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.