Why “Healing Trauma” Takes Time

"The wound is where the Light enters you." — Rumi

In the past few years, I have noticed a trend in clients coming to see me for somatic-based therapies. It was probably always there, but I really became aware of it recently. On treatment forms and in the first session I often read or heard, I want to release the trauma from my body.

We all want this. Why? Because we feel dysregulation and stress in our body. It doesn’t feel good, not at all. It feels like something is stuck and we can’t get it out. We know something wants and needs to shift but we just can’t reach it. And it can inform and create a myriad of “symptoms” for us: insomnia, anxiety, depression, autoimmune conditions, to name a common few.

This is why after years of talk therapy, people come to see me. “Somatic therapy/healing” was recommended to them, or they saw something like somatic release on social media. They want the thing to happen to release everything from their body. They want to feel themselves again, and completely whole and clear. They want to feel different.

As a human being with a body and nervous system myself, I completely understand this. To feel dis-ease in the body and mind is suffering. This is how we suffer as human beings. We are bound inside a body and we feel things. To feel strange and troubling sensations and impulses moving through our system can bring up terror, hopelessness, loss of control and desperation.

Trauma Release Through the Somatic Lens

Flashback to 2018. I had a client that completely changed the trajectory of my career. I was performing a CranioSacral and energy work treatment with her, and she experienced this massage opening of trauma in her body that wouldn’t “shut down”. At that time, I had no awareness or training in how to deal with trauma. It triggered me to learn more, which lead me into the Somatic Experiencing® (SE®) training, Peter Levine’s work in treating trauma that lives in the body.

I remember my first SE® teacher Berns Galloway used to say, we don’t call it trauma release, we more accurately might call it discharge. But even then, he didn’t 100% like the word discharge either. On one level I understood this, and on another I didn’t. Isn’t that what we are going for? To release or discharge all the built-up trauma and stress in the body? Kind of like a reset button being pressed, and we are back to our old selves?

After a few years of practice, experience, and observation, I believe I more accurately understand what Berns was telling us. You don’t really release trauma from the body. You help the client bring in resourcing, safety and stability … something they didn’t have at the time … and then the thing to correct the imbalance can potentially happen.

But, not all at once or in a giant “reset” button. This only happens slowly, over time.

Slowing Right Down

In our face paced I want it now and immediate gratification world, this does not go over well. I had a client who had a powerful yet subtle reconnection with her emotions in the first session tell me it wasn’t enough, and never returned after the second session. What clients want and what they can handle or have patience for, are two very different things.

I understand it. It comes from pain and suffering. Like I reflected before, when we have lived with a war in our bodies for a long period of time, we just want it gone. Once and for all. We want to feel light, happy and at ease. When this does not happen right away, we give up.

So, following this thread, the best way to process “trauma” is to first go after what we call the resource. What makes us feel lighter, even 2% lighter? As we look around our immediate environment, what feels most safe? Who is that person we feel at ease with? These are the doorways to allow the nervous system an opportunity to be with stability and allow the discharge of what is stuck to happen. Bit by bit.

If we don’t have a sense of stability (even a tiny one) first, we can’t expect our body to feel safe enough to “let go” or shift. This is called building capacity. We need to do this first, before anything that we want to happen, will be able to.

Building the Container

I love the word “container”. This accurately describes what we are looking for when we are processing any difficult material (memories, emotions, etc.). We need a safe container that can hold presence to the tough stuff. In somatic work, the body is the container. Not only the body of the client, but the body of the therapist or space holder.

More than often, this is the starting point in working with trauma somatically. We need to see where the client is at first, in relation to their body, and work with them to build their container to be able to be with what feels good and with what does not.

Noticing, Allowing & Presence

These three words are what we are cultivating when healing trauma in our bodies. Instead of making something “go away”, which essentially is resistance in another form, we are learning to be with, to notice, to allow and to develop presence. Why? Because we can’t go back in time and make something different happen. We must work in the now and cultivate the ability to hold ourselves in our joys and pains.

Some of the more powerful sessions I have witnessed and help facilitate were very subtle and quiet. Many people already live with big sensations and responses in their body … the “safer” way for them (more often than not) is going for the slow, subtle shift. Turning down the volume of the nervous system “noise” is the best approach. This is subtle, slow and titrated work.

The Now Is All There Is

We all want healing … and it takes time. It is worth the time. Trauma can happen when there is too much too fast or too little too late … we don’t get to call the shots or control what happens.

When reconciling our past, we work in the present. That is when healing happens, in the present moment. We build a sense of safety and grounding in our body first, which is foundational. Then, we can dip our toes into sensations, emotions and memories that emerge, and have the capacity and container to be with them.

So, when leaning into healing any trauma in our lives, we need to give ourselves the space for our bodies and minds to adjust to a new speed. In that way we recover our power once again, and we can feel the different that we have longed for.

**Note from Author: All articles are written by Jodie Cara Lindley and NOT AI. The material here represents my experience, opinion and training that I have had over the last 25 + years. These articles are written in my own words.