Working hand in glove together
Clinical Somatics was the way out of chronic pain for me and my passion for sharing this modality led to me training in it. Much later, in the sometimes irritating, sometimes illuminating way that the algorithms work, I was led to the “Tell me about your Pain” podcast based on the book “The Way Out”. I sensed immediately how much this approach had to offer.
At the heart of this understanding is that in many cases of chronic pain, the fear of pain drives and amplifies the pain. This modality brings together solid tools such as mindfulness, somatic tracking and accessing cues of safety that can help develop a very different relationship with pain such that its volume decreases and diminishes.
Clinical Somatics makes movement safe, down-regulates the nervous system and is just the most wonderful practice for releasing the bracing that happens in response to fear of pain as well as chronic muscular tension itself which is a major player in the chronic pain picture.
I learned of the importance of developing the skill to access positive sensations. When stuck in a pain-fear-pain cycle, this become very hard to do. When we make somatic movements small and pleasurable, we can slowly begin to access the experience of positive sensations as we let go of long-held tensions and soak up the deep ease of being. In addition, the re-establishing of healthy and appropriate brain-body signalling – neuromuscular re-education – that happens in Clinical Somatic movement releases habitually contracted muscles.
I completed a certification in Pain-Reprocessing Therapy with Alan Gordon’s Pain Psychology Centre and bring both modalities into my sessions where appropriate. What these modalities share is that both approaches are so empowering. It is all about your own agency, exploring and unwinding your own lived-reality of pain slowly and carefully, while bringing kindness and compassion towards the body and mind. There is a wonderful knitting together that begins to happen – these are synergistic modalities.
