Somatic Therapy: How to Release Stress Trapped in Your Body

Do you ever feel like you are carrying a constant, heavy weight, even when there is no immediate threat? This sense of perpetual strain is often a sign that chronic stress or unprocessed trauma is trapped not just in your mind, but physically within your body. While we often think of stress as purely a psychological issue, your experience of anxiety, fear, or disconnection is deeply intertwined with your nervous system.

This is why traditional methods sometimes fall short. If you could simply think your way out of a feeling, you would have done so already. At Inner Summits, we recognize that true, lasting healing requires moving beyond talk therapy and addressing the issue at its root. We use a neurobiologically-based, bottom-up approach that includes Somatic Therapy to speak the body’s language. This unique pathway allows us to gently and effectively release the stress and emotional burdens your system has been carrying for years, guiding you toward true lightness and freedom.

Why Can’t I Just Think My Way Out of Stress?

This is perhaps the most fundamental question when seeking emotional relief. The answer lies in understanding the difference between the brain’s conscious mind and the deeper, more ancient survival mechanisms. The conscious, thinking mind is housed in the prefrontal cortex; it excels at logic, planning, and everyday problem-solving. This part of the brain is the target of what is known as a Top-Down therapy approach, such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT).

However, the roots of deep emotional pain, chronic stress, and trauma do not reside in this logical region. Instead, they are locked away within the subconscious and unconscious mind. These deeper layers are managed by the mid-brain and brainstem, which are responsible for survival functions. When you experience a high-stress event or a trauma, your body instantly activates its threat response (fight, flight, or freeze).

This response is automatic, immediate, and utterly non-negotiable by logic. You cannot reason with a system that believes it is fighting for survival. If the energy of that response is not fully completed or released—if you cannot flee or fight—it gets frozen or trapped in the body and nervous system.

When the roots of struggle lie in these deeper areas, trying to use logical thought to solve the problem is like trying to update a computer program by yelling at the screen. You are attempting to access “old code” using the wrong interface. The result is often frustration, feeling misunderstood, and a sense of failure, just like clients who experienced minimal results with purely cognitive approaches. To achieve meaningful, transformative change, we must engage the body and the nervous system directly. We must choose the Bottom-Up route.

What Exactly is Somatic Therapy?

Somatic Therapy, often referred to as Somatic Psychotherapy, is a transformative mind-body approach to healing. The word “somatic” comes from the Greek word soma, meaning “body.” This therapy is fundamentally centered on the premise that the body is not just a vessel for the mind, but rather a central player in all emotional and psychological experience.

Somatic therapy is distinct because it shifts the focus away from narrative and analysis, placing primary importance on the felt sense in the present moment. Instead of solely discussing the story of your distress, you focus on the physical sensations, movements, and impulses that arise when you recall or describe a feeling. These sensations—a tightness in the chest, a knot in the stomach, or a sudden flush of heat—are seen as direct, unfiltered communications from your nervous system.

This approach views mental health symptoms, such as anxiety or depression, not as character flaws or purely mental illnesses, but as intelligent, if sometimes outdated, survival strategies. These strategies were put in place by the nervous system to cope with overwhelming experiences. The somatic therapist acts as a guide, helping you learn to translate and work with these bodily cues.

The goal is to move beyond simply coping with burdens to actually shedding them, achieving a state of integration where the mind and body are once again in synchrony. It provides the skills to build a profound and lasting sense of safety within your own physical form. For those who have felt disconnected or trapped, Somatic Therapy offers a powerful pathway back to feeling whole and alive. It is a critical piece of the neurobiological methods we employ at Inner Summits to achieve deep processing and lasting change.

How Does Somatic Therapy Work to Release Trapped Stress?

Somatic therapy works by understanding that the physical tension, chronic pain, or emotional numbness you experience are often frozen physiological actions that were never completed. When the nervous system registers a threat, immense energy is mobilized for survival. If a gazelle escapes a lion, it will often shake or tremble to discharge this intense energy and reset its system back to calm. Humans, often due to social constraints or the nature of the trauma, suppress this natural discharge. This suppressed energy, the unspent fuel of the survival response, becomes the trapped stress in the body.

Somatic Psychotherapy provides a structured, gentle way to re-engage and complete this natural cycle, allowing the frozen energy to finally release. Here is a breakdown of the core mechanism:

1. Mapping Nervous System Patterns: The first step is gaining awareness of your system’s default state. Are you chronically in sympathetic mode (hyper-activated, anxious, fight/flight)? Or do you tend to crash into hypo-activation (numb, disconnected, freeze)? Many individuals, like one of our clients, Sonia, find they cycle continually between both states, feeling caught in a loop. Understanding this map makes the experience feel less chaotic and more manageable.
2. Building Regulation Skills: Once the pattern is identified, the focus shifts to building the ability to self-regulate. Somatic tools teach you how to consciously engage the vagus nerve and other parts of the parasympathetic nervous system (rest and digest). You learn to recognize the early signs of activation—a slight shift in breathing, a tightening in the shoulders—and intervene.
3. Interrupting the Threat Response Cycle: The key is to teach your system that you are safe now. When a stressful memory or feeling arises, the therapist helps you stay grounded in the present moment through body awareness. This interrupts the automatic “threat response.” By doing so, you can observe the strong emotions and sensations without allowing them to hijack your entire system. The process of learning how to “speak to your body and let it know you’re not in danger” is fundamentally what allows the misfiring threat signals to gradually mitigate and turn off.
4. Processing and Discharging the Trapped Energy: The therapist guides you to gently revisit the physiological activation associated with a past experience, but in a measured and supported way. Instead of being overwhelmed, you allow the body to express the frozen impulse in small, controlled doses—a slight tremor, a sigh, a shift in posture. This is the act of repair and release, where the stored energy of the survival response is finally discharged, allowing the system to reset. This is the process of updating the “old programming” that no longer serves you.

By facilitating this natural, biological process of release, Somatic Therapy doesn’t just manage symptoms; it heals the root cause of distress, replacing chronic activation with a new, embodied sense of ease and confidence.

What Are the Key Techniques Used in Somatic Healing?

Somatic Psychotherapy uses a variety of experiential techniques designed to engage the body’s innate capacity for self-regulation and healing. These methods focus on the present moment and the client’s internal experience.

Here are some core techniques utilized in the bottom-up approach:

• Somatic Tracking (Sensing): This is the fundamental building block of somatic work. The therapist guides the client to pay close, non-judgmental attention to internal, physical sensations.
  • Focus: Tracking includes noticing warmth, coldness, pressure, tingling, movement, tension, or shifts in breathing.
  • Purpose: By tracking these sensations, the client starts to connect their emotional states (e.g., anxiety) to their physical manifestations (e.g., a “buzzing” feeling in the chest), fostering crucial self-awareness.
• Titration: When working with intense or overwhelming material, the goal is to prevent re-traumatization or overwhelm. Titration refers to working in very small, manageable “doses.”
  • Method: The client is exposed to only a tiny sliver of the activated sensation or memory at a time.
  • Benefit: This slow, measured approach ensures the nervous system can process the experience without being sent into a full fight/flight/freeze response.
• Pendulation: This technique involves moving the client’s attention back and forth between the activated, uncomfortable sensations and the areas of the body that feel neutral, resourced, or calm.
  • Process: After touching upon the tension (activation), the client is guided to shift their awareness to a spot of comfort (safety, resource).
  • Outcome: This rhythmic movement helps the system learn that it can return to regulation and safety, teaching it flexibility and resilience, rather than getting stuck in one extreme state.
• Grounding and Resourcing: These are essential stabilization tools.
  • Grounding: Techniques that connect the client to the present moment and the supportive environment (e.g., feeling the feet on the floor, noticing the contact with the chair).
  • Resourcing: Actively identifying and drawing upon internal or external sources of strength, calm, or safety (e.g., a memory of peace, a supportive relationship, or a physical gesture).
• Embodiment Exercises: These practices are used to solidify progress and anchor new feelings and beliefs.
  • Examples: Using movement, posture, or physical gestures to explore or deepen a new sense of confidence, peace, or freedom.
  • Integration: After a client releases a deep sense of inadequacy, embodiment exercises help them feel and live what it is like to be adequate and capable, ensuring the change becomes a lasting part of their identity.

Furthermore, at Inner Summits, Somatic Psychotherapy is rarely used in isolation. We powerfully combine it with:

• Internal Family Systems (IFS): Used to identify internal emotional patterns, map dissociative parts, and address the psychological states (like self-blame, shame, or fear) that feed the cycles of distress.
• Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR): Used to help the system emotionally digest and resolve specific, stuck, and painful memories at a gut level, often freeing the nervous system from the residual fear associated with them.

This integrative and neurobiological approach ensures that healing is comprehensive, addressing both the physical wiring and the psychological meaning of the experience.

What Does the Journey Look Like at Inner Summits?

At Inner Summits, we believe that therapy should not be a mystery. We have developed a clear therapy roadmap—a simple, transparent process—that guides every client toward meaningful progress and ultimate healing. While every path is unique, the journey generally follows five predictable steps, ensuring you know where you are headed and how we will get there together.

1. The Catalyst: Recognizing the Need for Change

This is the moment of awakening. You recognize that the internal mountains—anxiety, disconnection, or chronic pain—have become so large they are blocking out the sun. You feel lost, stuck, or trapped in old loops, and the ways you’ve been coping are no longer serving you. This challenging realization, tough as it is, is the very thing that propels us toward growth. It’s the acknowledgment that you are not where you want to be, and you are ready to look for another way forward.

2. The Search: Finding the Right Match

Finding the right therapist, especially one who understands bottom-up, neurobiological methods, can be frustrating. We believe a good fit is crucial for success.

• Our Solution: Inner Summits offers a dedicated Therapist Matching service.
• Process: We get to know your specific needs, experiences (like chronic pain or complex trauma), and preferences.
• Outcome: We match you with a therapist who is best equipped to guide your unique journey, taking the guesswork out of the search phase.

3. The Warm Up: Restore Capacity and Map the Terrain

Starting therapy means stepping into the unknown, but our approach ensures you begin with a strong foundation. This phase is all about creating a clear map and restoring your capacity.

• Mapping: We work together to understand your existing patterns—how your nervous system activates, what your triggers are, and the old beliefs you carry.
• Building Skills: We immediately begin building skills and resources, utilizing early Somatic Psychotherapy techniques. This includes learning how to interrupt the stress cycle and bring your system back into balance.
• Result: Gaining insight into your inner world makes your experiences feel less chaotic and more manageable, empowering you to navigate the peaks and valleys of your journey.

4. The Journey: Repair and Release the Roots

This is the core phase of transformation. With increased self-awareness and regulation skills, we can now safely address the root causes of your distress.

• Deeper Processing: We use neurologically-based, experiential therapies (Somatic Psychotherapy, IFS, EMDR) to target and update the internal “old code.”
• Healing the Root: We explore and process old beliefs and unprocessed emotions that were absorbed in earlier life. As these stuck memories and associated fears are emotionally digested, the feeling of fear, shame, or inadequacy slowly dissolves.
• Transformation: This process allows you to move from simply coping with your burdens to truly being free of them, navigating life with new lightness and freedom.

5. The Summit: Reclaiming Your Authentic Self

As you shed the heavy burdens of the past, you reach a place of “newness.” This phase is about exploring and solidifying who you are without the old patterns and protections.

• Integration: We continue to use mind-body therapies and embodiment exercises to ensure the profound changes you’ve made become a lasting, embodied part of you.
• Thriving: This is about rediscovering the authentic you—a self that is strong, capable, and joyful.
• Completion: The changes show up in your daily life, relationships, work, and sense of self. The journey is not just about healing from the past; it’s about thriving and fully embracing the life you have reclaimed.

Conclusion: Reclaim Your Life with Bottom-Up Healing

The journey to true emotional freedom requires acknowledging that your body keeps the score of your past experiences. For too long, you may have felt trapped in cycles of anxiety or chronic pain, trying to reason with a nervous system that was simply stuck in survival mode. Somatic Therapy, as the core of the Bottom-Up approach used at Inner Summits, offers the essential missing piece.

By engaging the body directly, building regulation skills, and gently processing the stored energy of trauma, we facilitate healing that is not just understood mentally but is embodied and neurologically integrated. This leads to changes that are not temporary fixes, but profound, lasting shifts in how you experience yourself and the world. You move from being held back by fear and old programming to a place of peace, confidence, and ease. If you are ready to update your internal programming and step into a life of lightness and freedom, the time for bottom-up healing is now.

Ready to Reconnect with Your Authentic Self?

If you are tired of merely coping and are ready for a truly transformative experience that addresses the root causes of your stress and emotional burdens, Inner Summits is here to help you begin your journey.

Take the first step toward reclaiming your life and feeling safe and confident in your own body.

Contact Inner Summits today to schedule your initial consultation and get matched with a therapist who is right for you.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) About Somatic Therapy

What is the difference between Somatic Therapy and traditional Talk Therapy like CBT?

The primary difference lies in the direction of healing. Traditional Talk Therapy (like CBT) is considered a Top-Down approach because it focuses on the conscious, thinking mind—reasoning with thoughts and changing behaviors to influence emotions. This is effective for managing symptoms but often fails to reach the roots of deeper emotional challenges or trauma, which are stored in the subconscious and the body. Somatic Therapy is a Bottom-Up approach. It focuses on the body and the nervous system first, using experiential techniques to release trapped energy and update the primitive brain’s survival code. By healing the roots at the neurological level, the mind and emotional state naturally follow, leading to more profound and lasting change that bypasses logical thought.

Does Somatic Therapy always involve physical touch or massage?

No, Somatic Therapy does not require physical touch. While some specialized forms of somatic work may incorporate informed, consensual touch, the method employed at Inner Summits primarily uses non-touch, experiential techniques. The focus is on internal body awareness—guiding clients to track their own sensations, impulses, and movements. The goal is for the client to gain autonomy and confidence in regulating their own nervous system and connecting with their body from within. This ensures the client remains in control of the process while still engaging the neurobiological pathways necessary for release and repair.

How long does it take for Somatic Therapy to start releasing stress and trauma?

The timeline for stress release and trauma healing is unique to every individual. However, clients often report experiencing a sense of relief and greater control over their emotions early in the process, sometimes within the first few “Warm Up” sessions. This initial progress is typically related to building nervous system regulation skills and gaining insight into their existing stress patterns. Deep processing, or the “Repair and Release” phase, takes longer as it involves safely titrating and resolving the root causes and stored memories. The overall journey is structured to move progressively from feeling chaotic and stuck to feeling empowered and free, with the goal of creating permanent, integrated changes.