Part 2: Coming Home to the Body: How Somatic Therapy Supports Trauma Healing

Because trauma lives in the body, healing must include the body.

That’s why somatic therapies—like Somatic Experiencing, EMDR, sensorimotor psychotherapy, and polyvagal-informed work—are so powerful. They help us speak the language of the nervous system: breath, posture, sensation, movement, and felt experience.

Sometimes trauma shows up as:

– Dissociation

– Numbness

– Inability to feel parts of the body

– Shallow breath

– Trembling

– Overwhelming urge to run or shut down

Somatic therapy doesn’t force us to relive trauma. It invites us to renegotiate it.

A foundational step in somatic work is starting outside the body. Clients are guided to orient to their surroundings—to find something in their space that feels pleasant or neutral. This is paired with resourcing, the practice of identifying internal or external experiences that create a sense of safety or steadiness.

When the body begins to trust again, we slowly return inward. Pendulation is the process of moving gently between activation and calm, between intensity and ease. This rhythm mimics nature itself—the way our hearts contract and expand, the way breath rises and falls.

The nervous system doesn’t heal through force or insight. It heals through rhythm, safety, and connection.

At the Integrative Trauma Collective, we never ask, “What’s wrong with you?” We ask, “What happened?” Most trauma responses began as brilliant adaptations in an unsafe world. Protective strategies that worked in childhood—like fawning or freezing—can become maladaptive in adulthood. But they were never flaws. They were survival.

Healing asks us to re-teach the body what safe feels like. And that takes time.

Through imagery, grounding, and movement, we help clients restore their capacity to stay present—not to push through pain, but to reclaim choice. Even one breath, one moment of connection, can begin to shift lifelong patterns.

Co-Regulation: Healing Together

Trauma often happens in relationships—and so does healing. That’s why co-regulation is central to our work. When we sit with someone who is calm, present, and attuned, our nervous system begins to mirror that steadiness.

This is the quiet miracle of therapy. Not just what is said, but what is felt:

– A warm tone of voice

– Steady breath

– Gentle pacing

– Attuned presence

Outside therapy, co-regulation might look like:

– Sitting in silence with a trusted friend

– Holding a cup of tea while someone you love makes dinner

– Feeling the rise and fall of your pet’s breath against you

These moments are not trivial. They’re reparative. They remind us that connection can be nourishing, not dangerous.

You Are Not a Diagnosis

Your trauma responses are not character flaws. They are evidence that your body did everything it could to keep you alive.

Healing doesn’t ask you to become someone new. It asks you to remember who you were before the world taught you to disconnect.

You don’t have to force it. You don’t have to perform it. You just have to be with it—one breath at a time.

And your body, even now, still holds that memory.

Written by: Dr. Nick Monzon, Psy.D, SEP