I worked hard in talk therapy for many years but seemed to have reached a stuck place. I had been trying for years to overcome anxiety and depression. I don't remember when I was not in talk therapy consistently from 2008 on. There were traumas that I dealt with on an intellectual level that did not seem to resolve with conscious examination. 

 

Besides talk therapy, I also tried meditation, journaling, EMDR, medications, exercise, religious worship, and self-medicating. Many of those activities were helpful, but somehow there was still something that could not be processed with words.

 

Old wounds and pain so deeply locked within were released. Shea helped me listen to my body, and it was given the attention it needed. Shea helped me see that my body had carried many wounds for a very long time. It held pain and trauma that my brain could not handle. Once it was given a chance to speak --there were releases of intense energy freeing my body from carrying it like Atlas holding the world on his shoulders. I felt the pressure on my shoulders like an invisible mantle of shame and guilt. There was nothing to figure out or analyze, only what to release through crying, laughing, and grieving of old pain…The child critic in me that worked all these years to keep me from more pain got a reprieve. 

 

Shea provides a safe container and environment for this work could be done. She is one of the most caring and accepting people I have ever met. Shea builds trust (something I do not generally have in people). Shea helps your body have a voice. She listens; there's no ego in her powers, though she is a healer. I wish all of my friends would go see her. 

 

My body spoke through nausea in the gut, esophagus, and up into the throat area. What needed releasing was my own voice. I have a lot of anxiety when speaking to others and telling them how I truly feel about something. This is partly because I haven't acknowledged the pain that I was carrying around and partly because it was not always okay for me to voice how I felt. As a child, my feelings were often invalidated or even ridiculed. Shea helped me move that energy out of my gut and through my throat through bursts of releases. Every time the body got acknowledged and the releases made, I felt freer, more at peace, more sure of myself as a person and of my voice.

 

It's interesting to look back and see the changes. Certainly, after each session, something more of my true self felt available to me. I find myself telling others what I really need and feel more now. I feel more self-contained, more confident, and stronger within. I stand taller and more poised. I can trust my body, if I listen to it, to tell me if I am missing or overlooking something. It will be important for me to acknowledge my feelings and be kind to myself so that the body does not have to re-hold them. I have grieved things that I did not give myself the time to grieve --this frees up a lot of personal internal energy and resources. I would like to return to Shea for more Somatic work as new areas get uncovered. I am medication-free --that is not to say I don't still struggle or hurt. It's more like having tolerance and resilience to the slings and arrows of life.