The word Somatic comes from the Greek word soma which means “body” and so we use the Somatic lens to look at how our drives and emotions, our experiences and choices, affect our bodies; how the outer world is internalized, shaping our inner world. Difficulties with feeling and expressing your drives and emotions can lead to actual physiological problems with different parts and systems of your body, mainly the circulatory (heart), respiratory (lungs), digestive (gut), endocrine (hormones), protective (immune), muscular (movement), and reproductive (sexual) systems.
The heart is at the core of our emotional experiences. It changes rhythm to optimize energy utilization in order to deal with the given situation. Adrenalin makes your heart pound and increases and diverts glucose from all other systems to the muscles. We feel fear with this burst of energy for a quick escape. As a grown-up now you may feel fearful and anxious quite a lot. Your heart races… you get flustered and overwhelmed… you don’t know what to say or do, your movements are awkward and disjointed… but you assume that it’s just your personality…
Breathing is also equally important because we need more oxygen for more energy. If you often get stuck in a certain unpleasant emotion like Fear or Anger (but also Sadness, Shame or Guilt) then your heart rate and breathing are irregular and your energy levels fluctuate, and the deep rhythmic breathing that is calming and invigorating eludes you, you aren’t even aware that it’s missing because you have become so used to this pattern of hyper-aroused reactivity, which constantly pulls your attention away from your body, away from your breath…
Also important for energy optimization, the gut is a vital source of energy and so our emotions are also experienced and felt in the gut. We get butterflies in our tummy when we’re excited or getting intimate, or we have gruesome gut-wrenching encounters that make our tummies churn. Getting stuck in a particular emotional schema chronically impacts the gut (just as it does the heart) causing issues in the digestive system, possibly also ulcers, inflammation and various gastrointestinal complications…
Most significantly, getting stuck in a particular emotional schema affects your nervous and muscular systems, your posture, how you move and behave, walk and talk. A submissive person is fearful, anxious and has a lot of shame and so they hang their heads low and stoop down, avoiding eye contact, whereas a dominant person is proud and gets easily angry and so they stand up tall and use body language and eye contact to intimidate others. There are also muscle clenching patterns that go with these schemas…
Since it’s the hormones and neuro-transmitters that are the keys to these emotions and physiological regimes in the body, the settings and configuration of our endocrine system; the thresholds at which these hormone/neuro-transmitters are released and in what amounts, are keeping us trapped in these cycles and patterns. Within the womb and the first years of life these settings are hard wired, controlling our emotionality for the rest of our lives; how we express and carry ourselves how we move, and how we feel inside…
Emotional schemas affect the reproductive system (sexuality). Coming of age you get bombarded on the one hand with all these religious taboos and shame, while on the other hand TV and media are constantly serving up erotic images and scenes that keep you in this highly pressurized vice-grip. No-one ever talks to you about any of it, cos it’s too awkward and shameful for them, so you just have to figure it all out for yourself. And to make matters worse sexuality can also be used as a release from the tension and unpleasant states in the heart and body…
