Our Stories & Our Work: Relational Healing Through The Body – A Conversation
Our Stories & Our Work:
Relational Healing Through The Body - A Conversation
What does it mean to heal relationships – not just with others, but with yourself – through the body?
In this conversation, my colleague Arpitha Shankar and I share our journeys into somatic therapy and relational healing, and reflect on how it shapes our current work with clients. We talk about the role of embodiment in working with attachment wounds and how body-based trauma therapy can offer safety and connection where words may fall short.
I hope that this dialogue can offer something meaningful for those of you seeking support or a sense of direction as you’re healing your relationships – whether that’s a relationship with yourself, your body, your emotional responses and behaviors, your past, your physical symptoms, or with the people around you – your family, your partner, or even the world at large.
Watch the conversation or read the transcript below.
Meeting Through Somatic Experiencing
Elena:
Arpitha and I met at a Somatic Experiencing training in India, the advanced part of the three-year-long professional SE training. And soon after, she joined Back To Your Body as a practitioner, which I’m really excited about. We both specialise in developmental trauma, and we both work with attachment, but we do that through a different combination of body-based modalities.
So let’s dive into it. Arpitha, what made you interested in studying somatic therapy and specialising in attachment work?
Arpitha’s Path: From Birth Work to Attachment Healing
Arpitha:
My career path had been a byproduct of my own pathway to integrity and presence. I started my work as a birth worker, being a doula and a childbirth educator.
Having had the privilege of being in the birthing field, I was noticing that the body has its own language and its own wisdom. I’ve seen the transformative power of birth when mothers who put others’ comfort above their own come to the other side completely transformed after they’ve had a very empowering birth experience. It’s like they’ve suddenly found their voice, sure of themselves, and rooted in their inner knowing. I’ve been fascinated by what enables it.
And I’ve also seen the other side of it, when birthing experiences become traumatic, how that affects life post-birth, both for the parent and the baby. I was also at a point where I was exploring my own relationship with myself, as I was a parent to two wonderful children. I had all the information I needed to raise them into emotionally sensitive, wholesome adults, and yet I was unable to really step into the knowledge I had. And I was very curious about what was coming in the way of my integrity and my presence, and I discovered that these were the echoes of unresolved woundings in me.
So, that’s when I felt this calling to dive deeper into the wisdom the body holds. And I became more interested in attachment trauma because a large part of how we adult and how we function as adults, is shaped by the way we were received into this world right from the time we were conceived in the womb.
Also, I was filled with awe and wonder about how we get imprinted with core beliefs right from the time we are conceived, based on how our caregivers relate with us while we are in the womb. These pre-verbal memories are stored in our bodies.
It was a respite for me that sometimes you don’t have to talk your way through trauma. We can hold the body in the unfolding of incomplete life experiences, and then through that completion, we can have choices and possibilities of relating in a more life-fulfilling way. So that’s how I stepped into the work that I do at the moment.
Elena’s Path: Dance, Burnout, and Healing Through the Body
Elena:
Thank you for sharing. It’s such a incredible journey – all of us go through a very unique path to come to this work.
As for me, I got into somatic work through my dance training as a professional dancer. When I was in London, the first dance form that I used to study was South Indian classical dance, and it was my Bharatanatyam teacher who introduced me to somatics. I didn’t know what it was at that time. I don’t think any one of us fully understood it, but it felt good in the body and it felt right. Later, when I went to study contemporary dance and contact improvisation, somatic movement and bodywork became an integral part of my training.
But when it comes to somatic therapy, it started with my own healing. I didn’t know I was healing trauma or that trauma was resurfacing for me. I knew I was going through a difficult time in my life, and relationships were a big part of it. I was also transitioning out of my dance career, I had moved countries a couple of times, and eventually, I ended up with emotional and physical symptoms of burnout.
There is sometimes a perception that if you work as a professional dancer with the body, then you have a good awareness of it. And I realised that it wasn’t exactly the case – at least, not for me. Emotionally, I was on edge. I developed extreme sensitivity, constant fatigue, and insomnia. My migraines got worse. All these symptoms didn’t make sense to me. So it was my wake-up call – I wanted to understand what was happening to me and how I could support myself.
Fast forward to years later, when I started working with my clients through yoga and later through Somatic Experiencing, I realised that no matter what my clients came to me with, there was usually a relational component to it – some patterns from childhood or attachment wounding. It didn’t matter whether they were coming to me after an accident, a surgery, or wanted help with setting boundaries, there was usually something much deeper, and I could not ignore that.
This led me to continue my learning, so I did additional courses in other modalities: Neuro-Affective Touch, Integral Somatic Psychology, and Internal Family Systems. These are just some of the approaches that I’ve found really useful in starting to untangle the attachment pieces of trauma, both for me and for my clients.
Growing Awareness of Somatic Therapy
Somatic therapy is becoming a little bit of a buzzword. More and more people are talking about trauma, and they are becoming aware that their body might be keeping the score. But what many don’t know is that there are different forms of somatic therapy, and even within the same modality, different body-oriented practitioners have different approaches to working with trauma and the body-mind connection. And some people may benefit from some approaches more than others.
So, Arpitha, what does somatic therapy with you look like? What is different about your approach, and who can benefit from it?
Arpitha’s Therapeutic Approach: Focus on Relationship and Building Safety
Arpitha:
The main modalities that I use in a body-oriented approach to trauma healing are Somatic Experiencing, Bodynamics, and Neuro-Affective Relational Model, so I use a combination of these 3 practices. I primarily start my sessions by establishing a therapeutic relationship because that is one of the key resources in supporting the work that we get to do together.
There is growing awareness about somatic work, and it’s often misunderstood that if we only allow ourselves to feel, we will be healed. Although it might feel like it’s so deceptively simple, it’s often not the case because to feel, one needs to develop the capacity, and sometimes feeling could be really scary. That’s why we need relational presence. And over time, as we build relational safety, we can go deeper into the things that have been really hard to feel in the body. So it’s about building capacity in the body to hold different life experiences so that one feels well-resourced. After all, one of the reasons why trauma happens is because at that moment, we were very underresourced.
Internal Organisation, Beliefs, and Expanding Consciousness
Another key piece that I look at is how one organises life events internally in their body. When life experiences happen, what does that evoke in us somatically? And what kind of core beliefs are held as a result of these somatic experiences? So, once we uncover them and allow ourselves to embody these experiences, there is an elevation of consciousness from wounding to more presence and agency. And from that place, more life-affirming possibilities open up.
Developing a Relationship With the Self
Somatic awareness builds a bridge to connect and establish a relationship with oneself. And as we begin to relax into that relational connection with oneself, there is more integrity and authenticity in relating with the world. We are less likely to get washed away by the currents of automatisms. Those automatic patterns have wisdom because they saved us from whatever trauma we survived in the past. But the key is to let our body know that that is over and to give ourselves permission to thrive. So this is how I support individuals to step into the present, and into a space from survival to thriving.
Working With Different Demographics
I work with individuals of all genders, and I also enjoy working with parents. Being a parent myself, I relate to the kind of challenges parenting evokes in us that can become portals for healing. And I also work with couples. With couples, this moving work focuses on understanding how our nervous system has stored the pathways of expressing love, receiving love, and interpreting rejections and conflicts. These are some of the ways I work with different demographics.
Elena’s Therapeutic Approach: Relational Support for Women’s Embodied Healing
Elena:
Thank you. If I were to talk about myself, starting with the last question – who I work with – I specialise in working with women. As a woman myself, I’ve spent quite a lot of time trying to understand the intergenerational and also collective aspect of trauma that conditions us to feel and behave a certain way without even realising it, and what we hold in our bodies as women, as a result of it. There are also different seasons of life that we go through, and I really enjoy supporting women navigating those seasons and everything else that life presents.
Interoception and Trusting the Body
Since my background is mainly in the body-oriented fields as a former dance and movement artist, trauma-informed yoga facilitator, and now as a somatic practitioner working with trauma, my approach is very interoceptive. It invites you to feel and be with whatever is happening inside in the present moment. And I know it’s not always very comfortable, and not always useful as well. Just like you said, Arpitha, there is value in feeling. There’s value in being with the body – there might be the right time for that. And there might be times when it’s not appropriate and might not be safe. So we need time to resource and build the capacity that you mentioned. Yet the interoceptive body-oriented healing is where my approach shines. It helps you go deeper and discover what your body holds. And this invitation comes from a place of trust that the body will reveal what needs attention and what needs healing. I believe this is the essence of Somatic Experiencing, which is so close to me.
Relational Healing in Elena’s Work
Relational healing in my sessions starts with inviting my clients to explore their relationship with themselves, their bodies, and the issues that they bring into therapy – something that they want to change, to get rid of or to fix. This is also a relationship.
My presence is that of a guide, sometimes directing towards the places which might be challenging to explore. Also witnessing, holding space and reminding that there will be moments of discomfort and reassuring that they are not alone in that discomfort. Also mentioning that there will be moments of misattunements from my side. I’m a human, and even though I come into this work as someone who holds the knowledge of what trauma is or how it can show up, in the end, misattunements are part of human relationships, and the repair of those misattunements is so powerful and healing. So this is what I can offer from my side – to initiate a repair. It can be quite valuable for someone with a lot of relational ruptures but rarely experiences of repair.
Who Body-Based Work Is and Isn’t For
There are some situations, however, when my somatic therapy sessions, especially online ones, might not be suitable for some people, for example, for those who are not able to sense their bodies or stay with any sensations. And I’m saying this with a lot of compassion and understanding that this is a very common trauma response. And so in this case, Arpitha’s work could be more helpful as it combines both top-down and bottom-up approaches, for instance, using the dialogue and bringing elements of embodiment in tolerable doses when it’s appropriate.
Direct Touch and Complementary Support
Alternatively, I also work with direct touch. This is another way I help my clients sense and feel their body without relying on the mindful awareness alone. It’s also our developmental need to be touched in a caring and a safe way.
Also, my somatic work may not be suitable for someone with extreme dysregulation that may require a clinical specialist’s support or medical attention. But for someone who is already getting the support of either medical or mental health professionals, my work would be more complementary. I feel this is important to mention.
Arpitha, is there anyone who may not benefit from your work?
Arpitha:
I think you pretty much covered it all. It’s a very small percentage of the population that might not benefit from this work. I have nothing more to add on top of what you shared.
Closing Thoughts
Elena:
So we’ve come to the end of this sharing, and as you see, healing is very unique to each one of us. There are so many different approaches and ways to work with trauma, the body, and the nervous system that would suit different people. And if you’re curious about somatic therapy and would like to try it with either of us, you can visit the About Us page for more details and to book your first session to experience this process. After all, somatic work is something to be experienced, not just understood.
Whatever direction you choose, I want to leave you with this reminder that healing is possible, and I hope that you get the support you need wherever you are in your process.
I’m Elena Jacinta, a Somatic Experiencing practitioner and the founder of Back To Your Body, an online global practice offering a supportive space to attend to your nervous system and trauma through the body. At Back To Your Body, we help individuals and couples with nervous system regulation, psychosomatic symptoms, shock trauma, developmental/ attachment trauma, systemic and generational trauma.
