Liz Tanuto is a sematic practitioner and trauma educator, also
known online as the work Out, which her new Bookshares
has signature movement protocols and practical tools that help her
and her students cover from childhood abuse, domestic violence, and
chronic illness.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
I think for a long time, we've had this break
fixed mentality where it's like, my lower back hurts, it
must be the chair I'm sitting in. I'm going to
go buy a new chair. I was really trying all
these different things to just fix the pain. I didn't
realize it took me a long time to discover that
there was a whole emotional layer underneath it. You're really
just trying to reconnect your mind and body.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
And who do you think would benefit from sematic healing.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
I personally discovered it because I had gone through a
lot of trauma, and I had really bad insomnia and
had tried a lot of other modalities that weren't really
working for me. So a lot of people initially find
somatics from trauma or from like autoimmune conditions or some
sort of physical condition that they're having a really hard
(01:07):
time with.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
I'm Radivlukiah, and on my podcast A Really Good Cry,
we embrace the messy and the beautiful, providing a space
for raw, un fielded conversations that celebrate vulnerability and allow
you to tune in to learn, connect and find comfort together. Liz,
thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
I've been following your content for such a long time now,
and I was just saying this to you, but I
feel like I need to say it to everyone. The
way that you create your content and the way that
you share the work that you do in somatic healing,
it's so easily accessible. You make it feel so much
simpler than the way that you think it would be,
and you just find a way to make it digestible
and easy. So thank you so much for the work
(01:46):
that you do.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Thank you. I really appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
I wanted to just start off by asking you what
sematic healing is. I feel like we hear it, but
I don't know if the people really know the breakdown
of what it actually means.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Yeah, that's such a great question. Soma literally translates it's
the Greek word for a body, and somatic exercises are
these really tiny micro movements that you can do in
bed or on the floor that really stress out of
your body, release tension out of your body. Some of
them regulate your nervous systems, some of them release trauma
(02:18):
out of your body.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Okay, And so does it originate from? Where is the
origin of somatic heating from?
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Yeah? So I would say it's rooted in ancient cultures,
like ultimately, and then in the nineteen seventies, this guy
named Thomas Hannah used the word somatics for the first time. Okay,
but there was a lot of research before that in
terms of how emotions are connected to your physicality and
(02:46):
your muscle tension. That's kind of paved the way and
set the foundation for somatics. But as of the nineteen
seventies is really when the field was born, and a
lot of neuroscience research has been done to kind of
substantiate the science behind the mind, body and emotional connection.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
And who do you think would benefit from somatic healing?
Speaker 2 (03:12):
I would say anyone who feels stressed. Okay, I personally
discovered it because I had gone through a lot of
trauma and I had really bad insomnia and had tried
a lot of other modalities that weren't really working for me.
So a lot of people initially find somatics from trauma
or from like autoimmune conditions or some sort of physical
(03:36):
condition that they're having a really hard time with. Yeah,
but anyone who feels stressed out can benefit.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
What are some of the benefits that you have found
in doing it yourself and recognizing some of the patients
that you've helped and treated.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Deep restorative sleep, so you really get that restoration that
happens when you get a full night sleep, which is
kind of the foundation of a lot of your health.
I would say just being able to handle stress with
more ease without it taking you into overwhelm or taking
you into a shutdown state. So it kind of helps
(04:11):
you stay connected and stay grounded to yourself. And I
would just say like physical relaxation, like feeling like you're
not tense all the time, not feeling like you're not
feeling like you're clenching your job right right, not feeling
like you're clenching your body which just makes everything so
much more relaxing.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
Yeah, yeah, that sounds great. I feel like everyone needs that.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Now you mentioned how you came into this through trauma
that you'd been through. How did you find trauma showed
up in your physical body or that you've seen other people?
Where does it show up in the body? How does
it show up?
Speaker 2 (04:48):
How does it manifest There can be a lot of
different what I call like flavors of manifestations. For some
people it's sleep issues, for other people it's chronic pain.
Some people have unexplained issues. Gut issues are quite common,
stomach aches are quite common. And then you can also
have kind of unexplained physical pain that's not from an
(05:08):
injury or an accident that's just not really going away,
whether it's headaches or migraines, or if it's you know,
lower back pain that's not going away, or neck pain
neck tension that you can't really figure out.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Yeah. I we recently shared this on our page on
Instagram of the body map and where different emotions show up.
I just wondering if you share a little bit on that,
is there truth to it? And how do you wear
in the body do different emotions end up showing up.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Yeah, that's such a great study. So there are patterns
of different emotional responses that kind of get stored what
we call get stored in different parts of your body.
In the throat, it's very connected to like lack of
like not feeling like you have a voice. So perhaps
you've experienced some sort of injustice or you've been like
(05:58):
shut down over and over again and you feel like
you can't really speak up. Jaw tends to be like
your boundaries have been crossed. You're angry about something and
not in a bad way, like really valid anger. Hips
tend to be more like betrayal or trauma.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
So many different places in the body. Yeah, it's incredible, though.
It's incredible to see that emotion body connection. And sometimes
you don't realize it, like, oh, we're just exhausted and
we're tired, and we think about everything being on the
physical plane. It's like my foot's hurting because I've been
walking too much. But no, maybe it's walking. Maybe it's
hurting because I'm carrying too much load emotionally, And it's
(06:37):
difficult to remember that on a daily basis.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Yeah, it's really difficult to remember that. And I think
you know, I think for a long time we've had
this break fixed mentality where it's like, my lower back hurts,
it must be the chair I'm sitting in. Yeah, I'm
going to go buy a new chair, right exactly. And
then you're like, wait, the chair didn't fix it, which
is what I experienced with my own insomnia and my
own chronic pain for a while too. And I was
(07:02):
really trying all these different things to just fix the pain,
and then I didn't. I didn't realize. It took me
a long time to discover that there was a whole
emotional layer underneath it.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
What's the difference then, between sematic work or sematic work
and doing yoga yoga postures?
Speaker 2 (07:18):
Yeah, I would say there's different goals. So yoga, from
what I know about it is, you know, very rooted
in spirituality, and the postures are kind of and the
poses are kind of a way to deepen your spiritual connection,
deepen your connection to yourself. The postures work on a
(07:40):
muscular level, whereas somatics, there is no spiritual component to somatics.
It's really just about for me, it's about re establishing
a sense of agency in the body. So you have
this like choice of how you do the exercises. There's
no correct or incorrect way to do them, and you're
(08:00):
not really trying to go deeper necessarily. You're really just
trying to reconnect your mind and body so that neither
are feeling shut down or kind of dissociated.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
I remember when I studied, when I did my yoga
teach training, they talked about how breath is the anchor
between your mind and your body to bring you back
into presence. And from what I'm hearing, somatic healing sounds
like practices to bring you back into the present moment,
like to constantly bring your body and your mind back
into one place.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
What are some if people are doing trying to incorporate
sematic healing into their day. Are there three different types
of exercise you could share with us or movements that
you could share with us that are easiest to do?
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Yeah, so one? Do you want to do one together?
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (08:48):
Okay, great, we can stay sitting like this. We'll just
uncross our legs and then just move this slightly so
you can go ahead and take your right hand and
grab a hold of your right ear pretty firmly, and
if at any point your arm gets tired, just rest.
You want to have a nice firm pull on the ear,
and you're going to open and close your mouth a
couple times. It looks kind of strange, it's.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
Part of the good things do.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Yeah, it's part of the fun. And then we'll just
bring that to a rest for a moment. This is
a vagus nerve exercise, so it'll give you a little
more energy. And then the next step of this is
getting that same hold with your ear, so you're using
your right hand to grab firmly, pull up slightly, and
then in the laziest way possible, you're just going to
(09:32):
dip your ear a little right to left.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
Oh my, next tent.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
That's okay, And then you want to see how unclenched
can your job be as you do this? And then
how lazy can you be as you do this movement?
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Pretty wed is staying when moving the headside to side.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Yes, and then we'll just go ahead and rest for
a moment. And it takes like twenty to thirty seconds
to kind of feel the effect, but you might feel
like a little sprinkly feeling on the right side of
your and it should make you feel slightly more energized. Okay,
and so then you know, if we were doing this
(10:06):
in a class format, we would repeat it on the
same the other side, which we can do after we finish. Yeah, yeah, together.
But that's one quick exercise that you can do. I
do that before meetings all the time.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Amazing. You mentioned the vegus nerve. Yeah, tell us a
little bit about the vegus nerve and how it impacts us.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Yeah, it's the longest cranial nerve in your body. It
runs from the base of your brainstem all the way
down into your stomach. If your vegas nerve is kind
of shut down, you'll feel like emotionally numb. You'll have
a hard time getting out of bed. You'll feel really
low energy, your limbs will feel heavy, you may not
be able to cry, you may be like responding to
(10:47):
people with one word answers, kind of like after you
finish all your tasks, you may just like kind of
collapse and watch Netflix or just like be so tired.
So the vegus nerve really, when you restimulate vegas nerve,
it really helps bring you back into your baseline. It
really helps regulate your nervous system and give you more energy.
(11:08):
And you can normally do that if you practice for
like ten minutes a day, you can normally restimulate your
vegus nerve and like fifteen to thirty days.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Oh wow, yeah, so that was an exercise for that.
Are there any is the breath work involved in somatic
healing as well?
Speaker 2 (11:23):
There can be breath work involved in somatic healing. There
are different schools of somatics. I personally don't teach breath work,
but there are there can be breathwork involved.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
I know sometimes I've seen online when I'm watching people
do somatic healing, and obviously there's small clips, but sometimes
it can be quite aggressive and it can look a
little bit scary. Talk me through the movements that's you know,
it almost looks like involuntary bodily movements that people are
having or the type of energetic experiences that look like
they're unexplainable.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
Yeah. Yeah. So there is a thing called a neurogenic
which is like this involuntary shaking that can happen in
your body. And essentially, if you've ever been in like
a really scary situation, you may have noticed that your
body shakes. And for a lot of people, we have
this cognitive override where we can like subconsciously stop the
(12:16):
shaking because we don't want to look bizarre, like, especially
in public, if you're really scared, you don't want to
be shaking. But the shaking actually finalizes your biological stress response.
So dogs, after they get scared, they'll shake their body right,
and animals do this, and that's why doctor Peter Levine
(12:36):
talks about like he's one of the founders of somatics.
He talks about how animals don't get PTSD, and part
of this theory has to do with the neurogenic genic tremor.
So there are exercises that you can do it within
somatics that gently recreate this neurogenic tremor in your body.
So you'll do an exercise and you'll start to shake.
(12:58):
Oftentimes when that happens, you'll also start to cry and
you get like this big release emotionally and physically. You've
finalized your biological stress response, and then you're no longer
really stuck in that stress physiology in the same way,
but with somatics, I always kind of advise people like,
you don't want to have like a super intense cathartic
(13:20):
experiment the release itself can be kind of intense and
cathartic for some people, but if someone's guiding you into
it in a really intense cathartic way, that's not the best, right, Okay, Yeah,
so you want to kind of work incrementally. For me,
I don't even talk to people about the release until
like eighteen sessions in. Yeah, so you kind of want
(13:43):
to make sure that you've released habitual tension out of
your body, that you feel safe again in your body
before you start to take it into this big release moment.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
So there are all these there are different exercises to
stimulate or release different parts in your body. And so
would you normally what would a session look like, could
go through head to toe, or you'd focus on specific areas.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
I kind of focus on first. I start with these
really gentle rocking exercises, bilateral stimulation, different ways of releasing
habitual tension out of different body parts. I personally start
with the hips because it's kind of the main center
of movement and it's also one of the strongest parts
(14:24):
of your body. So rather than starting with some more
like the neck that's really tender and people can kind
of injure themselves, you want to start with the strongest
part of the body and start there so that people
stay safe. Then I normally go into the jaw and
do some jaw releasing. And the jaw and the hips
are connected through your fascia, so that's quite nice. Like
(14:46):
normally if people have tight hips, they also have a
clenched jaw.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Oh interesting, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
They kind of go hand in hand, and those are
kind of the two first responders to stress in your body.
You're so as muscle will clench up, which is a
muscle that runs from your diaphragm into your greater trocanter
which is near your groin, and then your jaw will
also clench and this is just part of your fight
or flight response.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Yeah. So I start with those two parts of the
body release ten, and then I start releasing tension in
the shoulders as well, and then I start moving into
more releasing exercises. So I do like a soas release,
and we do a stress release and a trauma release.
And then at the end of the journey that I
teach is more integration, so that you're not just like
(15:35):
leaving people after this big release early moment that we're
reintegrating it so that you know, everything's kind of complete.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
Are they? Is it something that I recommend people do
every single day.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
I do them about six days a week. Yeah, and
I only do like five minutes sometimes ten per day,
depending on what I'm doing. For example, in the car
on the way here, I was doing a couple exercises
to just relax and you know, not feel anxious totally. Yeah,
and it depends, you know, for people if you've gone
through more in your life or you are currently living
(16:09):
in a really stressful phase of life. They're so great
to do every day. Other people who want to just
like have this experience of reconnecting to their body and
regulating their nervous system can do them for a shorter
amount of time, like like thirty to sixty day journey
and then you know, just use as needed.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Are there certain types of movements that we do, you know,
whether it's workouts or yeah, the types of workouts that
we do that can negatively impact our nervous system or
you know, because you think movement is movement and it's
always good for you, but are there certain types of
movement that you wouldn't recommend for someone who's feeling quite anxious?
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Yeah? I would say high and super high intensity exercise
atally caring that. Yeah, if you're already stressed, and you're
already disregulated, or you feel constant anxiety or constant overwhelmed,
you're really just introducing another stressor into your life. So
you want to do low to mid intensity exercise if
(17:13):
you feel that way. And it's not that you can't
ever get to the place of doing high intensity exercise.
You just want to work your body incrementally and slowly
to get there. So some people that I would coach
would like be like I went to a hit class
after not working out for COVID, Like they didn't work
(17:34):
out the whole pandemic and then they went back to
a HIT class and they're like and then I got injured,
And I'm like, right, because you just threw your well
intentioned They just threw their body into this really intense experience.
But you can't get there. You just want to start.
It's like Goldilock, you know, like you want to start
in the middle and then or you know, low intensity
(17:56):
and then work your way.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Yeah, when you were going through healing your own trauma
that you'd been through, were there any other supportive therapies
or treatments that you had done that also helped in
your journey. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
Absolutely. I love emdr Okay, which also uses bilateral stimulation,
mostly with your eyes. It can sometimes be done with sound.
It's another bottom up regulation tool, bottom up processing tool
for trauma. Talk therapy is considered a top down processing
tool for trauma. I also really love talk therapy. It
(18:33):
took me a little while to find the exact type
that worked the best for me, But for me IFS,
which stands for Internal Family Systems, Yes, has been really amazing.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
I had Gabbie Bernstein on the podcast and she recently
wrote a book on internal family systems, and it was
so amazing because she said she actually didn't realize that
she had a specific trauma until a few years ago,
where she did it internal family system and she realized
that she'd been abused when she was younger, and she
had no idea, and it unlocked a part of her
(19:07):
that she had obviously suppressed or kind of put aside.
But I've heard that it can be such a powerful tool.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Yeah, it's incredibly powerful, and I think it's a lot
more effective for people who've experienced trauma than other types
like cognitive behavioral therapy, and a lot of people who've
experienced really intense trauma when they're younger get kind of
a dissociative amnesia because it's essentially it's too much to process,
(19:35):
so you just kind of shut down and you can't
remember it until you get your body to the place
that you feel safe enough.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
Is that disassociation? Oh yeah, yeah, I feel like that's
a common symptom. Well, I don't even know call it
a symptom, but a common response to trauma. And I
guess could you explain that a little bit why that happens.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
Yeah, absolutely, When your a nervous system gets too overwhelmed
into a protective response called freeze. Some people experience it
as functional freeze, or you can go into like a
full shutdown, so there's a spectrum. Functional freeze is when
you can still get all of your tasks done during
the day. You might even be really successful at work
(20:18):
with your family, but then when you come home at
night you just crash and collapse. And then freeze is
a little bit more extreme, where you're like can barely
get out of bed, and then full shut down is
almost like catatonic, where you are not talking anymore, you're
barely eating. And those are different levels of severity of
the freeze response. But ultimately, when you experience the freeze response,
(20:44):
your body turns off and your brain turns off the
non essential functions. So that's part of the reason why
people will get gut issues, because for some reason, your
body doesn't think that it needs its gut to survive.
This is very evolution. Nervous systems are very old, yeah,
and haven't quite cut up to modern society yet. But
(21:06):
also you will lose some ability to remember, yes, and
it's just protective.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Yeah, of course.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
Your mind kind of like just boxes things up and
puts them aside so you don't have to deal with them.
What happens to the nervous system during panic attacks because
that kind of feels like the opposite of dissociation, where
you're really just feeling everything in your body totally.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
Panic attacks are like sympathetic activation of the nervous system,
which is like your nervous system can go off, which
would be like this shut down state, and then it
can get kind of stuck in on which is more
like fight flight, okay, And the panic attack is essentially
like a really extreme version of that sympathetic activation where
(21:49):
you get so activated that your body has to discharge
some energy, and that's where the panic attack comes in.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
Are there any simple somatic tools that people can use
if they're experiencing a panic attack.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
During the panic attack itself, get low to the ground
and as slow of a way as you can, and
place your hand on your body, just in any way
to ground yourself, hand on heart if you can, and
just stay there for a moment after the panic attack.
When you feel more safer, once you've gotten home, you
(22:23):
can lay in bed on your stomach and place your hands,
stack your hands on top of each other, make a
diamond with your arms and place your forehead on the
top of your hands, and you can take your hips
right left in like this gentle even rhythm, kind of
medium speed. This is part of bilateral stimulation. It'll help
(22:45):
bring your body back into a more regulated state. But
I would suggest after a panic attack doing that hip
blocking for like a minute before you go to bed.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
They feel like really manageable tools to be able to incorporate. Yeah,
what are the things that you think people are doing
every single day that's causing like minded dysregulation? Like in
an average person. What are the things that we're doing
in our day that you're like, we need to do
less of that?
Speaker 2 (23:08):
Not going outside?
Speaker 1 (23:10):
Yes, so true.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
The big one. Not moving at all is another big one,
And I get I get that the reason why it's happening.
You know, we're all a lot more tech based now.
Our lifestyles have changed a lot, even with AI. Our
life has changed a lot in the last couple of years,
and everything's getting more tech dependent. But I think as
(23:34):
we're doing that, we can't stop our bodies from moving
because not moving just has this domino effect on your health.
You know, the phone can be problematic, but I feel
like it's so far gone already, Like.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
How many more times can we tell people people find out?
Speaker 2 (23:52):
Yeah, like I can't. I can't in good confidence tell
people to put their phone down because I just feel
like it's part of our life style now. But we
can do things, like, you know, anything that's more sensual,
where if you're cooking, like that's a really great way
of like experiencing your senses. If you're going outside, you're
(24:14):
like smelling the sounds, you're hearing the birds, you're feeling
the sun on your skin. Movement is also this great
way of connecting to your senses so and connecting to
how you feel on the inside.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
Yeah, I like that that tip of connecting back to
your senses because I feel like those are the things
that can bring you back into the present moment. And
that's really what you're trying to do, right You're trying
to constantly bring yourself back, bring yourself back. If you've
been on your phone, try and connect back to your senses,
if you've your mind's wondering, if you feel anxious, just
do something, smell something, please, something that brings you back
(24:47):
into this present moment. And the more moments you can
have throughout the day, even if you've had a lot
of moments where you feel like you've not been present
in your body at least these are the little anchors
that bring you back in. Yeah, I think those are
really import And Yeah, I have a racing mind often,
so I use breath work a lot for my resets
throughout the day. Do you have like a thing that
(25:09):
you do as like a two minute nervous system reset
to just get you back into focus. Is breathwork involved
in in that practice?
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Or I don't really do that much breath work I'm
really focused on movement, and I have nothing against work,
but I do this little tapping.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
I was gonna ask, Yeah, this just.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
On my thighs. Or you can cross your arms, cross
your wrists over your chest and tap right left and
I do it for like about a minute, medium pressure,
medium pace, And that is bilateral stimulation, which helps me reset.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
I love tapping, like yeah, it helps to remind you
that you're in your body, yes, Like yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
Because we sometimes just kind of like leave our bodies
for a moment exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
So obviously this is called a really good cry. And
you mentioned that you love crying.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
I love crying.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
Give me the load, give me the breakdown of Like
why is crying so therapeutic? Because honestly, sometimes I will
be feeling so heavy, whether it's energetically physically, my head's hurting,
and as soon as I cry, I'm like brand new. Yeah,
taught me through that a little bit.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
Absolutely. So crying is a reset for your nervous system.
So if you're crying from an emotional reason, it brings
you back into regulation. Essentially, what can happen for people
is you get that sympathetic activation where your the stress
is building up in your body, and crying is this release.
(26:40):
It also releases oxytocin, which is a feel good hormone,
and it just that's why you feel so good after
you cry.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
Wow. So interesting that even though crying feels sad, it
releases a happy hormone giving your body after afterwards. Yeah,
no idea that it does that. Yeah, okay, so we
do all these cry and why do you why do
people find it difficult to cry? Sometimes? I first like,
I really cry, Well, I haven't cried in years, Yeah,
and I can't relate, and I'm like, wow, what did that?
What does that feel like?
Speaker 2 (27:09):
Yeah? I had about like ten years where I couldn't lie. Wow,
which I was like, and I was much younger at
the time, and I was very worried that there was
something like quote unquote wrong with me, which if you're
experiencing this, there's nothing wrong with you. Just so you know,
it's a very normal protective response. But it does have
to do with that freeze response in your nervous system
(27:30):
where you're more shut down, so you're more emotionally numb,
and ultimately, your your body doesn't feel like it has
like the resources for emotional expression. It doesn't have the
capacity for emotional expression.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
It's like if I shed one tear, all of them,
all of the tiers can come out. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
Yeah, And for me when I experienced that, even like
when my grandma passed away, I was not crying and
I was like, what is wrong? What is going on?
Speaker 1 (27:57):
Yeah, it's hard. I remember my friend when someone passed
in her family. I went to her and I gave
her huggy. She said, don't hug me because I'm just
going to end up crying. Yeah. It's like, don't ask
me if I'm okay, otherwise I'm going to end up crying.
And so I think it's it's this feeling of I'm
not ready to release just yet. I don't need to
be comforted to. I want to protect myself. And then
when I'm ready and my body feels ready or my
(28:20):
mind feels ready, I'll release.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
Yeah. I think women too, like we don't give ourselves
enough credit for like how much we hold it down, right,
Like a lot of us have great careers and a
lot of us are kind of like the head of
the household, and we do hold it down. And I
think a lot of us are kind of operating in
this place where we're like forced into hyper independence in
a way, and it can be really hard to be
(28:44):
vulnerable in that state and cry in that state because
you're kind of concerned, like is everything going to fall
apart if I let myself cry. I'm personally a big
fan of crying in public.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
Yeah, cry on planes all the time?
Speaker 2 (29:01):
Yes, like you know, not for me, not like a
huge cry. But if I lived in New York for
a while and I would see people cry on the
subway all the time, yeah, and no one, no one.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
No one. Yeah, I'd be like walking around New York
loss like crying my eyes out, like so sad because
I just moved there and I was feeling a bit lonely,
like snotty and literally.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
Yes, yeah, totally fine, totally fine.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
That's oblivious.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
Yeah, that's where I learned that crying in public was
completely okay.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
I'd love to be going to relationships a little bit
because obviously when people have been through some sort of trauma,
especially sexual trauma, it were really difficult to trust again
trust their body in another relationship and create a connection.
Could you speak to that a little bit, or speak
to anybody who's been through that?
Speaker 2 (29:48):
Yeah, absolutely, I think there's an emotional component, and then
I also think that there's a physical component that we
don't always think about. So in terms of getting physically
intimate with someone again, your body can get kind of
stuck in like a bracing pattern. If you've experienced sexual trauma.
Sexual trauma. We don't really acknowledge this, but it's like
(30:09):
a capital T trauma. It is not a light trauma.
It's just so frequent and it happens to so many
women that we kind of just go on with our lives,
probably without enough healing after it. Not everyone, but for
me when I experienced it, like not enough healing right
after it. That can cause your body to get stuck
(30:31):
in this bracing pattern or in this holding pattern. You
might feel really hyper vigilant where you're like constantly scanning,
and so when you're in a relationship, it's really hard
to reconnect to feeling relaxed and intimacy you've been through that,
because even though mentally you know that this person is
a different person, I am consenting to this and I
(30:54):
want this to happen, it can your body can just
be kind of stuck in this place, like kind of
PTSD place or yeah, or like a stress physiology, and
I think that that for a lot of people is
the missing link in their healing and in their ability
to re establish that vulnerability and that connection with someone.
(31:16):
And then there's the emotional component where it just takes
longer to trust someone. You might need to move a
little bit slower, you might need to have more validation,
more assurance to be able to really feel like we're
partners and to fall in love again. You're just more
cautious and rightfully so of course, yeah, of course.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
How do people tell the difference between having just really
good chemistry with someone and being trauma bonded, Because I
feel like sometimes they can for some reason feel very
confusing or not knowing the difference.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
I would say the pacing of it is a really
good indicator. So if you like immediately share your whole
life story and you know you're instantly like connected, and
then the relationship moves really quickly, that is probably a
sign of a trauma bond, Whereas if you move more
(32:14):
gradually and like it takes a little bit more time
for some of that more vulnerable stuff to come out,
then it's generally a really healthy, solid foundation. I was
in a narcissistic marriage, got divorced, and I took a
year off of dating, and when I started dating again,
(32:35):
I asked my therapist for advice because I was like,
how much do I share about this? I don't want
to not share about it at all, but I also
don't want to like come off like, you know, date one,
date two, disclosing this information. And my therapist told me, like,
you don't have to talk about it right away, you know,
(32:56):
take your time and establish a connection first. And if
someone asks you about a past relationship that was really
difficult for you, you can say, I was in a
relationship that was difficult and I've learned a lot from it,
And that's a really great way of just introducing that
something may have happened and I've done some work afterwards
(33:17):
to be able to move on.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
That must have been so difficult. How long were you
in that relationship? Was it a long marriage that you
were in.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
We were married for three years, Okay? Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
Did it take quite a while and a lot of
healing afterwards to help you get into dating in another relationship?
Speaker 2 (33:34):
Yeah, it took. I took a full year off of
dating and then even finding a new partner took some time,
and my current partner and I have been together for
three and a half years. We just moved in together. Okay,
so it's been a very slow, steady build and she's
been very supportive of me and just has given me
(33:57):
a lot of space, which is like very attractive, so lovely.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
But also like taking it slow. It's just at least,
you know, it's like the steady pace and all of
that feels good to your nervous system after you've been
through something that's so intense, and so I feel like
that probably felt a lot safer and a lot more
manageable than getting too fast, too deep into something. Yeah,
you have your book When the Body Speaks. We've got
(34:21):
it up here right now. Tell us a little bit
about it, what brought you to write it, and what
can people expect from the book.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
Yeah, So Somatox has kind of historically been books about
somatics have historically been written by older men who are
researchers and doctors. So that the Body Keeps the Score
by doctor Bessel vai Ercolk. There's Waking This Tiger by
doctor Peter Levine. And both of these books are like
really important and seminal foundational for the field, and my
(34:53):
publisher really wanted me to write a book because they
kind of see me as the next chapter of somatics survivor.
I'm someone who's been through all of that, and I
do talk about my story more publicly, so they see
that it's very relatable. I'm a millennial woman, so they
kind of want this new face of somatics, how it
(35:18):
can be more relatable to modern culture.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
Yeah, what kind of things do you cover in your book?
Speaker 2 (35:22):
There's three parts. Part one is my story and how
I discovered somatics. Part two is ten of my students' stories,
and through their stories, we also illustrate the science of
how stress and trauma gets stored in your body and
nervous system dysregulation and hormonal imbalances that happen as a
(35:43):
result of that. And then part three are my favorite,
like little mini routines nice for sleep, gut issues, anger release,
stress release, and there are photos and explanations of the
exercises and parts.
Speaker 1 (35:59):
Amazing, really simple but so useful. Yeah, if there was
one thing you wanted people to take away from this
podcast about somatic healing, what would it be? What would
you want them to know.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
Your body isn't broken. It's just trying to protect you.
So if you're experiencing long term pain, or if you
can't sleep well, or if you feel constantly bloated, or
you have a random food allergy that you can't figure
out with the doctor, your body's not broken and you
won't stay stuck in that place. You just need to
(36:32):
find a way to get it back to its baseline
and get it out of its stress response.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
Yeah, so, I know sometimes when you're going through things,
it can feels so permanent, Yes, And to know that
things are temporary and that you can move through them.
It just sometimes you just need a little bit of hope,
Like you need someone to say that to you, Yeah,
to remind you that, Okay, this chronic pain, this hair
loss is, whatever it is, it's possible to heal as
possible for it, and it's not just through the conventional way.
(36:59):
Sometimes we get told no wrong so many you know,
people that you're told to trust, and then you realize
that there might be other pasts or other routes to
help heal that issue.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
Yeah. Absolutely, Thank you so much, Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
This is amazing. Thank you for all your wonderful tips
and everybody go grab when the body speaks. How somatic
healing sets you free.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
Thanks, thank you,
If there was one thing you wanted people to take
away from this podcast about sematic healing, what would it be?
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Your body isn't broken, it's just trying to protect you.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Liz Tanuto is a sematic practitioner and trauma educator, also
known online as the work Out, which her new Bookshares
has signature movement protocols and practical tools that help her
and her students cover from childhood abuse, domestic violence, and
chronic illness.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
I think for a long time, we've had this break
fixed mentality where it's like, my lower back hurts, it
must be the chair I'm sitting in. I'm going to
go buy a new chair. I was really trying all
these different things to just fix the pain. I didn't
realize it took me a long time to discover that
there was a whole emotional layer underneath it. You're really
just trying to reconnect your mind and body.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
And who do you think would benefit from sematic healing.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
I personally discovered it because I had gone through a
lot of trauma, and I had really bad insomnia and
had tried a lot of other modalities that weren't really
working for me. So a lot of people initially find
somatics from trauma or from like autoimmune conditions or some
sort of physical condition that they're having a really hard
(01:07):
time with.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
I'm Radivlukiah, and on my podcast A Really Good Cry,
we embrace the messy and the beautiful, providing a space
for raw, un fielded conversations that celebrate vulnerability and allow
you to tune in to learn, connect and find comfort together. Liz,
thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
I've been following your content for such a long time now,
and I was just saying this to you, but I
feel like I need to say it to everyone. The
way that you create your content and the way that
you share the work that you do in somatic healing,
it's so easily accessible. You make it feel so much
simpler than the way that you think it would be,
and you just find a way to make it digestible
and easy. So thank you so much for the work
(01:46):
that you do.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Thank you. I really appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
I wanted to just start off by asking you what
sematic healing is. I feel like we hear it, but
I don't know if the people really know the breakdown
of what it actually means.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Yeah, that's such a great question. Soma literally translates it's
the Greek word for a body, and somatic exercises are
these really tiny micro movements that you can do in
bed or on the floor that really stress out of
your body, release tension out of your body. Some of
them regulate your nervous systems, some of them release trauma
(02:18):
out of your body.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Okay, And so does it originate from? Where is the
origin of somatic heating from?
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Yeah? So I would say it's rooted in ancient cultures,
like ultimately, and then in the nineteen seventies, this guy
named Thomas Hannah used the word somatics for the first time. Okay,
but there was a lot of research before that in
terms of how emotions are connected to your physicality and
(02:46):
your muscle tension. That's kind of paved the way and
set the foundation for somatics. But as of the nineteen
seventies is really when the field was born, and a
lot of neuroscience research has been done to kind of
substantiate the science behind the mind, body and emotional connection.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
And who do you think would benefit from somatic healing?
Speaker 2 (03:12):
I would say anyone who feels stressed. Okay, I personally
discovered it because I had gone through a lot of
trauma and I had really bad insomnia and had tried
a lot of other modalities that weren't really working for me.
So a lot of people initially find somatics from trauma
or from like autoimmune conditions or some sort of physical
(03:36):
condition that they're having a really hard time with. Yeah,
but anyone who feels stressed out can benefit.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
What are some of the benefits that you have found
in doing it yourself and recognizing some of the patients
that you've helped and treated.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Deep restorative sleep, so you really get that restoration that
happens when you get a full night sleep, which is
kind of the foundation of a lot of your health.
I would say just being able to handle stress with
more ease without it taking you into overwhelm or taking
you into a shutdown state. So it kind of helps
(04:11):
you stay connected and stay grounded to yourself. And I
would just say like physical relaxation, like feeling like you're
not tense all the time, not feeling like you're not
feeling like you're clenching your job right right, not feeling
like you're clenching your body which just makes everything so
much more relaxing.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
Yeah, yeah, that sounds great. I feel like everyone needs that.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Now you mentioned how you came into this through trauma
that you'd been through. How did you find trauma showed
up in your physical body or that you've seen other people?
Where does it show up in the body? How does
it show up?
Speaker 2 (04:48):
How does it manifest There can be a lot of
different what I call like flavors of manifestations. For some
people it's sleep issues, for other people it's chronic pain.
Some people have unexplained issues. Gut issues are quite common,
stomach aches are quite common. And then you can also
have kind of unexplained physical pain that's not from an
(05:08):
injury or an accident that's just not really going away,
whether it's headaches or migraines, or if it's you know,
lower back pain that's not going away, or neck pain
neck tension that you can't really figure out.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Yeah. I we recently shared this on our page on
Instagram of the body map and where different emotions show up.
I just wondering if you share a little bit on that,
is there truth to it? And how do you wear
in the body do different emotions end up showing up.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Yeah, that's such a great study. So there are patterns
of different emotional responses that kind of get stored what
we call get stored in different parts of your body.
In the throat, it's very connected to like lack of
like not feeling like you have a voice. So perhaps
you've experienced some sort of injustice or you've been like
(05:58):
shut down over and over again and you feel like
you can't really speak up. Jaw tends to be like
your boundaries have been crossed. You're angry about something and
not in a bad way, like really valid anger. Hips
tend to be more like betrayal or trauma.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
So many different places in the body. Yeah, it's incredible, though.
It's incredible to see that emotion body connection. And sometimes
you don't realize it, like, oh, we're just exhausted and
we're tired, and we think about everything being on the
physical plane. It's like my foot's hurting because I've been
walking too much. But no, maybe it's walking. Maybe it's
hurting because I'm carrying too much load emotionally, And it's
(06:37):
difficult to remember that on a daily basis.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Yeah, it's really difficult to remember that. And I think
you know, I think for a long time we've had
this break fixed mentality where it's like, my lower back hurts,
it must be the chair I'm sitting in. Yeah, I'm
going to go buy a new chair, right exactly. And
then you're like, wait, the chair didn't fix it, which
is what I experienced with my own insomnia and my
own chronic pain for a while too. And I was
(07:02):
really trying all these different things to just fix the pain,
and then I didn't. I didn't realize. It took me
a long time to discover that there was a whole
emotional layer underneath it.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
What's the difference then, between sematic work or sematic work
and doing yoga yoga postures?
Speaker 2 (07:18):
Yeah, I would say there's different goals. So yoga, from
what I know about it is, you know, very rooted
in spirituality, and the postures are kind of and the
poses are kind of a way to deepen your spiritual connection,
deepen your connection to yourself. The postures work on a
(07:40):
muscular level, whereas somatics, there is no spiritual component to somatics.
It's really just about for me, it's about re establishing
a sense of agency in the body. So you have
this like choice of how you do the exercises. There's
no correct or incorrect way to do them, and you're
(08:00):
not really trying to go deeper necessarily. You're really just
trying to reconnect your mind and body so that neither
are feeling shut down or kind of dissociated.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
I remember when I studied, when I did my yoga
teach training, they talked about how breath is the anchor
between your mind and your body to bring you back
into presence. And from what I'm hearing, somatic healing sounds
like practices to bring you back into the present moment,
like to constantly bring your body and your mind back
into one place.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
What are some if people are doing trying to incorporate
sematic healing into their day. Are there three different types
of exercise you could share with us or movements that
you could share with us that are easiest to do?
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Yeah, so one? Do you want to do one together?
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (08:48):
Okay, great, we can stay sitting like this. We'll just
uncross our legs and then just move this slightly so
you can go ahead and take your right hand and
grab a hold of your right ear pretty firmly, and
if at any point your arm gets tired, just rest.
You want to have a nice firm pull on the ear,
and you're going to open and close your mouth a
couple times. It looks kind of strange, it's.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
Part of the good things do.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Yeah, it's part of the fun. And then we'll just
bring that to a rest for a moment. This is
a vagus nerve exercise, so it'll give you a little
more energy. And then the next step of this is
getting that same hold with your ear, so you're using
your right hand to grab firmly, pull up slightly, and
then in the laziest way possible, you're just going to
(09:32):
dip your ear a little right to left.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
Oh my, next tent.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
That's okay, And then you want to see how unclenched
can your job be as you do this? And then
how lazy can you be as you do this movement?
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Pretty wed is staying when moving the headside to side.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Yes, and then we'll just go ahead and rest for
a moment. And it takes like twenty to thirty seconds
to kind of feel the effect, but you might feel
like a little sprinkly feeling on the right side of
your and it should make you feel slightly more energized. Okay,
and so then you know, if we were doing this
(10:06):
in a class format, we would repeat it on the
same the other side, which we can do after we finish. Yeah, yeah, together.
But that's one quick exercise that you can do. I
do that before meetings all the time.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Amazing. You mentioned the vegus nerve. Yeah, tell us a
little bit about the vegus nerve and how it impacts us.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Yeah, it's the longest cranial nerve in your body. It
runs from the base of your brainstem all the way
down into your stomach. If your vegas nerve is kind
of shut down, you'll feel like emotionally numb. You'll have
a hard time getting out of bed. You'll feel really
low energy, your limbs will feel heavy, you may not
be able to cry, you may be like responding to
(10:47):
people with one word answers, kind of like after you
finish all your tasks, you may just like kind of
collapse and watch Netflix or just like be so tired.
So the vegus nerve really, when you restimulate vegas nerve,
it really helps bring you back into your baseline. It
really helps regulate your nervous system and give you more energy.
(11:08):
And you can normally do that if you practice for
like ten minutes a day, you can normally restimulate your
vegus nerve and like fifteen to thirty days.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Oh wow, yeah, so that was an exercise for that.
Are there any is the breath work involved in somatic
healing as well?
Speaker 2 (11:23):
There can be breath work involved in somatic healing. There
are different schools of somatics. I personally don't teach breath work,
but there are there can be breathwork involved.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
I know sometimes I've seen online when I'm watching people
do somatic healing, and obviously there's small clips, but sometimes
it can be quite aggressive and it can look a
little bit scary. Talk me through the movements that's you know,
it almost looks like involuntary bodily movements that people are
having or the type of energetic experiences that look like
they're unexplainable.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
Yeah. Yeah. So there is a thing called a neurogenic
which is like this involuntary shaking that can happen in
your body. And essentially, if you've ever been in like
a really scary situation, you may have noticed that your
body shakes. And for a lot of people, we have
this cognitive override where we can like subconsciously stop the
(12:16):
shaking because we don't want to look bizarre, like, especially
in public, if you're really scared, you don't want to
be shaking. But the shaking actually finalizes your biological stress response.
So dogs, after they get scared, they'll shake their body right,
and animals do this, and that's why doctor Peter Levine
(12:36):
talks about like he's one of the founders of somatics.
He talks about how animals don't get PTSD, and part
of this theory has to do with the neurogenic genic tremor.
So there are exercises that you can do it within
somatics that gently recreate this neurogenic tremor in your body.
So you'll do an exercise and you'll start to shake.
(12:58):
Oftentimes when that happens, you'll also start to cry and
you get like this big release emotionally and physically. You've
finalized your biological stress response, and then you're no longer
really stuck in that stress physiology in the same way,
but with somatics, I always kind of advise people like,
you don't want to have like a super intense cathartic
(13:20):
experiment the release itself can be kind of intense and
cathartic for some people, but if someone's guiding you into
it in a really intense cathartic way, that's not the best, right, Okay, Yeah,
so you want to kind of work incrementally. For me,
I don't even talk to people about the release until
like eighteen sessions in. Yeah, so you kind of want
(13:43):
to make sure that you've released habitual tension out of
your body, that you feel safe again in your body
before you start to take it into this big release moment.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
So there are all these there are different exercises to
stimulate or release different parts in your body. And so
would you normally what would a session look like, could
go through head to toe, or you'd focus on specific areas.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
I kind of focus on first. I start with these
really gentle rocking exercises, bilateral stimulation, different ways of releasing
habitual tension out of different body parts. I personally start
with the hips because it's kind of the main center
of movement and it's also one of the strongest parts
(14:24):
of your body. So rather than starting with some more
like the neck that's really tender and people can kind
of injure themselves, you want to start with the strongest
part of the body and start there so that people
stay safe. Then I normally go into the jaw and
do some jaw releasing. And the jaw and the hips
are connected through your fascia, so that's quite nice. Like
(14:46):
normally if people have tight hips, they also have a
clenched jaw.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Oh interesting, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
They kind of go hand in hand, and those are
kind of the two first responders to stress in your body.
You're so as muscle will clench up, which is a
muscle that runs from your diaphragm into your greater trocanter
which is near your groin, and then your jaw will
also clench and this is just part of your fight
or flight response.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Yeah. So I start with those two parts of the
body release ten, and then I start releasing tension in
the shoulders as well, and then I start moving into
more releasing exercises. So I do like a soas release,
and we do a stress release and a trauma release.
And then at the end of the journey that I
teach is more integration, so that you're not just like
(15:35):
leaving people after this big release early moment that we're
reintegrating it so that you know, everything's kind of complete.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
Are they? Is it something that I recommend people do
every single day.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
I do them about six days a week. Yeah, and
I only do like five minutes sometimes ten per day,
depending on what I'm doing. For example, in the car
on the way here, I was doing a couple exercises
to just relax and you know, not feel anxious totally. Yeah,
and it depends, you know, for people if you've gone
through more in your life or you are currently living
(16:09):
in a really stressful phase of life. They're so great
to do every day. Other people who want to just
like have this experience of reconnecting to their body and
regulating their nervous system can do them for a shorter
amount of time, like like thirty to sixty day journey
and then you know, just use as needed.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Are there certain types of movements that we do, you know,
whether it's workouts or yeah, the types of workouts that
we do that can negatively impact our nervous system or
you know, because you think movement is movement and it's
always good for you, but are there certain types of
movement that you wouldn't recommend for someone who's feeling quite anxious?
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Yeah? I would say high and super high intensity exercise
atally caring that. Yeah, if you're already stressed, and you're
already disregulated, or you feel constant anxiety or constant overwhelmed,
you're really just introducing another stressor into your life. So
you want to do low to mid intensity exercise if
(17:13):
you feel that way. And it's not that you can't
ever get to the place of doing high intensity exercise.
You just want to work your body incrementally and slowly
to get there. So some people that I would coach
would like be like I went to a hit class
after not working out for COVID, Like they didn't work
(17:34):
out the whole pandemic and then they went back to
a HIT class and they're like and then I got injured,
And I'm like, right, because you just threw your well
intentioned They just threw their body into this really intense experience.
But you can't get there. You just want to start.
It's like Goldilock, you know, like you want to start
in the middle and then or you know, low intensity
(17:56):
and then work your way.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Yeah, when you were going through healing your own trauma
that you'd been through, were there any other supportive therapies
or treatments that you had done that also helped in
your journey. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
Absolutely. I love emdr Okay, which also uses bilateral stimulation,
mostly with your eyes. It can sometimes be done with sound.
It's another bottom up regulation tool, bottom up processing tool
for trauma. Talk therapy is considered a top down processing
tool for trauma. I also really love talk therapy. It
(18:33):
took me a little while to find the exact type
that worked the best for me, But for me IFS,
which stands for Internal Family Systems, Yes, has been really amazing.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
I had Gabbie Bernstein on the podcast and she recently
wrote a book on internal family systems, and it was
so amazing because she said she actually didn't realize that
she had a specific trauma until a few years ago,
where she did it internal family system and she realized
that she'd been abused when she was younger, and she
had no idea, and it unlocked a part of her
(19:07):
that she had obviously suppressed or kind of put aside.
But I've heard that it can be such a powerful tool.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Yeah, it's incredibly powerful, and I think it's a lot
more effective for people who've experienced trauma than other types
like cognitive behavioral therapy, and a lot of people who've
experienced really intense trauma when they're younger get kind of
a dissociative amnesia because it's essentially it's too much to process,
(19:35):
so you just kind of shut down and you can't
remember it until you get your body to the place
that you feel safe enough.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
Is that disassociation? Oh yeah, yeah, I feel like that's
a common symptom. Well, I don't even know call it
a symptom, but a common response to trauma. And I
guess could you explain that a little bit why that happens.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
Yeah, absolutely, When your a nervous system gets too overwhelmed
into a protective response called freeze. Some people experience it
as functional freeze, or you can go into like a
full shutdown, so there's a spectrum. Functional freeze is when
you can still get all of your tasks done during
the day. You might even be really successful at work
(20:18):
with your family, but then when you come home at
night you just crash and collapse. And then freeze is
a little bit more extreme, where you're like can barely
get out of bed, and then full shut down is
almost like catatonic, where you are not talking anymore, you're
barely eating. And those are different levels of severity of
the freeze response. But ultimately, when you experience the freeze response,
(20:44):
your body turns off and your brain turns off the
non essential functions. So that's part of the reason why
people will get gut issues, because for some reason, your
body doesn't think that it needs its gut to survive.
This is very evolution. Nervous systems are very old, yeah,
and haven't quite cut up to modern society yet. But
(21:06):
also you will lose some ability to remember, yes, and
it's just protective.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Yeah, of course.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
Your mind kind of like just boxes things up and
puts them aside so you don't have to deal with them.
What happens to the nervous system during panic attacks because
that kind of feels like the opposite of dissociation, where
you're really just feeling everything in your body totally.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
Panic attacks are like sympathetic activation of the nervous system,
which is like your nervous system can go off, which
would be like this shut down state, and then it
can get kind of stuck in on which is more
like fight flight, okay, And the panic attack is essentially
like a really extreme version of that sympathetic activation where
(21:49):
you get so activated that your body has to discharge
some energy, and that's where the panic attack comes in.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
Are there any simple somatic tools that people can use
if they're experiencing a panic attack.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
During the panic attack itself, get low to the ground
and as slow of a way as you can, and
place your hand on your body, just in any way
to ground yourself, hand on heart if you can, and
just stay there for a moment after the panic attack.
When you feel more safer, once you've gotten home, you
(22:23):
can lay in bed on your stomach and place your hands,
stack your hands on top of each other, make a
diamond with your arms and place your forehead on the
top of your hands, and you can take your hips
right left in like this gentle even rhythm, kind of
medium speed. This is part of bilateral stimulation. It'll help
(22:45):
bring your body back into a more regulated state. But
I would suggest after a panic attack doing that hip
blocking for like a minute before you go to bed.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
They feel like really manageable tools to be able to incorporate. Yeah,
what are the things that you think people are doing
every single day that's causing like minded dysregulation? Like in
an average person. What are the things that we're doing
in our day that you're like, we need to do
less of that?
Speaker 2 (23:08):
Not going outside?
Speaker 1 (23:10):
Yes, so true.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
The big one. Not moving at all is another big one,
And I get I get that the reason why it's happening.
You know, we're all a lot more tech based now.
Our lifestyles have changed a lot, even with AI. Our
life has changed a lot in the last couple of years,
and everything's getting more tech dependent. But I think as
(23:34):
we're doing that, we can't stop our bodies from moving
because not moving just has this domino effect on your health.
You know, the phone can be problematic, but I feel
like it's so far gone already, Like.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
How many more times can we tell people people find out?
Speaker 2 (23:52):
Yeah, like I can't. I can't in good confidence tell
people to put their phone down because I just feel
like it's part of our life style now. But we
can do things, like, you know, anything that's more sensual,
where if you're cooking, like that's a really great way
of like experiencing your senses. If you're going outside, you're
(24:14):
like smelling the sounds, you're hearing the birds, you're feeling
the sun on your skin. Movement is also this great
way of connecting to your senses so and connecting to
how you feel on the inside.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
Yeah, I like that that tip of connecting back to
your senses because I feel like those are the things
that can bring you back into the present moment. And
that's really what you're trying to do, right You're trying
to constantly bring yourself back, bring yourself back. If you've
been on your phone, try and connect back to your senses,
if you've your mind's wondering, if you feel anxious, just
do something, smell something, please, something that brings you back
(24:47):
into this present moment. And the more moments you can
have throughout the day, even if you've had a lot
of moments where you feel like you've not been present
in your body at least these are the little anchors
that bring you back in. Yeah, I think those are
really import And Yeah, I have a racing mind often,
so I use breath work a lot for my resets
throughout the day. Do you have like a thing that
(25:09):
you do as like a two minute nervous system reset
to just get you back into focus. Is breathwork involved
in in that practice?
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Or I don't really do that much breath work I'm
really focused on movement, and I have nothing against work,
but I do this little tapping.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
I was gonna ask, Yeah, this just.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
On my thighs. Or you can cross your arms, cross
your wrists over your chest and tap right left and
I do it for like about a minute, medium pressure,
medium pace, And that is bilateral stimulation, which helps me reset.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
I love tapping, like yeah, it helps to remind you
that you're in your body, yes, Like yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
Because we sometimes just kind of like leave our bodies
for a moment exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
So obviously this is called a really good cry. And
you mentioned that you love crying.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
I love crying.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
Give me the load, give me the breakdown of Like
why is crying so therapeutic? Because honestly, sometimes I will
be feeling so heavy, whether it's energetically physically, my head's hurting,
and as soon as I cry, I'm like brand new. Yeah,
taught me through that a little bit.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
Absolutely. So crying is a reset for your nervous system.
So if you're crying from an emotional reason, it brings
you back into regulation. Essentially, what can happen for people
is you get that sympathetic activation where your the stress
is building up in your body, and crying is this release.
(26:40):
It also releases oxytocin, which is a feel good hormone,
and it just that's why you feel so good after
you cry.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
Wow. So interesting that even though crying feels sad, it
releases a happy hormone giving your body after afterwards. Yeah,
no idea that it does that. Yeah, okay, so we
do all these cry and why do you why do
people find it difficult to cry? Sometimes? I first like,
I really cry, Well, I haven't cried in years, Yeah,
and I can't relate, and I'm like, wow, what did that?
What does that feel like?
Speaker 2 (27:09):
Yeah? I had about like ten years where I couldn't lie. Wow,
which I was like, and I was much younger at
the time, and I was very worried that there was
something like quote unquote wrong with me, which if you're
experiencing this, there's nothing wrong with you. Just so you know,
it's a very normal protective response. But it does have
to do with that freeze response in your nervous system
(27:30):
where you're more shut down, so you're more emotionally numb,
and ultimately, your your body doesn't feel like it has
like the resources for emotional expression. It doesn't have the
capacity for emotional expression.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
It's like if I shed one tear, all of them,
all of the tiers can come out. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
Yeah, And for me when I experienced that, even like
when my grandma passed away, I was not crying and
I was like, what is wrong? What is going on?
Speaker 1 (27:57):
Yeah, it's hard. I remember my friend when someone passed
in her family. I went to her and I gave
her huggy. She said, don't hug me because I'm just
going to end up crying. Yeah. It's like, don't ask
me if I'm okay, otherwise I'm going to end up crying.
And so I think it's it's this feeling of I'm
not ready to release just yet. I don't need to
be comforted to. I want to protect myself. And then
when I'm ready and my body feels ready or my
(28:20):
mind feels ready, I'll release.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
Yeah. I think women too, like we don't give ourselves
enough credit for like how much we hold it down, right,
Like a lot of us have great careers and a
lot of us are kind of like the head of
the household, and we do hold it down. And I
think a lot of us are kind of operating in
this place where we're like forced into hyper independence in
a way, and it can be really hard to be
(28:44):
vulnerable in that state and cry in that state because
you're kind of concerned, like is everything going to fall
apart if I let myself cry. I'm personally a big
fan of crying in public.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
Yeah, cry on planes all the time?
Speaker 2 (29:01):
Yes, like you know, not for me, not like a
huge cry. But if I lived in New York for
a while and I would see people cry on the
subway all the time, yeah, and no one, no one.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
No one. Yeah, I'd be like walking around New York
loss like crying my eyes out, like so sad because
I just moved there and I was feeling a bit lonely,
like snotty and literally.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
Yes, yeah, totally fine, totally fine.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
That's oblivious.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
Yeah, that's where I learned that crying in public was
completely okay.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
I'd love to be going to relationships a little bit
because obviously when people have been through some sort of trauma,
especially sexual trauma, it were really difficult to trust again
trust their body in another relationship and create a connection.
Could you speak to that a little bit, or speak
to anybody who's been through that?
Speaker 2 (29:48):
Yeah, absolutely, I think there's an emotional component, and then
I also think that there's a physical component that we
don't always think about. So in terms of getting physically
intimate with someone again, your body can get kind of
stuck in like a bracing pattern. If you've experienced sexual trauma.
Sexual trauma. We don't really acknowledge this, but it's like
(30:09):
a capital T trauma. It is not a light trauma.
It's just so frequent and it happens to so many
women that we kind of just go on with our lives,
probably without enough healing after it. Not everyone, but for
me when I experienced it, like not enough healing right
after it. That can cause your body to get stuck
(30:31):
in this bracing pattern or in this holding pattern. You
might feel really hyper vigilant where you're like constantly scanning,
and so when you're in a relationship, it's really hard
to reconnect to feeling relaxed and intimacy you've been through that,
because even though mentally you know that this person is
a different person, I am consenting to this and I
(30:54):
want this to happen, it can your body can just
be kind of stuck in this place, like kind of
PTSD place or yeah, or like a stress physiology, and
I think that that for a lot of people is
the missing link in their healing and in their ability
to re establish that vulnerability and that connection with someone.
(31:16):
And then there's the emotional component where it just takes
longer to trust someone. You might need to move a
little bit slower, you might need to have more validation,
more assurance to be able to really feel like we're
partners and to fall in love again. You're just more
cautious and rightfully so of course, yeah, of course.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
How do people tell the difference between having just really
good chemistry with someone and being trauma bonded, Because I
feel like sometimes they can for some reason feel very
confusing or not knowing the difference.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
I would say the pacing of it is a really
good indicator. So if you like immediately share your whole
life story and you know you're instantly like connected, and
then the relationship moves really quickly, that is probably a
sign of a trauma bond, Whereas if you move more
(32:14):
gradually and like it takes a little bit more time
for some of that more vulnerable stuff to come out,
then it's generally a really healthy, solid foundation. I was
in a narcissistic marriage, got divorced, and I took a
year off of dating, and when I started dating again,
(32:35):
I asked my therapist for advice because I was like,
how much do I share about this? I don't want
to not share about it at all, but I also
don't want to like come off like, you know, date one,
date two, disclosing this information. And my therapist told me, like,
you don't have to talk about it right away, you know,
(32:56):
take your time and establish a connection first. And if
someone asks you about a past relationship that was really
difficult for you, you can say, I was in a
relationship that was difficult and I've learned a lot from it,
And that's a really great way of just introducing that
something may have happened and I've done some work afterwards
(33:17):
to be able to move on.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
That must have been so difficult. How long were you
in that relationship? Was it a long marriage that you
were in.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
We were married for three years, Okay? Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
Did it take quite a while and a lot of
healing afterwards to help you get into dating in another relationship?
Speaker 2 (33:34):
Yeah, it took. I took a full year off of
dating and then even finding a new partner took some time,
and my current partner and I have been together for
three and a half years. We just moved in together. Okay,
so it's been a very slow, steady build and she's
been very supportive of me and just has given me
(33:57):
a lot of space, which is like very attractive, so lovely.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
But also like taking it slow. It's just at least,
you know, it's like the steady pace and all of
that feels good to your nervous system after you've been
through something that's so intense, and so I feel like
that probably felt a lot safer and a lot more
manageable than getting too fast, too deep into something. Yeah,
you have your book When the Body Speaks. We've got
(34:21):
it up here right now. Tell us a little bit
about it, what brought you to write it, and what
can people expect from the book.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
Yeah, So Somatox has kind of historically been books about
somatics have historically been written by older men who are
researchers and doctors. So that the Body Keeps the Score
by doctor Bessel vai Ercolk. There's Waking This Tiger by
doctor Peter Levine. And both of these books are like
really important and seminal foundational for the field, and my
(34:53):
publisher really wanted me to write a book because they
kind of see me as the next chapter of somatics survivor.
I'm someone who's been through all of that, and I
do talk about my story more publicly, so they see
that it's very relatable. I'm a millennial woman, so they
kind of want this new face of somatics, how it
(35:18):
can be more relatable to modern culture.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
Yeah, what kind of things do you cover in your book?
Speaker 2 (35:22):
There's three parts. Part one is my story and how
I discovered somatics. Part two is ten of my students' stories,
and through their stories, we also illustrate the science of
how stress and trauma gets stored in your body and
nervous system dysregulation and hormonal imbalances that happen as a
(35:43):
result of that. And then part three are my favorite,
like little mini routines nice for sleep, gut issues, anger release,
stress release, and there are photos and explanations of the
exercises and parts.
Speaker 1 (35:59):
Amazing, really simple but so useful. Yeah, if there was
one thing you wanted people to take away from this
podcast about somatic healing, what would it be? What would
you want them to know.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
Your body isn't broken. It's just trying to protect you.
So if you're experiencing long term pain, or if you
can't sleep well, or if you feel constantly bloated, or
you have a random food allergy that you can't figure
out with the doctor, your body's not broken and you
won't stay stuck in that place. You just need to
(36:32):
find a way to get it back to its baseline
and get it out of its stress response.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
Yeah, so, I know sometimes when you're going through things,
it can feels so permanent, Yes, And to know that
things are temporary and that you can move through them.
It just sometimes you just need a little bit of hope,
Like you need someone to say that to you, Yeah,
to remind you that, Okay, this chronic pain, this hair
loss is, whatever it is, it's possible to heal as
possible for it, and it's not just through the conventional way.
(36:59):
Sometimes we get told no wrong so many you know,
people that you're told to trust, and then you realize
that there might be other pasts or other routes to
help heal that issue.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
Yeah. Absolutely, Thank you so much, Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
This is amazing. Thank you for all your wonderful tips
and everybody go grab when the body speaks. How somatic
healing sets you free.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
Thanks, thank you,
Host
Radhi Devlukia
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