Somatic Experiencing Training

By Simone Bell, former Cowichan Hospice Grief Services Coordinator

Originally published July 29th, 2021

Hello all,

I’ve been at Cowichan Hospice for just over a month now and I very much appreciate how welcoming everyone has been. I feel blessed to be part of such a vibrant team of staff and volunteers! When I’ve had more time to settle, I will introduce myself. For now, part of what I’m looking forward to sharing with our team is the helpful learnings from my Somatic Experiencing training. Here are some preliminary thoughts.

It’s so easy to forget we are mammals, that we will do the things mammals do: that our physical responses are mammal reactions, and when we come up against threat, we do not always choose our reactions. We have highly evolved nervous systems working hard to protect us from any threat or pain – whether perceived or real.

But in our Western culture, we might judge our physical reactions, our natural responses and what’s happening in our bodies. I invite curiosity to notice when we have a human/mammal reaction of activation, that we be curious about our body experience from a compassionate place.

For example, if I’m activated, perhaps feeling jittery and agitated, I may ask myself, “What’s going on for me right now? What is my nervous system trying to protect me from?” This process of getting to know ourselves and accepting our reactions is so valuable when we are doing the important, delicate work of supporting our clients in their grief.

With our clients, what’s happening in their own bodies in the midst of their grief? With loss – especially unexpected loss – the nervous system is working constantly to adapt and re-navigate to a world with now unfamiliar internal landmarks, ones that are forever changed. It’s like going to the same grocery store we’ve always gone to and now we can’t remember how to get there. Every time we head there, we experience confusion and frustration combined with the effort of having to find a new way. Losses require us to re-wire how we experience the world, and it takes time for our biology to create new neural networks for the changed “geography” of our lives.

Some normal body experiences during grief are:

• Fatigue

• Agitation

• Constriction, tightness in areas of the body depending on what fears one is having (e.g., jaw, neck, shoulders, hip area)

• Trouble sleeping, perhaps due to no longer feeling safe

• Lack of appetite

• Trouble thinking, with memory and making decisions

If there is traumatic loss, the natural ways our nervous system heals by releasing stress are:

• Trembling

• Shaking

• Tears

• Temperature change (cold, chills or warm flush)

• Withdrawing and collapsing

• Tightening, clenching and preparing to fight, pushing something/someone away

• Fidgeting, nervousness and turning away, hiding

Other mammals don’t judge themselves or try to stop any of these body reactions. A dog doesn’t admonish itself for trembling after being attacked by another dog. But in our Western culture, we may get in the way of our nervous system’s natural way of releasing a bit of trauma charge, thereby inadvertently holding onto trauma longer than we might if we could allow our nervous system to do what it naturally does.

This brings to my mind Indigenous cultures and their inherent wisdom of using drumming, chanting, humming to sooth trauma impact.

So, I invite curiosity about our own and others’ somatic experience as we work together to support our clients.