Use These Somatic Tools During and After Tough Times

Welcome to the Satiated Podcast, where we explore physical and emotional hunger, satiation, and healing your relationship with your food and body. I'm your host, Stephanie Mara Fox, your somatic nutritional counselor.

You may have picked this up by now about how passionate I am about the field of somatic psychology. Learning about how to experience my body on all levels and build awareness of my nervous system states felt like it was learning how to come home to myself. I have often joked here that many people who are somatic practitioners were drawn to this work because they have lived much of their life disconnected from their own bodies and I'm no exception. I spent so much of my life outside of my body. It was in learning how to stay with myself in all emotions, sensations, and reactions that I felt like my body could be a home for myself again. This can be a lifelong practice and I feel as though somatics provides the resources on how to be in this practice day after day. Sometimes, the first step toward creating a new perception and sense of safety to come closer to your body is through curiosity and somatic tracking. It can be crucially important to start noticing how your body responds to various internal or external input because this will guide you toward undigested life experiences, nervous system states, and bodily needs.

I chat about this and more today with Laurie James. Laurie is a recovering caregiver turned author, certified somatic practitioner & coach, and podcaster. With over 15 years’ experience in energy work, somatic healing, parts work, and coaching. Laurie helps people divorce, heal, and date differently in midlife. She blends her coaching, somatic experiencing, and internal family systems training to help improve her client’s relationships through befriending their body, nervous system, and parts that are protecting them. Doing so allows them to find the inner freedom to experience more happiness, joy, and create the life they desire. We chat about the power of body awareness, how to recognize overwhelm and stress, understanding the spectrum of personal development, including the importance of rest and integration, navigating both needs for stillness and movement, the difference between somatic work and meditation, and building connection with your body.

I'm going to do a little affiliate plug here as I figure if you want to support the show, you might at least get something in return. My favorite protein powder called Equip is a huge time saver for me when I'm seeing 5, 6, 7 clients in a day. They just came out with a banana flavor that is maybe the best tasting protein powder I have ever had. My husband and I made instead of hot cocoa a hot banana bread drink. We boiled oat milk, added some honey and peanut butter, and whisked in this protein powder and it tastes like drinking banana bread in a mug. To get 20% off and give it a try, go to equipfoods.com or click on the link in my show notes and enter in stephaniemara at checkout. Hope you enjoy it as much as we have! Now, welcome Laurie! I am really excited to reconnect with you. As I said in my intro, I came on your podcast. I'm so excited for that to come out later this year, and I am so excited that you're here to share a little bit of also your work. And I would love to start out with how you got into what you're doing today, because we all have such interesting journeys and stories to tell, like what landed us here today.

Laurie James 04:19

Thank you so much for having me on. I so enjoyed our conversation, and so I'm so excited to be here and continue just kind of sharing with both audiences. It's a beautiful thing when we can do that as podcasters. So my story and how I got into somatic experiencing happened after I left a 26-year marriage. I had four daughters, and during this time, as I wrote about in my book *Sandwiched*, I was sandwiched in between raising four daughters, caring for my elderly parents for at that point, it was around 11 and a half years when I fell ill and my marriage began to fall apart. What happened was I left my marriage. I was the one that moved out and about a year and a half after I left my marriage, I fell very ill. About two weeks prior, I went for a walk with two of my good friends, and I said everything is really great in my life, but I'm stressed, and I knew it. And if I back up even more, I had said yes to too many things because I was afraid of being alone and not belonging, which is kind of a core wound of mine that I have worked on. Abandonment because I'm adopted because I didn't feel like I belonged in my family, I didn't really feel like I belonged in the schools that I went to so it was always reinforced in my life. And so I was saying yes: I was saying yes to dating, I was saying yes to doing things with my girlfriends. At this point, I was in the process of writing my book. I had just closed escrow on my house, and what was interesting was when I fell very ill, and I ended up in the hospital twice. I had closed escrow on my house, and within that same week, I received my divorce papers from my lawyer or from the court system, and literally two days later, I woke up in the middle of the night or the middle of the morning. It was like four in the morning with severe back pain, like worse than childbirth. It felt like I was birthing something, and it kept getting worse. I finally got up to go to the bathroom, and then I came back. And at this point, I was living in my a little apartment. I had my ex-husband, which is a whole nother story. Said if we divorce, I'm keeping the house. All of my kids were gone out of the house. So I said, fine, I'll move out. I was moved out, so I was living in this little 900 square foot apartment as we were figuring out the legal and financial part of our divorce. And as I was walking back from my bathroom, back to my bed, as I'm like half bent over, I passed out. I developed vertigo. I had such severe pain. I laid there for a couple hours with my eyes closed. Couldn't really open my eyes because I knew if I opened my eyes, I was going to throw up. Eventually, I called the paramedics and they took me to the hospital. And I don't take medication. I take vitamins. I eat well. I exercise. So, I wasn't on any medications at that point in my life, and so then they started giving me painkillers, and then they started chasing my symptoms, and so they would give me another medication to combat the side effects of that medication. And after four days in the hospital, I finally said, "I need to get out of this hospital before they kill me, because of all the medications I was on. Which was a blessing and a curse because I still wasn't well enough. Then I developed all these hot patches. You can probably relate to all this. I was severely anemic. I developed all these hot patches all over my body. My oxygen level was low. I couldn't keep food in. I lost 14 pounds in two weeks. I continued to pass out. My blood pressure was very low, and as you know, and I know now, even though I didn't know at the time, my body was shutting down. You know, they did every test, both times when I was in the hospital. They did every test in the book. They couldn't figure out I was finally diagnosed with migrating arthritis and an unnamed virus. I have completely recovered. That was seven and a half years ago that that happened. And when I was well enough, one of my very good friends, who's also a therapist, said, "You need to go see Bob." Like okay, and I had known who Bob was. Bob was a therapist, had a PhD, but he was also a somatic experiencing practitioner, and he had done some other body-based healing modalities. And so, the bottom line was, it took me a good seven months to recover. But the amount of healing that I did in that first year from working with a somatic practitioner was so profound, I felt like I needed to become certified in this. So, I went through Peter Levine's program, which is a two and a half year program. You know, Peter Levine is one of the pioneers, as you know, of somatic experiencing and body-based healing, and then of course through that program, I continued to heal, and I feel like a different person now on the inside. And I think in some ways, my close friends can see the transformation as well on the outside.

Stephanie Mara 10:01

Yeah, it's so interesting that you know... I know that somatics is getting so popularized now, but having been in this field for a really long time, it's so unfortunate how skeptical people have been towards this work because there isn't as much research behind it, or people are like, "what are you talking about? That my body has a voice, or like needs to express things." Like I just tell my body what to do. And I really hear from your experience, like it took to the point of your body kind of screaming, like, "Help! I'm collapsing here and shutting down, and I need help to kind of guide you towards like body-based healing." I'm curious: as you went through somatic experiencing, how your lens of what you went through changed, of what you realized, like what was going on.

Laurie James 10:55

It was interesting, even through that whole experience that I went through, and you know I spent eight days in the hospital, four on the front end and four on the back end, and through it all, I, for some reason, I knew I was going to be okay, even though I was in excruciating pain. I could barely sleep, but then I was also sleeping 16 hours a day, and I had had enough awareness because I had been practicing yoga at that point up to probably 10 years, so I had some awareness of the body, and I knew that I needed to re- kind of take everything off of my plate except for my health and my house because I was doing some remodeling to it before I moved into it. But I think the awareness that I have now, and almost the attunement I have to my body is, I'm not waiting for the two-by-four to knock me off my feet, literally. I'm catching it earlier. I do a daily nervous system regulation practice. What I also teach my clients is, you know, I have a toolbox of resources that I use, both just external things like walking and slowing down and learning how to be more present, but then also somatic practices like we talked about on my podcast: orienting, stabilization, some basics that I do daily, and catching it sooner, and really becoming attuned to what's happening. It's like, you know what, even though I said yes to that event, I'm going to cancel that because I need to listen to what's going on in my body. Where before, even when I was walking with my friends, I didn't know how to back out of my commitments. I mean, intellectually I knew, but then I couldn't actually follow through with it because I had lived in survival mode for so long. And we talked about pre-recording, I mean, I had some childhood trauma that I had to survive, and then I was in a pretty unhealthy marriage, which I didn't realize how unhealthy it was until I left. And I've done a lot of healing around that as well. And I've also lived with a low-level grade of anxiety my whole life, which I don't have anymore. I'm like, Oh my god, this is what it must feel like. Normal people feel like this. Who's really normal, right?

Stephanie Mara 13:31

Totally, totally. But I actually am really appreciative that you are naming these things of like feeling more normal or more stabilized, because I find that a lot of those who are here listening in food and body image recovery, it kind of feels like surreal. Like, is that even possible for me to feel like I can live a life where I feel more connected, less anxious, less on the kind of the nervous system roller coaster of highs and lows? And I find that it's so important to offer a piece of hope for you know someone like you that like went through it all and was like, Yes there is another side to this where you can feel very differently in your body and you know you're starting to name of practices that you've started to do now. I'm curious: what was the journey like to get to know? How do I know I'm in overwhelm? Because, like you said, through your journey, like you didn't know, like just how stressed your body was. You were like, Oh, I think I'm kind of stressed, but like everything's okay.

Laurie James 14:37

The next thing you know, I'm in the hospital.

Stephanie Mara 14:39

Right, so I'm wondering, like, what you started to learn, because I know for those who are listening, sometimes that's a big piece of like, how do I learn what my body's trying to tell me before, like, food or body image impulses arrive?

Laurie James 14:54

Yeah, that's a really great question, and I've been going through it just recently because the first six months of this year have been really busy for me, and some of it again is self-induced. You know, I did a remodel on my house. Some of it is not; my dog blew out her doggy ACL, and that is a six week, true six-week recovery where you know you're tending to her and and all of that. I've got a daughter who's getting married in July. I'm not sure when this is going to drop, so I have that, and it's good stuff, right? And minus the dog, I'm in a new relationship, and then I also have my clients and my podcast as well. So it is a lot, and so giving myself permission to really just like, yeah, I am burned out, and maybe taking a step back, whether that's for a week or two, and really checking out. May was a super busy month for me, you know, between doing a variety of things. I've got another because I have four daughters, and they're all kind of in this. A friend gave me this cup, said, You're in the mother of the bride era, right? Because that's kind of where I'm at right now. And then I did an advanced somatic touch training. Again, all good stuff, but even good stuff can take its toll. Hard stuff, good stuff. So to answer your question, it's - it's for me right now, I feel like it's more fine-tuning versus bigger tuning. But I've been doing this work for seven years, and it's messy.

Stephanie Mara 16:27

Yeah.

Laurie James 16:28

It's still messy.

Stephanie Mara 16:35

Absolutely.

Laurie James 16:39

Even at this point, you know it's like, okay, I'm dipping into this, and okay, here I am again. Okay, let me... But we catch it sooner, and we don't stay up in the messy part because we have the tools and we have the resources, we don't stay up in it as long, and we know how to... right? But as you know, this isn't learning how to be calm and balanced all the time. It's about learning how to have the capacity of, okay, I am in a heightened sympathetic state, heightened activity for these last six months, some months more than others. Okay, let me give myself permission to come down and just rest; move into a more rest-and-digest state for a little while. Then I can come back up. Whether that's going on a nice relaxing vacation or recharging somehow, whether you recharge with people or you recharge without people. Everybody's different, but really knowing what recharges you, so that way then you can come back and have the capacity to continue and do life.

Stephanie Mara 17:53

Yeah, thank you for naming that also. That it's such a great reminder that the whole point of somatic or nervous system work isn't to be kind of the popularized words of regulated all the time.

Laurie James 17:53

Right.

Stephanie Mara 18:11

Like, that is not literally possible for any person.

Laurie James 18:13

Especially not on this planet that we live on.

Stephanie Mara 18:15

Definitely not. Even, you know, with everything going on in the world these days. Absolutely not.

Laurie James 18:21

Exactly.

Stephanie Mara 18:21

But yeah, like you're saying, it's catching it sooner, so that you're like, Oh, I'm starting to notice my breath gets shallow. I'm starting to notice that tension in my chest. I'm starting to notice that back pain that happens in the middle of my back. You know, as people get to know themselves, like that starts to come up when my stress increases, and like, Oh, okay, my body's really needing my attention here, based off of the feedback that I'm getting from it before it gets to like the shutdown or the fight or flight.

Laurie James 18:52

Yeah, or the brain fog or the heaviness that you might feel or whatever. You know, again, everybody is different. And certain times, my body, and I don't know about yours, I'll experience different types of things, you know, depending on what it is. It could be a buzzing. It could be a heaviness. It could be the tightness in the chest. Different things. It could be my gut. And also, when we are more in a sympathetic state, as you know, we might not eat as well because we're going, going, doing, doing, pushing through, and so then that's when our eating kind of falls off. It does for me. I'm guessing that it might for some of your listeners too. And so we might go to that junk food, or it's like God, you know that muffin would just like really satiate me right now because I've had those thoughts in the last couple of weeks. I'm like, just give me the muffin.

Stephanie Mara 19:57

Yeah, you know, I always like to reference our food cravings. It's just body communication. Just like you're kind of naming the brain fog or the aches or the pains, or that's the way that our body's telling us, I'm maybe more in a sympathetic response. Anything that comes up around food can be the same thing. That it's not a matter of like our food cravings are bad or wrong, but that yeah, when we're starting to maybe crave more of those, like, quick hits of glucose, whatever that may come from, you know, simple carbohydrates or sugar, and you know, I'm a big proponent of food neutrality, and like we're not going to label foods as good or bad here, but just that oh, when I'm craving these foods, they're also communication from my body that, like, I might be a little bit more stressed, and my body's starting to crave different foods for a really wise reason. And so, yeah, I hear you even talking about, like, yeah, when digestion gets off, it's like all of these things that tell us actually how our body is processing and digesting our like internal and external environments. You know, we just get to kind of pay attention with a lot of curiosity and compassion. That it's like you aren't making this happen. Your body's doing it for you for a reason.

Laurie James 21:14

Yes, yes, and that's beautiful clarification around what I talked about because, and I still catch myself. I mean, I get very judgmental about. I mean, I'm so much better than I used to be, but I still can kind of go up into my head and get judgmental of why can't I keep it all together? Why can't I do? Other people seem to be doing this. Other people seem to be able to, you know, handle 14 things, but can they really? They might look like it from the outside, but what's happening on the inside, really?

Stephanie Mara 21:54

Yeah, I love that you're pointing that out because it is so true. You know, that inner voice of criticism and judgment can be so loud sometimes, but I always find it interesting whenever in conversations on this podcast, it's like we're all navigating the same thing. Even when you're having a moment of like, Ahhh, like they're looking like they can do this, or how come they can do that, and like how come I'm struggling in it? We don't actually know what's happening behind the door in someone's home, and how they are actually navigating their life or navigating their stress. You know, we have social media with these kind of like glamorized versions of ourselves, rather than the real nitty-gritty of like, no, like everyone has moments where they're struggling in navigating their nervous system, or overwhelm, or cravings, and that's our humanness of like, just how do I show up for this? Kind of like you were talking about. I'm wondering what started to help you show up for it more and build that capacity to kind of catch it faster and be like, okay, this is just stress. I can show up for this.

Laurie James 23:01

Yeah, it's interesting you say that because one of the things when I was working before I became an SCP myself, when I was working with my somatic practitioner, who I worked with for five years, and he was fabulous. But we might work on a bigger piece. Could be around my marriage. It could have been around, you know, me falling ill. Could have been my childhood. It can't, you know, and I would be very emotional because something got recently had gotten triggered in me, and so he would say, you know, we worked on a really big piece. I really would love and invite you to go home and just rest after this, so that way you can integrate it. And I would be like, mmmm, rest? Like rest is not - because I lived in survival mode, which our society rewards us to be productive; corporations, family dynamics. I had that message from my dad, even when he was in his 90s: Oh, gotta go out to the garage and finish that. He he liked to refinish furniture, and so he would do it even as a hobby. And sometimes people would pay him, you know, as he got into retirement. And so that message was just embedded in my body of, you don't rest, and so that was a really hard place for me, and I still struggle with it. But I am better, a lot better. You talk to some of my friends; they're like, "Yeah, you can be a lot better." But it's like we're all different too, right? And so we have to honor who we are and what we want and create in our life, and what our values are, and how we want to either be of service, or you know, whether it's to just you to our family, to a community, to a larger population, to marginalized communities, whatever it is, how do we honor who we are as an individual and our values while we are navigating our nervous system?

Stephanie Mara 25:14

I always think of it as the spectrum between stillness and socialization, and that we all fall on that spectrum in different places. For some of us, we may fall more towards,whether you want to call this like I think of it differently than introvert and extrovert. You know, because that's where we kind of recoup. You know, do we recoup around people or recuperate alone? But I think of it as just like there are some of us that maybe just naturally were brought here with just more energy. We want to do more things, and then there are some of us where our energies are maybe less. Where it's just like that stillness we could luxuriate in it, savor in it. We want to be in that for extended periods of time, and it's kind of finding where am I on the spectrum? Have I been too much in socialization? Have I been too much in stillness? And where do I need to kind of create that balance for myself of where I fall on the spectrum.

Laurie James 25:48

Yeah. And I think it also is, and what part that is programmed or that we've learned, and what part is as we become more attuned to ourselves, that can change on that spectrum.

Stephanie Mara 26:33

Yeah. I remember having a conversation with someone at some point around: is the whole idea of a Type A personality really just a trauma response. [laughter] Like, does a Type A...

Laurie James 26:49

What was the and what was the conclusion?

Stephanie Mara 26:52

Didn't get anywhere. It was just a kind of thought exercise.

Laurie James 26:55

But it's true!

Stephanie Mara 26:57

Right? It's interesting to consider what you're pointing to of how much we're taught from, you know, this capitalist patriarchal society around you know produce and create and give and give and give, and so I love that your coach actually pointed out sometimes the work is to integrate and to slow down and to be still, but even I find, and I don't know if you've experienced this too in the somatic field, that it feels like you're always supposed to be doing something. I know that sometimes those I work with feel that way, that they're like, Okay, what do I do in between our sessions now? What should I practice? And like, it's a beautiful intention to be like, Okay, I want to grow. I want to change things for myself. But sometimes to integrate means kind of like, if we think of digestion, sure, you could maybe take a gentle walk after you eat a food, and that might help your digestion along a little bit. But really, your body often just needs to rest to do the work that it's doing internally, and it can be the same thing on any healing journey. That sometimes the most powerful thing we can do is to, you know, receive support, be in community, and then rest and integrate and let our body do what it knows how to do to rewire itself.

Laurie James 28:19

Yes, yes, and I think that is one of the hardest things that I experienced, and I think it's also something I see a lot in my clients. I remember I was working for a while with a young gal who was in college. She had developed Lyme disease and some other things. Very dysregulated nervous system, and she kept saying to me, What am I supposed to be doing? What am I supposed to be? And I'm like, We just want to notice. We just want to track what you're experiencing in the body. That's it. That's the goal. And it was almost a foreign concept to her that that's what I should be doing. And it was hard too to just notice and track. I would then see her eyes start darting around the room, and I'm like, Okay, that's clearly a sign that she's still dysregulated, and can I invite you to just focus on one thing in your room? Because we were doing this over Zoom, and yeah, as you know, it's a practice, you know, and it's not something that we're going to master overnight.

Stephanie Mara 29:39

Yeah, I saw your even body expression of feeling like, grr, I don't want to rest. Stillness: I don't want to do that. Like I totally experienced that as well because I often like to be in movement. I'm curious for you what helped you settle more into stillness because I know for myself. I really needed to move my body when I first started to experience slowing down as safe because for so long that didn't feel safe. I felt like I had to keep moving - very much that flee response. You know, I noticed that okay, if I can even move my body a little bit, whether that was like jumping up and down five times, it didn't even need to be a lot. But jumping up and down, doing some jumping jacks, lifting something heavy, taking a quick walk around my neighborhood. Then I felt like, okay, now I feel like I can sit and maybe start to check in with myself. So it was very much like kind of the experience of titration of like, okay, if I'm gonna be in this stillness thing, I need to kind of titrate and ease myself into the experience of stillness. I'm curious what supported you with that.

Laurie James 30:50

So when I first was healing after I fell very ill, my body did it for me because I was in shutdown and I was literally sleeping for 16 hours a day. I'm very active. I walk a lot. You know, yoga, pickleball, blah blah blah. I left the hospital with a walker, and I used a walker for probably the first three to four weeks of my healing. That's how bad and how much pain I was in. So at first, it was just sleep, and I had a yoga therapist come over and help me. She was a friend, and she would start talking to me, and I would just like basically fall asleep on her. As I started getting better, and I started working with my SEP, I, even though I had that grr sound, I knew that I needed to take that time and really rest and allow my body to integrate the work that we did. So, I would, even that I would grr, and then I would lay down and rest, or sometimes I would go for a little walk and then lay down and rest because I'm like you; it's like I need movement as well. And one of the things that I do now after I exercise is, especially if I've gone for a longer walk or exerted more energy, I will just lay down on my couch or bed, or even on the floor, and I will just go internal, you know, go inward and really notice and track just the sensations for two or three minutes. It doesn't have to be long; and just kind of do a little stabilization and allow my nervous system to come down. And it's so helpful just allowing that two or three to five minutes of just noticing and tracking in my body, and then I'm like, Okay, now I'm good, right? Because as we know, a healthy nervous system comes up into activation, rest and digest, up and activation, rest down into rest and digest repeatedly throughout the day. Not come up into activation and stay there until you pass out at night.

Stephanie Mara 33:17

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm hearing you just describe the process of sitting with discomfort, like you felt the gir, I don't want to do this, and sometimes this is where I find the mind-body connection comes in. Where if we just are like just connecting with our body, we're not integrating from our brains how we can rationalize through. Okay, I can understand why I don't want to do this. I can get why this is so hard for me to slow down right now. That's more a cognitive place. But if we bring in the cognition of like, I know this is what would be best for me based off of everything I'm learning about myself and what's happening in my body. Even if, I always think of it as like our nervous system's gonna fight us initially because if it's like I am fighting and fleeing for you over here, I am protecting you. No, you cannot lie down on the couch right now. We're gonna be...

Laurie James 34:03

That's dangerous.

Stephanie Mara 34:08

Yeah, that's dangerous. We're gonna be like, yeah, that makes sense, body. I totally get why you're fighting me on this a little bit. And what if we did it for five seconds and see how it goes?

Laurie James 34:23

Yeah, and then work up to 10 seconds, and then to work up to 30 seconds, and slowly, you know, like we said earlier, build that capacity, and then it doesn't feel so unsafe to be in that place anymore, right? Then that slowing down and really connecting. And the other thing that I want to just say here that's coming up for me right now is sensations are the language of the nervous system. As you have probably said on your podcast, the nervous system does not understand verbal language; it understands sensation. So, the more that we can connect with our sensations that are happening in our body, even if they are uncomfortable, and even if it's only for a short period of time, that's what's going to help you move forward and to start healing. What has kind of kept you stuck or keep you on your healing journey is by really connecting with the sensations: tracking, noticing that restriction, the tightness, the brain fog, the whatever it is that's happening in the body.

Stephanie Mara 35:43

Yeah, I appreciate you naming that as well. That it does take practice and repetition to very, very slowly start connecting with a sensation. I love that you brought in it doesn't matter how long. Like I think there's this idea when we're talking about like sitting with the body that there's this imagery that comes up of I have to sit with the body for like 30 minutes, an hour, when really it's like if you could notice and name something for five seconds, that's amazing.

Laurie James 36:16

Yeah. Well, and I think a lot of people, as you know, a lot of people are using, and you mentioned it earlier, you know, somatic yoga. Everybody's kind of throwing that word around, and also nervous system regulation. So, I think the more that we can clarify that as somatic experiencing experts, people that have gone through the true training, not a weekend kind of getaway. I think that's kind of key to really helping listeners understand that it is a practice, but and it's not meditation. I mean, you can bring the somatic piece into a meditation, but so many peoples like, I can't meditate, or, and like, mmm, so I'm not going to be able to do this. This is not meditation. You can bring it into your meditation if you want, but this is not meditation.

Stephanie Mara 37:12

Yeah, from your experience, because I know what you're referencing, how do you see the two be different from meditation to somatic tracking?

Laurie James 37:20

Well, what I see, and I'd love for you to add anything else in here. What comes up for me when you ask that question is meditation is just being with yourself and noticing your thoughts. Maybe repeating a mantra to try and keep your body in the present moment, where somatic experiencing is really connecting with the body and the sensations, and it's not about repeating a mantra because you can be in meditation and be completely disassociated from your body. In my experience, where the somatic piece is Okay, I'm meditating, I'm sitting on this cushion, I'm repeating this mantra, but also, what's happening in my body as I do it? Do I notice my shoulders relaxing? Do I notice my stomach softening, or is this meditation causing more activation? Because, like we talked about earlier, I don't feel safe enough to sit here because I am too activated and I've been in survival mode for too long.

Stephanie Mara 38:35

Yeah, I see something very similar in that I find meditation is very much wel, there's different kinds of meditations. Usually, it's being in stillness. Yes, there's walking meditation, but oftentimes when we're meditating, we are lying on the floor, we are sitting in a chair, we are sitting on a cushion, and we are connecting with what is happening in the brain and the body, and coming back into the present moment. Sometimes, yes, what you're talking about. I know different practices, like you know, a Tonglen practice is really a loving kindness practice of you know, I'm going to tap into my loving kindness towards myself, towards the world, towards people who slighted me. And somatic tracking, I agree with you, there's more movement to it because if we are tracking what's happening in the body, but also following impulse to be like, how does this movement or sensation want to be expressed in me?

Laurie James 39:36

That's a beautiful addition. Absolutely.

Stephanie Mara 39:39

Yeah. So, like, I agree with you that that's where I feel like a big difference is, is that this isn't a matter of like forcing yourself to sit down and like I'm gonna be with the sensations in my body, but it's like okay, I'm always getting curious if I feel tension in my chest and if my chest could express itself in movement or some kind of expression, vocal expression, artwork. You know, how would that want to express itself and move itself through my body? There's much more connection with the body, expression with the body than maybe there is just like sitting on a cushion, feeling or thinking or noticing what you're thinking and feeling, how you're feeling, so.

Laurie James 40:23

Yeah, that's a great point. And just to complete that is because then that allows our body to discharge the energy that's stuck in our nervous system and complete that fight, flight, or freeze response that our body's in in that moment.

Stephanie Mara 40:37

Yeah, where I agree with you, sometimes, and this is why, like I love meditation, you know, yoga and meditation got me started on this somatic journey.

Laurie James 40:45

Ditto.

Stephanie Mara 40:46

Yeah, totally. But I think over the years, in learning more and more about different nervous system states and somatic work, I really realized how much meditation isn't always the resource to lean on, especially when what our body needs to do is to express and mobilize. Whereas meditation can be a beautiful resource when we need to slow down, contain, and embody and be still. That that can facilitate that. But when you are trying to force yourself to sit down, and that feels dangerous, and it feels like you're just sitting here staring at a tiger. Like that's not going to be the most supportive. Again, I just call it a resource. It's great, but it's not always the resource we need to lean on.

Laurie James 41:30

Right. Well, and what comes up for me is a fight response when you're talking about that. Let's just say somebody's driving, and you're driving home, and you just got, you know cut off by a driver, and you're pissed, right? And you have more of a fight response. Trying to sit down and meditate that out is not going to work. Like you might need to take your fist and an open hand and push into it, and then release it to allow that anger to discharge out of the body, or anything that might make you angry, right? To complete what didn't get completed in that moment.

Stephanie Mara 42:11

Yeah, I love that example. I always kind of like to suggest like pushing against a wall. But if we think about it as like if you put your hand on a hot burner, you're gonna pull your hand away right away and kind of shake it and be like, Ooh, and maybe even kind of like rub your hand a little bit or put it under cold water. There's that natural impulse to be like danger. Let's move away from it and also then kind of shake that out of like, Ooh, that was scary. But what you're talking about is oftentimes, and I see this with those who are here in food and body image recovery is that something got stopped, and that like there's trying to find completion through food behaviors or body control, where what really needs to occur is what you're talking about is like when did we need to push back? When did we need to fight said boundaries? And like how can we start to feel that in our body and move that through?

Laurie James 43:03

Yeah, beautifully said.

Stephanie Mara 43:06

Yeah, well, I love the work that you're doing and everything that you are speaking to right now of how important somatic work is when we are, you know, navigating the ups and downs of nervous system, the modulations and changes throughout a day. I'm curious, you know. I always like to kind of move towards wrapping up with a baby step, and when someone is exploring some of the things that you're talking about of getting to know their nervous system more, getting to know the body feedback of like, how do I know I'm starting to get overwhelmed or stressed? Is there a baby step that you would offer listeners around something that they can start to play with in their own life to start to build their capacity or grow in this awareness?

Laurie James 43:51

Yeah, and I think you just said it. It's about starting with awareness, and a lot of times what I do when I'm working with a new client is I just have them as long as it's not overwhelming between one and three times a day. Just write down on a piece of paper or in their phone in their notes of what are the sensations that they're noticing in their body. They don't need to sit with it. If they can sit with it for 30 seconds or a minute, that's great. But just what do I notice? I have a lot of tingling in my body normally, and I equate that to life force. Sometimes I have that heaviness. Sometimes I have that restriction. What am I noticing? And just start with that awareness without even doing anything about it. Is just what am I noticing in my body? Can I even connect with my body? Because a lot of people can't. It's not a bad thing. It again, it's a practice. When I first started doing this work, you know, I was introduced a little bit to it when I did an energy class, probably about over 10 years ago, and we read Peter Levine's Waking the Tiger, Healing Trauma, and you know, just bringing that awareness piece in, and what do I notice in my body right now? And can I name that? Can I just name it? I think that's a beautiful place to start, and then move towards just sitting with it for just a little bit - that would be the second step.

Stephanie Mara 45:24

It's so small, and it's so doable. And I really appreciate that you even name, Don't do anything with it. Think there's this pressure, you know, like we're talking about, like we have to do something with it. It's like just start to grow in awareness of like, oh, I have brain fog. Oh, my eyelids feel heavy today. Oh, I'm noticing tension in my chest, and then that's it. Like, just in starting to grow in that awareness and connection with your body can be such a huge baby step, actually. And then, like you said, the next second step might be starting to, like, spend a little bit more time, second by second, with it. But just starting with naming and noticing. Well, what's here? What's happening right now is enough.

Laurie James 46:05

Beautiful. Yeah.

Stephanie Mara 46:07

Well, thank you so much for sharing all of your wisdom today. I'm curious how listeners can keep in touch with you and the work that you're doing.

Laurie James 46:14

Yeah. Thank you. They can go to my website laurieejames.com l a u r i e middle initial e so there's 2e and then James. I'm on Instagram and LinkedIn. I do have some meditations on Insight Timer, some somatic-based meditations which do have you move with the body and tap into the sensations, and I do have a free beginner's guide to somatic healing also that people can download as well.

Stephanie Mara 46:43

Cool. I will put all of those links in the show notes. And just thank you so much again for having this conversation. Loved chatting about somatics with you.

Laurie James 46:51

Right. Thank you so much, Stephanie. It's my pleasure to be here.

Stephanie Mara 46:55

Yeah. Well, to all listeners, if you had any insights or aha moments from today's chat, email me at support@stephaniemera.com anytime, and I hope you all have a satiating and safety producing rest of the day. Bye!

Keep in touch with Laurie here:

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