What The Breath And Breathwork Can Reveal About Somatic Healing

The body tells us what it needs to heal.

Often what it is that wants to be expressed in our bodies can be heard through the breath. Somatic bodywork is one of the most powerful ways to access what it is in us that yearns to be felt, heard, experienced, acknowledged. In this blog I review a recent bodywork session that illustrates how the breath can guide the work to a place that produces powerful openings for the clients.

A Case Study

I was working with a woman who had come to see me with a chronic back pain that had been bothering her for months. She no longer felt it was something structural or organic in nature, but rather something connected to her emotions. As is now well documented, physical pain can very commonly be linked to unprocessed or blocked emotional pain.

In this case I began the session working to soften the tissues around her shoulders and then her legs, helping to hold the contractions in her legs so that she could release around the places she was holding tension, and to allow more energy to move in the legs. I began to notice that her breath, on the exhale, had a particular sing-song quality to it. It was subtle, but it almost sounded as if the noise being produced was the beginning of a melody or of a song. When I checked in with her about the quality of the sound, she began to notice it too. I was curious if there was something there for her that wanted to be expressed. 

At this point I then asked her to amplify the noise: to intentionally let the noise be there on the exhale and let it come out even louder and with more volume and intonation. As she did this, the melodic nature of the breath emerged even more. She stayed with this for a while, just allowing the song-breath to be in the room with us. In doing this, she was allowing more aliveness to move, more energy to move, and more space to feel sensation in her body.

After some time I asked her if she could feel in her body where the sound was originating from. In other words, I was curious if she could sense if there was a place in her body connected to the song that was becoming more alive and full. Without hesitation she said it was her heart, and with the utterance of the words, tears began to flow down the sides of her cheeks as she let the grief she had been holding onto wash over her. By the time the session had completed, her whole body had softened. As she stood and felt her body after getting up off the massage table, she was able to feel that the tissues in her back had let go and the pain had nearly entirely dissipated. 

It’s not uncommon I work with clients who can feel - who know in the core of their being - that they are holding onto some sort of pain (physical or emotional) and that it is held in their body. The offering of somatic bodywork is that it can reveal how in our body and where in our body we create that holding. As in the case illustrated above, in simply listening deeply to the body and the breath, we find clues to help guide us in exploring the body and, subsequently, guide us in exploring what it is that wants to emerge in the self.

If you’re interested in learning more about somatic bodywork and how it can heal, please contact me.