What Is Somatics — And How Does It Actually Work?

If someone recently suggested somatic healing to you, you might be wondering:

Is that like yoga?
Is that sort of therapy?
Do I have to talk about my childhood for years?
Will someone tell me to “breathe through it” while I panic?

Let’s slow that down.

Somatics is none of that — and a bit of all of it — but in a very different way.

A Simple Way to Say It

Somatics is about listening to the body — not forcing it to change or fix itself.

It’s a way of working with stress, trauma, emotions, and ingrained patterns through direct bodily experience, not only through thinking, analysing, or talking.

Sometimes this includes gentle movement — not to perform or stretch — but to tune in, build an inner relationship, and express what doesn’t yet have words.

Instead of asking
“Why am I like this?” or “What’s wrong with me?”
the somatic approach gently asks:

“What is happening in my body right now — and what does it need?”

Surprisingly often, that question alone begins to shift things.

And yes — sometimes we do touch the past. But always through the gateway of how it lives in your body now: noticing what wasn’t completed, what support was missing, what need went unmet. We slow it down, and allow your system — not the mind — to lead the way.

Why Talking Isn’t Always Enough

Many women who come to somatic work are already very self-aware.

They’ve done talk therapy.
They’ve read the books.
They understand their patterns intellectually.

And yet:

• anxiety still lives in the chest
• sleep doesn’t come easily
• the relationship to food feels complicated or dysregulated
• the body feels tense, numb, or not quite “home”
• certain situations trigger reactions that feel bigger than the moment

This isn’t because you’re doing something wrong.

It’s because the nervous system doesn’t update through insight alone.

Trauma — and chronic stress — aren’t just memories.
They’re patterns of protection held in the body: in breath, muscles, posture, digestion, heart rate, and attention.

That’s where somatics comes in.

What Somatics Actually Works With

Somatic work focuses on the nervous system — first exploring how it learned to keep you safe.

Your body is constantly asking questions like:

• Am I safe here?
• Do I need to brace, freeze, please, or run?
• Can I rest — or should I stay alert?

If you’ve lived through trauma, chronic stress, migration, war, relational rupture, or prolonged uncertainty (hello, life in Israel), your nervous system may have learned that being on guard is necessary.

Somatics doesn’t try to convince your body otherwise.

It helps your body experience safety in small, real, doable moments — so it can slowly update its expectations and respond more flexibly to what’s actually happening now, rather than what’s unresolved from the past.

So… What Does This Work Actually Look Like?

This is often the part people feel most curious — and most unsure — about.

Somatic work doesn’t follow a script. There’s no “standard session,” because there’s no standard nervous system.

The work I offer lives in the space of trauma-informed somatic coaching, deeply informed by Somatic Experiencing® — a body-based approach that understands trauma not as a story from the past, but as something that still lives in the body in the present.

That means we may gently touch earlier life experiences — including childhood — but not to analyse endlessly, relive the past, or search for what’s “wrong.”

Instead, we listen for what didn’t get to complete.

A moment of fear that had no support.
A boundary that couldn’t be expressed.
An impulse to reach out, run, push away, or cry that had to be swallowed.

When the nervous system finally receives the conditions it needed back then — safety, pacing, choice, presence — it often knows exactly how to finish the story.

And when that happens, something softens now.

Not About Fixing — And Not Cut Off From Therapy

This work is not psychotherapy, and I don’t offer clinical trauma treatment.

At the same time, it doesn’t pretend healing happens only through positive thinking or staying in the present.

Somatic coaching sits in a relational, integrative space — informed by therapeutic understanding, grounded in nervous system science, and oriented toward real-life change.

The question is always:
How does this live in your life now?

How you sleep.
How you relate.
How you say no.
How you make decisions.
How you inhabit your body on an ordinary Tuesday afternoon.

Insight matters — but integration matters more.

Inside a Session

A session might begin with arriving fully.
Or with noticing how your feet meet the ground.
Or with a story that wants to be heard.

You might sit.
You might lie down.
You might move slowly — or not move at all.

We may track sensations, notice the breath without changing it, follow subtle impulses, pause before it becomes too much, and discover what helps you stay present.

But we might explore more of the expressive and messy side of lived experience — shaking things out, making grimaces or sounds, activating the energy a bit, once the safe enough container is established.

Sometimes we stay close to the here and now.
Sometimes a memory, image, or emotion from earlier in life emerges — not because we search for it, but because your system is ready.

Everything happens in small, tolerable steps.

You are always in charge.
You can slow down, pause, redirect, or say no.
Nothing is forced. Nothing is rushed.

There may be tears, laughter, relief, insight, or long stretches of quiet.
There is no “right” way for this to look.

Why the Body Needs Time

Trauma and chronic stress don’t resolve through insight alone.

They resolve when the nervous system has enough capacity to stay present with sensation, emotion, and meaning — without being overwhelmed or shutting down.

That’s why we move slowly.
Why we build resources.
Why regulation comes before processing.

This isn’t about pushing through.
It’s about allowing the system to reorganise from the inside.

A Note on the Female Nervous System

Many women come to this work already deeply attuned — sometimes too attuned — to others.

Their nervous systems learned to stay safe by monitoring emotional tone, overriding bodily signals, fawning, pleasing, and holding it together.

Add hormonal rhythms, life transitions, caregiving roles, cultural expectations, and collective stress — and it makes sense that the system feels exhausted or on edge.

In this work, none of that is seen as a flaw.

These are intelligent adaptations.

Together, we support your nervous system to find more choice:
to rest without guilt,
to feel without being flooded,
to respond rather than react,
to honour your rhythms instead of fighting them.

What Changes — Quietly, Over Time

Somatic work rarely looks dramatic.

But people often notice:
• more space between trigger and response
• clearer boundaries
• deeper, more reliable rest
• less fear of emotions and sensations
• better connection to hunger, fullness, and intuition
• a growing sense of “I can be with this”

Small shifts.
Deep roots.

This Work Is an Invitation

An invitation to listen rather than override.
To slow down rather than push through.
To let your body be part of the conversation again.

Not to become someone else —
but to come back to yourself, with more choice, presence, and ease.

If this resonates, you’re welcome to explore this work with me — gently, respectfully, and in a way that meets your real life as it is.

Šárka, Wildflower Somatics
Somatic Experiencing® Practitioner · Trauma-Informed Somatic Coach · Trauma-Sensitive Yoga Facilitator