Mini case study for experiencing the powerful transformation of witnessing
Note: There is no way for you to experience witnessing through this program because to feel the impact of witnessing you need to be felt by a transformational somatic coach. Yet, to ensure you have a full experience of what is possible, this section was created to give you a small taste.
While the Somatic Imprint practices are there for you to experience real shifts in your life, this section was included in order to help you develop higher awareness and clarity of how we can heal our Somatic Imprint. It took me more than 25 years to figure out what works and what doesn’t. For you to have this awareness, means you are already halfway there. For those who have searched for answers for decades and started to think that something is wrong with them, here is the answer to how you can heal your trauma.
Being felt in such a profound and deeply related way heals us.
As a transformational coach, I take a person into my nervous system and guide them gently into the areas where they cannot process the emotions by themselves. Our bodies are so smart that if our nervous system cannot handle what is happening to us at the time, it will shut down that area in us in order to keep us safe.
While witnessing, we deepen slowly and gently into these areas and we create an environment of unconditional trust and safety with the person and their body, so they can gradually start to feel these emotions that are inaccessible to them.
These frozen areas, at the same time, have to be respected. They have served their purpose and are there protecting something. They cannot just be torn off like a bandage or ripped open. When we move around a trauma in the body, we gently let the body be the boss and guide us. You cannot power through. You cannot create timelines and deadlines. You have to pay close attention and study the reaction of the body carefully to notice how and at what pace it allows the healing. Healing takes time. As you learn to respect this process, the process starts to unfold.
When the person is able to gently tap back into and feel the emotions in this frozen area, holding sacred space for them so that their nervous system is able to recognize that they are being felt. The body remembers how to discharge the emotions. The person feels us feeling them.
Because the human body is so incredible, when the nervous system recognizes this felt experience it starts to actually restore itself, healing the very area that got hurt. Being felt in such a profound and deeply related way heals us. It sounds simple, yet the way we have learned to live daily is completely detached from what we need in order to heal. And everybody, these days, walks around with some kind of hurt stored in their body. The only question is: How deep is the cut?
For example, one of my clients was carrying this weight on her shoulders for so long that it was hurting her career as a successful international businesswoman. The weight was so heavy that every so often everything in her life would fall apart. She tried everything for years and nothing worked – therapists, coaches, etc. She was helpless and almost lost hope of ever resolving this. She started to accept that something was wrong with her, which hurt her well-being and self-confidence in different situations. It left her depleted.
Her mother was unstable emotionally and hurt her in the very early and crucial years when she began to develop her internal base. She naturally took on the blame as a child, assuming that it was all her fault. In order to survive, she shut down these areas in herself to protect herself. After 3 months of deep related work of witnessing, of gently entering these frozen areas and being felt, she was able to let go of this blame, to realize it was her mother’s trauma, and to feel hope again.
We had to process a lot of grief for what she had lost over the years, in order for her to come back to a healthy emotional place. She says she feels calmer now, she is not as reactive to people as she used to be, and I notice in her this incredible new bubbly joy and sense of new confidence. And we are only just getting started!
Holding space for others means allowing them to feel that it’s OK to be exactly where they are, and feel what they are feeling. It means not trying to fix it for them. Instead, just being a loving, spacious presence with them in an unconditional way. Allowing them to simply be felt where they are, drop deeper into their body while being felt by the person in front of them.
I experienced the true power of the felt experience with my grandma. She loved me and allowed me to be with all that I felt, just as I was, in my darkest times. Through this felt experience she taught me that more was available to me than what I experienced in my own life, due to my mom’s mental illness. Her emotional availability for me, during these darkest times, helped me to simply keep it all together because she always saw in me and treated me like the person that I am today. I am grateful for this gift she gave me and hope that I can provide you with a similar space of healing that’s safe.
Next, you will find two case studies of clients who have gone through witnessing and the results they got. Lorin Hall, a doctor, and Sherry, a proposal manager.
If you have never experienced a witnessing session, watch the powerful shift that Peter experienced in the following video.
INSTRUCTIONS
Please follow these step-by-step instructions to complete this lesson:
- Read the text above and watch Peter’s witnessing video
- Don’t forget to hit the complete button when done