Back in the day when I was doing dance therapy, we didn’t call it somatic healing, in fact, we just utilized movement to connect to subconscious parts without even knowing it. Our brain pathways connect us to past memories in the subconscious that we cannot easily retrieve so what we remember on a conscious level can still have missing details. When I was working with autistic children, somatic healing was a byproduct of the movement I incorporated with their behavior modification, yet I never applied the practice for myself until the modalities of psychotherapy that I engaged,  no longer worked.  As I discovered internal family systems (IFS) for healing my own chronic pain, it led me to parts that were holding onto childhood traumatic events in my body. For decades, I applied cognitive behavioral therapy, and every approach known to man to make sense of why I did the things I did without physical or mental relief. The judgment of my own behavior was only a part and it sought solace in exercise, doctors, counseling and tears for the times other parts indulged in binges, cycles of starvation, addiction and depression.  A long standing dancer, I always felt better after a sweaty stretch that evolved into discovery of moves that brought freedom.  The surprise of learning I could twist and contort to form an expression of my heart was elating.  Liberty was always granted in the moments I set aside to challenge my stiffness and defy the limitations of muscle weakness that paralyzed the right side of my body after getting a polio vaccine.  I had already experienced decades of nerve dysfunction, auto-immune disease and hospitalizations for hypothermia with no known cause, not to mention the irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) that plagued my stomach and intestines for 27 years.  Movement became a luxury that I could afford in small doses and would linger as worship for the stolen time that I could endure it.  Then the anguish and pain would set in the following day and often accompany sadness. What I did not know then was that parts of me which were repressed or stuck in historical memory, were signaling a spiritual condition that depicted lies or oppression they believed.

This feast and famine cycle I have played out for years is part of my journey toward heaven, one I can attest is worth it, but difficult at the same time.  If I can cause pain through the exertion of sweat and tears it defies what I cannot control, and since both are necessary for brain function, I indulge.  Due to the fact that I’ve had four concussions over my lifetime, the neurologist mandates that exercise is a part of my daily routine to ward off acute memory loss. Part of me wouldn’t mind forgetting many of the experiences I endured as a child, but this condition only pertains to the future threat of Alzheimer’s.  Consequently, I have taught my neurologist about the myriad of parts involved in survival after a trauma wether through physical or emotional onslaught.  It has come to my attention that the attacks on my brain since childhood, have always been to short out my ability to overcome.  With the longstanding ill effects my body has endured through repressing my memories, it has equally unveiled the tenacity my parts have had in protecting me from being overwhelmed with retrieving them all at once.  I suppose this is why my course has circled all the way back to the time I sought Christ for help 25 years ago.  I thought that Jesus would take away my pain and suffering and change my life so I could get on with it.  But what transpired was learning how to stand up on my own two legs and take His hand as I leaned on His understanding.  It has been cold and dreary and I sat down often while watching others dance through life unencumbered to the ways I had been, and I lost faith many times along the way.  I should say, "parts of me" lost faith while others found it through the injuries.  My battle scars were from the inside out and manifested in fatigue and resentment that stunted my creativity.  These were parts that shut down my function because they were alarming me to a much deeper problem, a multitude of inner children who were silenced in the dark and lying dormant within my internal system. Psychology for decades has referred to the "inner child" teaching and because IFS believes there are many, we call them exiles because they have absorbed a core negative belief.  Many protective parts layered themselves on top of these youngsters who endured experiences that were too grave to uncover,  so my body screamed and ached.  Some of these little ones emerged when I turned 32 years old and without the ability to keep shoving their truth, they spoke up and came clean about their traumatizations.  But other parts were angered at the ramifications this truth-telling caused, so they reacted with tactics that sent pain through my spine and down my limbs when estrangement from my family could not be reversed.  I get it now because I have built relationships with all of the parts inside of me who are willing to forgive me and I them, but it does complicate my responses to stimuli outside of my home. 

I can sense, feel or know how a person is perceiving me through their gestures, eye gaze, facial expressions and movement to a fault.  That hyper-vigilance has given me tremors on too many occasions to count, but now I know to appreciate the parts that are signaling potential danger to my system.  “An emotional pain, such as hurt, might generate constriction or an ache in your chest or stomach.” (Shershun, 2021) This is your body communicating to you, letting you know that a part needs your understanding instead of praying for it to leave or stop. For however long the condition has oppressed the part, it continues to anchor faulty belief as a spiritual condition that has to be gently led to Jesus, through self, for understanding before it releases it's negative burden. In my system, I will long to move after just 2 days of rest because so many of my parts need a release from the shame and suffering they are burdened with.  This is how I now know that somatic healing is part of recovery, that working with it all these years was my body’s communication of deeper need.  When I couldn’t alleviate the hurt through specialists and remedies, dance was my greatest expression to deflate it.  How gracious The Lord was to give me the inclination of worship to combat the attacks I would endure.  “During and after the traumatic experience, you may have disconnected from your body’s sensations on an attempt to lessen the physical and emotional pain.  It wasn’t safe for you to be in your body, so you learned to numb or dissociate.  In addition, if you didn’t get your basic needs of safety and nurturing met as a child, you may feel ashamed or even repulsed by your body, reinforcing the tendency to disconnect”. (Shershun, 2021)  As the author of, “healing sexual trauma workbook”, states, ‘You cannot heal from trauma without listening to and working with the body and what it is communicating’.  

I know that I have healed rolling ankles and re-shaped the formation of my legs so that my knees stopped knocking, and I did it all with awareness.  I paid attention to the cues  and clues that parts were directing my attention toward and I did that while a dance major in college before I met The Lord.  With Him however, I have embarked on deep introspection with the myriad of parts inside me that still long to be embraced in a loving way, and I can tend to them.  I can extend grace when my back flares up and inquire within to ask which parts need emotional support or help processing a memory.  I can minister to the exiles, those trapped children holding negative belief, and place my hand over my heart, stomach or back where they commonly reside.  I can thank the parts who manage muscles, joints and fascia when they freeze or suppress emotions.  I can honor parts that show up like firefighters to put out a blaze of endocrine or nervous system dysregulation.   I can even discern when my body is craving salmon to eat.  And all of this has only become apparent to me since I started thanking my body for being resilient. I had to turn empathetically, inside and ask the parts who radiated symptoms physically, what they needed from me and it almost always resulted in a loving relationship.

I have been mistreated and mistreated myself as a result of overpowering parts whose reasoning seemed unreasonable until I asked them why they believed what they did was necessary.  Many were holding onto old narratives of hurt and ruminated over injustices that ensued arthritic entrapment in my joints and clogged my throat from speaking the message He laid on my heart as a new convert.   I had to turn inward toward the pain to discover that healing had been combating the intrusive beliefs all along.  Now I can lean into what my body is telling me and I can seek forgiveness for ignoring it and responding to stimuli outside of it.  We have the ability to overcome every set-back and assault that our mind and body falls victim too, wether we induce it or subconsciously promote the effects of something done to us, but we have to move into the healing when a part believes it is time. 

I believe the timing of my revelation that somatic healing is integral to my wholeness, has occurred now.  I was literally going through the motions of healing under the guidance of God my whole life, starting ballet and enduring abuse simultaneously as age 3. With each request of healing from the limitations my body bore,  He has offered a patient road to recovery that brings each part of me back to a relationship with Him.  With compassion and curiosity I can connect to each and every part that needs to exchange the angst it is carrying for a burden that is light.  Moving into understanding of the parts that are stuck in a moment of history, I hope to dislodge the cycles of suffering that have beset my body and learn to love it, one part at a time.