What Is Somatic Healing?(and why it might be the missing piece on your journey)
- Laura Starky
- Aug 16
- 5 min read
Updated: Nov 13
"Held within the symptoms of trauma are the very energies, potential and resources necessary for their constructive transformation" Peter Levine
Have you ever felt like you were doing all the right things like reading all the books, body work, trying to meditate, maybe even going to therapy, but still felt stuck, anxious or numb?
That was me once, too. I spent years trying to fix myself from the neck up, thinking insight alone would set me free. But the truth is, deep healing doesn’t just happen in the mind, it happens in the body.
What is somatic healing?
Somatic healing is a gentle, body-based approach to emotional wellbeing. It recognises that
our bodies hold the imprints of stress, trauma and life experiences often in ways we’re not
even conscious of. Through practices like grounding, breathwork, active imagination,
movement and body-based inquiry, somatic healing helps us come home to ourselves.
It’s not about pushing through or "fixing" - it’s about listening.
Where talk therapy helps you understand your patterns, somatic work helps you feel them,
shift them and safely integrate them through the wisdom of your nervous system.
This process invites you into a more embodied way of being where healing unfolds through
presence, not pressure. It’s a holistic and integrative path that includes the language of
sensation, the safety of slowness and the subtle recalibration of your whole system. Somatic
healing invites not only the body but also the emotions, intuition and even the
meaning-making mind into a dynamic and compassionate dialogue.
In my approach, we honour all parts of your experience, the part of you that wants to understand, the part that resists, the part that’s afraid and the part that already knows. Each
part has wisdom. The goal isn’t to override your thoughts or emotions but to include them,
gently, within the wider landscape of embodied awareness.
In this way, somatic healing becomes a bridge between your head and your heart, between
past survival strategies and present-day choices, between knowing something and truly
living it.
Why the body matters in healing
Trauma and stress don’t just live in our memories, they live in our muscles, the fascia, our
breath, our posture, our digestion, our sleep. When the body doesn’t feel safe, it’s hard to
truly rest, connect or trust ourselves.
Somatic healing helps you to….
● Reconnect with your body’s cues
● Identify patterns of tension, freeze or overwhelm
● Gently expand your capacity to feel, without getting stuck in the overwhelm
It’s less about rehashing the past and more about resourcing the present so you can respond to life rather than react from old survival strategies.
Although I came to this work through yoga, mental health and years of working in and
dealing with my own addiction, for a long time I too lived with a kind of disconnection not
from the idea of the body, but from its inner world.
We live in a society obsessed with appearances, fitness and performance yet strangely cut off from the actual felt sense of our bodies. The subtle layers of sensation, intuition, memory and emotion that our bodies offer to guide us often go unnoticed, ignored or pathologised.
Somatic healing is a way back into that felt inner landscape. It invites us to slow down and listen. To follow the small stirrings of life inside. Over time, the body softens. Patterns begin to shift and what once felt like numbness or chaos can transform into insight, presence and trust.
Chronic Stress, Trauma and Nervous System Dysregulation
Sometimes there isn’t one single traumatic event, but a build-up of stress that leaves the body overwhelmed.
When the nervous system can’t complete its stress cycle, it gets stuck in defence mode-leading to anxiety, panic, shame, depression or numbness. Even when we know we’re safe, the body may still be bracing for threat.
Somatic healing helps the body discharge unfinished stress responses and gently return to balance. As the nervous system finds regulation, symptoms soften and space opens for presence, clarity and empowerment.
Beyond Labels: Reclaiming Your Humanity
After nearly two decades in mental health, I’ve seen how quickly people internalise labels like anxiety, depression or disorder until they believe those words define them.
While diagnosis can bring clarity, it can also become a fixed identity. What we often call “mental health problems” are, in many cases, the body’s attempts to adapt to an unsafe world. Anxiety is vigilance. Depression is conservation. Disconnection is protection.
When we understand our struggles not as defects but as intelligent adaptations, dignity returns. Somatic therapy invites us out of pathology and into possibility.
Signs You Might Benefit from Somatic Healing
You don’t need “big trauma” to find this work helpful. Many people I work with feel:
Constantly in their heads, overthinking or analysing
Anxious, frozen or emotionally numb
Disconnected from their body or intuition
Stuck in people-pleasing or burnout cycles
Sober or in recovery but still ungrounded
Overwhelmed by emotions or unable to set boundaries
These are often signs that your nervous system is doing its best to protect you, using old survival patterns.
What Happens in a Somatic Therapy Session?
No two sessions are ever the same. Each one is a co-creation guided by what feels safe, supportive and meaningful for your system in the moment.
A session may include:
Breath awareness and grounding
Intuitive movement or body-based inquiry
Tracking sensations and emotions with curiosity
Exploring inner dialogue, beliefs or memories that arise
Nervous system education so you can recognise your own patterns
We go slowly. Nothing is pushed or forced. Consent and co-regulation are at the heart of this work.
Listening to the Body’s Language
Somatic therapy is not about fixing - it’s about listening.
When we slow down, we begin to notice the subtle language of the body: where energy flows, where it holds, what wants to soften, what longs to be felt. Sometimes this shows up as a shift in tension, sometimes as tears, sometimes as a deep quiet inside.
This space of curiosity of not-knowing, is fertile ground for transformation.
The Gifts of Somatic Healing
When you start to feel safe in your body, everything changes.
Emotions move through rather than get stuck
You can set boundaries without guilt
You reconnect with intuition and inner guidance
You feel calmer, clearer and more present
You begin to rest and find stillness without exhaustion
Pleasure and aliveness return, even in small moments
This is the quiet power of nervous system healing - available one breath at a time.
A Gentle Path Forward
You don’t need more willpower or mindset tricks. You need safety, presence and space to feel. Somatic therapy offers that - a path back to your body, your truth and your quiet, powerful knowing.
If this resonates, you’re welcome to book a call with me to explore how this work might support you.
