The importance of SELF-healing, self-understanding, self-awareness
The main aim of Clinical Somatics - of all the work I do with clients in clinical sessions, as well as in group classes and in recorded lessons - is to have you understand and develop the skills to help yourself heal, to help your own awareness of your soma and how to create ease in it, and so to live a life not ‘free’ from pain, but able to deal with any experiences of pain and move on, leaving the pain behind.
This makes me think of what Eleanor Criswell Hanna often says: “the obstacles in my path, are my path.”
Again, the emphasis here is that pain is inevitable in human existence. It is also often part of self-protection, and as such can be valuable.
The real PROBLEM comes when we get STUCK in pain - when your body stays in a place of pain, of stress, of tension (or, indeed, of trauma), when there is no good reason for you to be there. THAT is the state that Hanna Somatics helps you ease out of, and stay away from in your future.
This is why ‘doing the movements’ you learn in Clinical Somatics (you’ll learn them in e.g. the SoMA Essentials program) really helps you get out of pain. As part of doing the movements effectively, though, you’ll also learn how to become more attuned to your own felt sense - to how you feel in your body, from the inside. This is all about self-awareness, self-learning, and learning how to sense and welcome feelings of ease in yourself.
This is not always as ‘easy’ as it sounds, as you likely know all too well!
But, through Clinical Somatics - alongside, for some, also perhaps a more ‘therapuetic’ approach such as Somatic Experiencing, or similar body-focused therapy - this vastly enhanced self-awareness is possible. And, most importantly, will contribute hugely to your ability to get rid of your pain, and keep pain from getting stuck in your body, in the future.
And as you learn what I teach in e.g. SoMA Essentials and the SoMA Program - learning more movements, and more about yourself - the aim is that you won’t need to see a Certified Clinical Somatic Educator; the aim is always to enable you to help yourself.
This is why Clinical Somatics, taught as Hanna intended it, is truly empowering - not to mention, a very economical model, as it doesn’t expect (or encourage) you to see a practitioner on a regular basis.
This doesn’t mean you can’t (or shouldn’t) take series of classes to learn new ideas, and to have the benefit of having someone else do the ‘thinking’ for you, about new movements, and how to access your sensations: it’s always good to take classes with others! (As a Certified Clinical Somatic Educator, I do this regularly - because taking gentle direction from someone else allows my brain to focus fully on the experience. Also, it engages co-regulation, which I think is important… But I digress!)
Clinical Somatics, though, encourages you to become fundametally self-sufficient, self-healing, and self-aware: So that YOU decided when to seek new ideas or help, and when to just use all you’ve already learned:
The model encourages you, then, to learn all you can from teachers - all about Clinical Somatics movements, and the impostance of sensory awareness (and how to access that, for you) - and then to use your knowledge in your own life. To help yourself get out of pain, and avoid getting stuck in pain. It gives YOU the tools.
Want to know how it works? How movement with conscious awareness can actually get rid of chronic pain? Sign up for my free 3-part series, “The Truth About Pain - and how to get rid of it” to learn more.