How Somatic Therapy Changed ​the Way I Parent, Forever

Parenting is the most beautiful and most painful thing I’ve ​ever experienced. Why? It’s because of love: you love your ​kids so much, it hurts.

When I first became a parent, I had a very rigid idea of ​how I wanted things to go. I wanted to be a natural ​parent: one that offered structure, a safe place, and ​easeful connection. Naively, I prepared by reading the ​most recommended parenting books, executing an ​aesthetically pleasing nursery, and attending regular birth ​prep yoga classes in hopes of becoming the mother I ​always wanted to be.

Within days of my oldest being born, the structure and ​routines I had prepared for had turned on me. The things I

had read didn’t match the reality I faced. Yoga, although useful, hadn’t made me the perfect “zen mama” I had hoped to ​be. Like many new parents in the throes of newborn life, I had become swamped in the sleeplessness, unpredictable ​feeding schedules, and the irreversible change that had consumed my life. Needless to say, I was not a natural. I was ​tired, overwhelmed, and dysregulated. I was for sure outside my window of tolerance.

In my panic, I had become obsessed with googling how to get more sleep, how to achieve the perfect swaddle, & how to ​increase my milk supply. I would mindlessly buy any product marketed to save me from my newborn mess. I was in ​survival mode. I was sinking and slowly growing more and more disconnected from the present, myself, and the support ​system available to me. I felt alone and my new baby felt distant. This was not how I had pictured parenting and I was at ​a loss and swollen with shame about how this early stage had gone for me.

Fast forward to me being pregnant with my second child, I had started training in Somatic Experiencing therapy through ​Somatic Experience International (traumahealing.org). Somatic Experiencing is a bottom-up therapy approach to ​treating trauma and stress related disorders. It asserts that trauma impacts the nervous system by creating stuck states ​of survival: fight, flight, & freeze. If we follow the body’s lead and create the circumstances for resolve, the nervous ​system can work through those stuck states and in return offer more connection to yourself, your loved ones, and the ​world at large.

I learned how our nervous systems are complex and are more than just the basic parasympathetic “off switch” and ​sympathetic “on switch”. I trained in Polyvagal Theory (originated by Steven Porges) and how where we are in the ​nervous system dictates how we are responding to stress. I learned when we have stuck trauma, we often don’t have ​much say in how we respond to stressful situations. The nervous system is an autonomic system, meaning it's automatic ​and activated subconsciously. It throws us into whatever states have served us for survival in our past. If in the past, ​being frozen and checked out socially supported survival, when similar stressors arrive in the present, freezing is the ​automatic response deployed. Likewise, if high levels of activity, knowledge seeking, and frantic efforts to ensure survival ​(symptoms of sympathetic energy) were useful in the past, the same types of behaviors and survival responses would be ​present for present stressors.

As I immersed myself into Somatic Experiencing and received my own treatment, I discovered it wasn’t my fault that I ​hadn't had the parenting journey I had imagined. I learned I could let go of shame and not only that, I could resolve ​what had kept me in my survival states postpartum and in those early days of parenting. By working through those ​patterns in the right setting for resolving them, I started to slowly reclaim connection to myself, my people and most ​importantly, my babies.

Somatic Experiencing therapy and the theories of the nervous system that support it have radically changed the way I ​parent and connect with my children. For starters, I have gained insight into my own stress patterns. I have learned how ​and when my survival responses are activated and deployed. I know that when I’m overstimulated, I tend to seek activities ​that allow me to numb and check out of relationships. I know that in the face of major life transitions, I tend to hyper-​react by fixing, buying, and researching. With practice, I have retrained my nervous system to be more flexible in those ​moments of high stress. My window of tolerance has grown & I know how to use my senses to find calm. I can rely on ​my breath and my being to know I am okay, and I can ask for help from those closest to me.

My lens for how I parent has shifted and my attunement to my children has deepened. My understanding of myself has ​lent itself to understanding them. I see my baby cry and I can go to them confidently with tools to coregulate. I recognize ​a toddler meltdown not as manipulation but as a growing nervous system learning how to regulate in a complex world.

I am by no means a perfect parent and parenting is still the most beautiful and most painful thing I’ve experienced. But, I ​no longer am frozen in my shame or other patterns of maladaptive stress responses. Instead, I continue to develop a ​flexible nervous system that responds with ease to the struggles and suffering of my life. I aim to bring that same energy ​to my clients I see in private practice. None of us can do this alone and that is why I’m so passionate about offering a ​holistic and somatic approach in counseling.

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Phone: 616-209-8757 | Email: emily@grsomatictherapy.com