What is a Somatic Table Session?

When I taught yoga for many years, I worked individually with students in private sessions. Most of my clients were elders who had chronic pain and deep holding in their bodies. What they expressed to me again and again was that sometimes when I would just place a hand on their shoulder, they’d feel it let go. At the time, I didn’t really understand why or how. Was it the connection– the gentle embrace? Was it the energy in my hand? Was it some Higher Power working through me? Was it just placebo because I was the teacher and they were the student?

Yes. No. I don’t know. I mean, can I answer that for the student? I don’t think so.

When I found somatic touch work though as a client lying on the table, I experienced immediate profound shifts. And, I resisted offering this work for a while– namely because asking people to come in and lie down on a massage table just felt a little weird where I live in Fort Worth, Texas. 

Sure, I’ve done reiki and acupuncture and rolfing and massage. But, what is somatic touch work? Clients and potential clients want to know what to expect.

Typically, I ask clients to just come in and sit down in one of the chairs in my office, and we take a moment to explore what’s in the field today. Did you just arrive after sitting in traffic? Did your child have a meltdown this morning? Did you forget a change of comfortable clothes and now you are mad you have to lie down in your suit? I think of it like a weather report for your physiology. 

And, then there’s typically a moment of readiness. The client begins to take off their shoes or motions toward the table or sits up a little taller in the chair. And, I ask them to take a seat on the table and determine which direction feels best. Maybe you’ve never considered such a question of orientation. I encourage you to explore both options and invite your body to determine its answer. And, more importantly, how do you know your body prefers to face south and not north? What happens? All of this becomes the material to understand your boundaries and sense of safety. 

Then, as you lie down, there is the question of where to begin. Where would you like support? Or, let me back up a bit: would you even like support? What happens as you lie down? If you lie down and feel your body begin to relax, where does it first occur? What happens next? If you lie down and you begin to experience tension in your back, can you be with that and see what happens as you notice it? What happens to that tension when you notice the part of the body that isn’t tense?

Initially, there is quite a bit of talking as you track the sensation. And, then, I say, “I’m wondering about placing a hand here–” Here might be an ankle or the outer leg or a wrist or shoulder or elbow. “Would that be okay?”

Provided that it is, I place my hand there and begin to feel what my fingertips feel. Initially, I’m tracking the temperature, tone, pulsations. And, with a few seconds, something new happens. “Did you feel that?” The client will ask. “Yes, what was it like for you?”

“I felt this surge through my leg.” 

“Surge…”

“Yes, it’s gone now.”
“Gone, okay, now that it’s gone, what do you notice instead?”

“Well, I feel my leg in a new way.”

“New– how?”

“It feels stronger and heavier but somehow lighter and more spacious, too.” 

Many times the descriptions feel paradoxical. Somatic work enables us to hold the duality of opposites. Grounded can have both a heaviness and a lightness at the same time. 

We continue to create more flow in various parts of the body. I move around to the other side of the body to cultivate symmetry. The body is not symmetrical, so what happens on the other side, may be completely different yet equally interesting.

At the end of the session, usually you rest for a few minutes to integrate the changes. And, when you emerge from the table, you feel different. With more awareness of your legs, walking feels novel. Not like Bambi first learning, but with just newfound connection to the earth beneath your feet. With more grounding, breathing feels more accessible. You might not require as much air. The rhythm is slower and less labored. There’s more room to breathe. With less bracing in your body, you sleep deeper and emerge more rested. With more regulation, you have access to your hunger cues. Your body is no longer reacting like a bear hibernating for winter or a gazelle being chased. You can feel fullness. These are just examples of the simple and profound effects that can occur. 

a typical Somatic Experiencing session

What most people ask when they call me is: what does a typical session entail?

People come to my office. On the outside it doesn’t look like much. I call it Grandma’s house. Inside, it’s an inviting environment that facilitates letting down. Clients come in, and the invitation is to become present-moment-aware in the space and to examine what is in your field in the present moment. What presents in the field drives the session. Let’s consider for a moment in this hypothetical story that what might be anxiety.

Ok, so what does your experience of anxiety in this moment feel like?

I feel like my insides are jumpy.

Insides jumpy? Ok. It’s great that you can notice that. Where do you notice the jumpyness?

Mostly in my chest and stomach. 

Your chest and stomach, ok. I’m wondering if you might notice your feet on the ground and your seat in the chair. What happens there?

Oh, I kinda forgot I had legs for a minute. Yes, it’s good to notice they’re there. 

Great, so as I see you plant your feet more firmly and become more aware of your strong legs, I’m wondering what happens next with the jumpyness…

It feels a little less jumpy.

A little less jumpy– wow, ok, and as you notice it’s less jumpy and that you’re seated here with me, what happens next? 

Now this is going to sound strange, but—

(I cannot tell you how many times a day someone says this to me).

I hear that all of the time. It might not be strange to me…

I just saw this image of when–

And, that’s how a session goes. We work with what presents and we pull that thread and see what else it might be attached to. Memory is stored thematically, not chronologically. The mind files the “jumpy anxious memories” from the 1900s in the same drawer as the ones from today. So, we begin to uncouple the emotion of the past from the present moment. The sensation in the body continues to change, and together we track the changes, and inevitably, what happens next is you take a spontaneous deep breath or you cry a few tears or you tremble in an extremity or your eyes begin to blink and whatever the what was is complete. 

How do you know it’s complete? You feel more at ease. The jumpyness doesn’t have the same charge. Memories of jumpyness have new meaning. The next time you experience jumpyness, you don’t feel overwhelmed and swept up in the vortex of it. These are just examples, of course. 

Over time, the person who arrives to my office is a different person than the one who initially began working on their nervous system regulation. Your capacity to respond to life in a regulated way increases. You attract new people and experiences. When you experience overwhelm, you have a different baseline of regulation to which to return. The hallmark of a healthy nervous system is not one that is calm all of the time. We need our instincts to fight and flee in order to remain safe in the world. A healthy nervous system rides the waves and recovers efficiently. Each session mimics a wave. On the next session, we pull a different thread. The session unfolds similarly and entirely differently.

When are you finished with this work? How long does it take?

That’s up to you. I’ve studied this work for the better part of a decade, and I still see a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner via Zoom periodically. I still drive farther than I’d like to for Somatic Table Sessions. I aspire to keep my skills fresh and always to remember what it’s like to be in the seat of the client. And, I’ve found that many clients do this work routinely for a year or so, and then they find they just want to come in for maintenance from time to time. 

befriending the body

I have worked out with the same personal trainer for ten years. When I began going to him, I suffered with back pain. Through the years, he’s helped me correct imbalances, and most days I awaken pain-free, and I have enough strength to lift my son and carry my groceries and do my work in the world.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been dealing with some back pain again, which happens from time to time with all that I carry. And, he’s encouraged me over and over to do an epsom salt bath. We have a joke that’s not really a joke that 99% of what’s wrong can be solved with an epsom salt bath. But, it’s hot outside, and I’m tired at night, and my tub leaves much to be desired, so I have lots of excuses about why I don’t want to do the thing that could perhaps help relieve my pain.

What he said to me last week landed deep inside:

“Stop approaching it like ‘I’ve gotta get in there and fix this.’ Make it tranquil,” he said.

I see this with my clients all of the time. They come in for sessions, and they’ve got something they’re looking to fix. They see themselves as a problem that needs solving. And, honestly, I’m wired to see myself that way, too. Something is wrong with me Syndrome.

The body, however, is simply begging for attention. The body is intelligent in the way it communicates with us.

So, I’ve been in the bath several times this week. Without an agenda. No ultimatums. Just lying in the water at the end of the day and being curious about what’s there. The pain. The absence of pain. The tension. The freedom of movement. The story I’m telling myself about the sensation. When I widen the lens through which I see and sense my body, the way I experience my body changes.

Rupi Kaur

my experience with SE touch sessions

“I feel like I’ve been catapulted out of a cannon.” I say this to him as I’m lying on his massage table. I’ve driven over an hour to be here. This work on my own nervous system has required diligence and perseverance. While somatic practices have been around for a number of years, it’s not exactly common in Fort Worth, Texas where I live. Somatic table work is perhaps the most potent practice I’ve found though, and I’ve done a fair amount of shopping around.

We begin to work with the energy of how it feels for my body to let down. As I lie on the table with nowhere to be— there are no clients to care for, no meals to prepare, no bills to pay, no portraits to make. My only work is to lie down and track the sensations in my body.

For most of my life, I’ve awakened each morning feeling as if I’ve been catapulted. Nausea. Anxiety. Dread. We’ve ridden through life together for as long as I can remember and perhaps even before my autobiographical memory came online. I feel these sensations even when I’m excited about what’s to come on my schedule. I have a life that I love. For the past several years, I’ve allowed myself a few hours each morning to wake. I’m self-employed. I can do this. I can wake at 5 and choose not to see clients until 8.

But, lately the catapult has felt heightened, and I’ve been hypersensitive to the transition from sleeping to waking. My own healing journey continues to humble me. And, I’m actually grateful because the humility helps me with clients, too.

One time a lady called and asked me if somatic work was a one and done thing.

Well, it hasn’t been for me. It isn’t for most of us with complex trauma.

Literally, the doctor pried me out of my morher’s dark warm womb into fluorescent lighting and air conditioning. To my big beautiful bruised head and tiny body, I probably did feel catapulted.

Except now I’m 40. And I have that same experience almost every morning. I’ve done everything else I know to do. I don’t drink alcohol. I don’t eat sugar. I limit caffeine. I exercise. I meditate. I track my heart rate variability. I speak affirmations. I am in constant contact with a Power I call God.

And, still 3-4 hours of my morning trying to get grounded. The people who know me well keep encouraging me that this doesn’t have to be my reality, and honestly if someone called me and told me everything I just wrote, I’d encourage them to seek outside help, too.

So here I am on the table. Somatic touch sessions are done with the clothes on. To an observer in the room, it might appear as though not much is happening. The practitioner holds an area of the body with their hands. Unlike massage, there’s minimal movement. Simple support.

“What happens here as you try to let down?”

Images begin to flash. Nothing, too vivid. Pretty abstract. I am not afraid. Accompanying these flashes though is the phrase, “It’s show time!”

Although I don’t know for certain, this feels like a reference to my rather high-paced photography career. Photography is my career. Somatic work is my calling. A part of me must still love the adrenaline that comes with commercial photo production. The pressure.

It’s show time. Essentially time to rock and roll. Set aside your troubles and make whoever is in front of the camera feel beautiful.

He encourages me to remember that it’s not actually show time— that we’ve got about an hour until the curtain. He’s got his hands on my ankles. Having just been shot out of the cannon, he’s helping me find the ground again through the feedback of his hands on my feet.

Two tears arise. “I can’t let down or I’ll let others down.”

How many times a day do I abandon myself?! It’s been a pattern for a lifetime. One that initially helped me to survive. But, I have more tools now. I live a relatively safe life. My needs are met. No animals are chasing me. I know this intellectually. The touch work helps my body to feel the safety deep in the physiology.

And, as the tears fall toward my ears, I feel my abdomen let go. I’ve been sucking my stomach in even before it was for aesthetic reasons. Suddenly, there is more room to breathe. Momentarily, I have forgotten about the show. I can rest on the table. For the first time, I feel free.

This is the essence of how somatic touch work has worked for me in a single session.

my journey with anxiety & Somatic Experiencing

I suffered for 30+ years with anxiety. Some years I stayed home sick from school. Some years I went to therapy. Some years I took a pill each morning. Some years I drank heavily each night to buffer myself from what I didn’t want to feel. Some years I starved myself because I liked becoming smaller, feeling less. Some years I practiced yoga and meditation. Some years I drank green juice and sniffed essential oils. Each of these was effective – temporarily for a few hours or days. But, wow – I’m tired just writing all of that. And eventually because managing anxiety was an exhausting cycle much like an undesired circus ride with no end in sight, I would shut down in isolation with depression.

A couple years ago I embarked on a journey to become certified in Somatic Experiencing, a researched body-based therapy for trauma and PTSD. I wasn’t sure how it would turn out. The timing didn’t seem right. It was much like how I felt when I took this photo with slow film with just the last bit of light: will it work…who knows? Well, it’s worth a shot. And lo and behold, the result has been more beautiful than I ever could’ve imagined. SE has given me the tools to heal deeply at the nervous system level – the missing peace for me.

I now see clients both in-person and remotely. What a gift it’s been to provide people with the tools to heal so they can live with more vitality, too.

If you’re curious about how a Somatic Experiencing session could help you, please email me at amber@ambershumake.com.

Amber