Embodied Processing: True, felt-sense.

What is Embodied processing?

Embodied Processing (EP) is a somatic & psycho-spiritual modality, grounded in neuroscience, ancient healing traditions and drawing from various modern therapeutic modalities, including; Somatic Experiencing, Internal Family Systems Therapy, Polyvagal Theory, Neurolinguistic Programming, Hypnotherapy, and Attachment Theory.

EP champions the ‘direct experience’ by encouraging the client and the therapist to remain grounded in bodily sensations, emphasising the importance of moving beyond the cognitive interpretations of the mind. It is often referred to as the ‘bottom-up’ approach to healing.

In the fields of neurobiology, cognitive science, and psychology, it is well-established that most neurological signals originate in the body and travel up to the brain (bottom-up), shaping our experiences and behaviours.

Far fewer neural signals flow from the brain to the body (top-down). Many psychological therapies overlook the body’s crucial role in processing emotions and trauma. Furthermore it is important to understand that body and mind (thoughts, memories & emotions) are not separate, but instead are integrated and interdependent. Permeating all aspects of mind-body experience, is the greater Self, which we come to know through various mindfulness techniques.

Talk therapies work primarily with the thinking mind by reframing, cognizing, pathologizing, diagnosing and looking for intellectual band-aids. This can only assist with managing suffering and with creating coping strategies, but it will not bring true or lasting transformation. Although talk therapy has a place, it doesn't touch the stress that is stored in the body.

EP is a technique which is used to safely meet and digest the underlying wounds, through accessing the felt sense in the body. It is here, in the body, that we can feel and begin to understand what is driving many of our surface symptoms and behaviours.

Unravel trauma loops, release stuck energy, and reconnect with the authentic Self, restoring balance and wholeness.

How does it effect change?

The EP process helps us to employ the body’s innate intelligence to discharge stress, heal, regulate the nervous system and return to homeostasis. By guiding the client to meet these parts of mind-body self, with compassion and non-judgement, EP allows transformation to happen organically.

I always feel a sense of awe at the innate intelligence of the mind-body, and that by the simple act of witnessing, understanding and staying present with the felt sense of our wounds or protective barriers, the digestion of these so-called difficult feelings, happens seamlessly and without effort.

The EP approach brings together ancient wisdom traditions (mostly from Indic Knowledge Systems) and consciousness teachings, as well as the modern neuroscience of trauma and the nervous system.

EP sessions are intuitive and exploratory, assisting clients to experience pure presence in themselves. In this way, the innate mind-body wisdom and intelligence is accessed and brings self-knowledge, insights, understanding, self-compassion, integration and healing.

What can it help you with and how do you experience the changes?

Stress, anxiety, depression, addiction, trauma, overwhelm, people-pleasing, dysfunctional relationship patterns, self-sabotage, low self-esteem, chronic pain… all of these live as contracted stress in the physical, emotional and energetic body. These constrictions, disregulate the nervous system, causing suffering and pain in daily life.

The EP therapist safely establishes the client in a state of open curiosity and compassion, as attention is brought into bodily sensations, which reveal emotions, memory, and the origins of survival strategies, where the client may be feeling stuck in a loop.

In order to move forward in life, feelings must be seen, validated, welcomed and understood compassionately. It is imperative for the client to know they are not broken, they do not need to be fixed, but that it is simply time to for them to safely digest and integrate the old strategies and to see the wounded or exiled parts, as beautiful, brave, brilliant coping mechanisms, for life’s difficult experiences. What was once needed to survive, is no longer needed and the client can move towards a thriving state instead.

Once the exiled or wounded parts are welcomed, the client will observe a settling in the nervous system and a feeling of expansion and self-love. This self-acceptance may not have been felt for a long time, or maybe never in living memory, but it is the natural state of consciousness and it is our birthright.

From surviving to thriving

The more a client practices being with the felt sense, in an EP session, the more skilled they become at naturally doing so in everyday life. EP can expand one’s being-ness, to a compassionate, embodied and present state. This is what thriving is!

The common state of human, day-to-day life, is one led by the intellect. Although the intellect is a useful tool, it has limitations and if not seated within genuine embodied consciousness, it can become problematic, keeping us cut off from direct experience and reacting from a place of conditioning, rather than pure, responsive, knowing.

It is the nature of the human mind, to think that it is the source of knowledge, identity and truth. In Vedanta philosophy, this is known as avidyha or ignorance, and is the cause of our suffering. Ultimate truth is found beyond the mind and it is here that we can know our true nature, that of peacefulness and happiness.

When we operate only from the level of mind (intellect/mind/memory/emotion), we find ourselves unable to experience true connection and happiness. Mind is the barrier to pure consciousness and connection… body and breath can become the way through this barrier.

Free your mind

Survival has its roots deep within the unconscious and the body, not in the mind. To access the survival strategies, requires moving beyond the common psychological practices of the West and downward into the body, the nervous system and the unprocessed pain that exists there.

Emotional distress, survival stress, trauma, anxiety, depression; all exist as restrictions in the body. The EP technique allows the client to safely meet and digest difficult, unprocessed life experiences, core beliefs and emotions, giving the client the ability to experience greater levels of freedom within the physical, emotional, energetic and spiritual experience.

Without getting to the origins or root of suffering, we continue to ‘trim the branches of the tree, only to see them grow back’. Sometimes the regrowth is worse or more gnarly than the initial survival strategy. 

EP is the bottom up approach to healing, where we get to the roots and origins of suffering, creating permanent, lasting change for the better.

This can only be done by working with the underlying survival strategies, stored in the body. If we don’t access this deep somatic layer, the patterns will repeat, recycle or reform over and over again.

EP, like the ancient Indic practices of self-realisation, reveals an accurate understanding of identity, a felt-sense of self and direct experience. We start to understand the difference between small self and true Self. This generates a sense of hope, as one begins to see that the possibilities for growth, healing and happiness are endless.  

The EP Session

The EP session involves gentle, compassionate and mindful attention towards thoughts, emotions, visual imagery and most importantly bodily sensations to uncover the survival strategies and somatic-emotional wounds, which then allows integration into wholeness. There are various techniques or tools that the therapist can practice with the client and no one session looks like another. It is not a one-size-fits-all approach but rather a deep listening, seeing and being seen, so that the client is understood, their unmet needs are met, and they feel more comfortable, safe and trusting of the process, as time goes by.

An example of an EP technique used in session is Pendulation, coined by Dr. Peter Levine, and involves moving the client’s awareness between activation (heightened arousal) and deactivation (lowered arousal), or difficult feelings and calmness.

Watch this short interview excerpt where Dr. Levine explains more.

This rhythmic shifting of attention, helps clients build capacity to stay with difficult feelings, regulate their responses, and integrate trauma experiences, thereby fostering resilience and facilitating healing. It also mimics the natural expansion and contraction rhythms, which are a characteristic of the human experience. It’s like a form of emotional fitness training.

There may still be a tendency for the client to rise up into the narrative and cognitive mind-state, but the skill of the EP therapist lies in consistently guiding the client back to the felt sense, in order to access the actual roots of the suffering.

Pendulation is practiced through guided exercises that help balance and explore emotions and felt sense. By fostering awareness and regulating arousal levels, individuals can process trauma more effectively and over time become autonomous and self-empowered to live life wholesomely and fully.

If you want to experience a one-off session or commit to a longer period of learning and healing, then please contact me.

Likewise if you feel stuck in old trauma loops or limiting behaviours and you have a sense that there must be a way to move through the difficulties, to heal and thrive, and you need guidance, then connect with me for coaching or counselling.

My mission is to help you to unlock your full potential and support you on your journey back to Self.

Much love and peace from Gem.

Image found on X and edited, artist unknown.