Listening to a program on healing, I learned more about how trauma, or even intense experiences “stay in the body.” In our culture and education, we mainly focus on using our brain or cognition, talking, reading, and hopefully listening. Of course, these are necessary means of learning and engaging, but they exclude learning with the physical body using somatic methods.
Most of the time, this cultural bias is under the radar. The use of somatic methods shows up when someone has experienced serious trauma. For example, they have symptoms of PTSD. (The main symptoms of PTSD are nightmares, flashbacks, intense anxiety, avoidance, insomnia, and angry outbursts. Note that many of these involve physical reactions.) Then there is an effort to find ways to help relieve the trauma reaction relying to a large degree on somatic interventions. Bessel Van Der Kolk, M.D. has written and spoken about the importance of engaging both the brain and the body to relieve the symptoms of PTSD. Resmaa Menakem has written about healing racialized trauma through information from neuroscience and somatic methods.
Understanding the role of our bodies in registering all kinds of life experiences leads me to these questions. How do we become aware of the information that our bodies hold? How do we manage this information? How do we take advantage of somatic methods to improve learning and unlearning to become more whole?
This has become more apparent to me during the pandemic. Attending Zoom meetings underscores this. Helpful as Zoom has been, everyone who has used Zoom for meetings or connections during the pandemic is aware of its limitations. How many times have individuals started speaking at the same time? How fatiguing it is to only gaze at the screen. How many times has it been impossible to fully understand what someone else is trying to express?
Recently I have been enjoying getting to know someone with whom I cannot be physically. It has become clear to me that there is only so much that I can learn through electronic media. I can’t know how this person is in their bodies, how they move through space. How they relate to others and the world around them! I am struck by the amount of subtle information we receive when we are in each other’s physical presence that is unavailable when only using phones or even Zoom! Our children also inform us about the deprivation they feel when they cannot be with each other in person.
When this pandemic is over (yes it will be over someday!), I will feel differently about the value of actual personal contact with another. And I will have a new respect for the amazing instrument of my physical body for learning and understanding. My hope is that our culture moves beyond somatic methods for severe trauma only and includes this way of gaining and holding knowledge across many disciplines. I believe that we would become more aware, more resilient and flexible, more whole as individuals and as a culture.