by Brittiney George
Alternative therapies are not new, but have only
more recently been embraced by Western culture as science is now backing what
intuition has told us for years…that our body is brilliant in its wisdom and
ability to heal. Your body is the
keeper of your unique story. It’s like the black box of an airplane. It records your surroundings, your
emotions, past mental or physical trauma, stress, and your memories. Together, these become your unique
story as told by the body in your posture, your walk, and in habitual patterns
that develop over time.
Your movements reflect the conscious and
unconscious aspects of who you are and how you feel. Depression is one of the areas that bodymind integration can
be an especially helpful tool in determining what you need. After all, look at how different the
definitions of depression are:
To be in a slump
Weighed down
Heavy hearted
Stuck in a pit
Hollow or hollowed out
While research shows that movement can play an
important role in lifting the fog of depression, sustained momentum and
improvement is often only obtained by paying attention to the primary movement
that is needed. For instance,
someone that is weighed down, or heavy hearted, may need to remove the weight
of what is pressing down on them before they feel like they can get up. For someone that is stuck in a pit,
they don’t need to remove something; they need to get out of something. Likewise, someone that feels hollow
doesn’t need to get out as much as they may need to fill up with something new
or something different before they can move on. Getting “up” or getting “going” may be the end goal, but
knowing the movements your system needs to start is an important tool to be
able to sustain that momentum of change.
The body is brilliant at providing this insight.
Somatic Therapy can be a wonderful way to access
this information and is powerful on its own or partnered with traditional talk
therapy. Through gentle touch and talk both the right and left brain as well as
the nervous system are engaged in the conversation and can provide invaluable
insight into what is needed and what is available.
Brittiney George, BS, CRS, CST-L3, ICI, CEIM, is
a Movement Practitioner offering Somatic Therapy and exploratory movement
classes at The Resiliency Center.
She also co-leads Connection, Expression and Movement (CEM), a monthly
workshop series focusing on body-mind integration. For a complimentary 55 min. Somatic Therapy session contact
Brittiney at 610-389-7866 or movebackintolife@gmail.com.
