Somatic therapy helps us reconnect with our essential being. It takes the emphasis off our minds and moves us into a richer, more organic, field of knowing: our bodies. Our bodies were our original home, before social conditioning taught us to look outwards or ‘use our head.’ As babies (like my anesthetized daughter), we instinctively yearned for regulation through breath, touch, and presence. Reclaiming that connection is how we return to ourselves.

Here is another truth: we, as humans, are not clusters of symptoms; we are years of variables, swaddled in our fallibility, swimming in misunderstanding, and brimming with hope. Diagnoses do not reflect any of that. They name deficits; they do not reflect resilience, grit, or survival.

We, at the deepest and most intrinsic level, are survivors.