Somatic Healing for Mothers
Somatic Healing for Mothers: How to Reconnect with Your Body and Feel at Home in Yourself
If you’re wondering what somatic healing actually is and whether it could help you feel more at ease and fulfilled in motherhood, this guide is for you.
I’m Charlotte, a certified somatic therapist and mum based in London (working online globally). I help mothers heal their relationship with themselves so they can live more authentic, joyful lives.
What is somatic healing? (the simple definition)
Somatic healing is a trauma-informed, body-guided approach to healing that helps you reconnect with your nervous system, release stored stress and emotion and return to a grounded, joyful sense of self.
Somatic simply means ‘of the body’. There are many mainstream or common practices that can be somatic with the right intention - things like yoga, ecstatic dance, or other forms of dance, and certain meditative practices.
Somatic practices are more about reconnecting, listening to, and building a relationship with your body than they are about any specific movement or touch. I personally work with a no-touch modality that focuses on your inner felt experience, known as your felt sense.
The felt sense: your body’s inner language
Your felt sense, which is made up of sensations and signals from your body, imagery, memory, dreams, and energy experiences, are natural means of communication from your body - they are occurring all the time.
How working with the body supports emotional healing
Our bodies are innately capable of, and designed to “heal as we go”. When something frightening or overwhelming happens, the body prepares to fight, flee, freeze, or fawn (people-please) to protect you.
Following that, your body - given the right space and support - will naturally release the charged energy, thaw, or regain connection to your inner authority and agency. When we are not witnessed or supported appropriately through these times, it can be challenging - especially as children - to feel safe enough to allow for this natural healing process to unfold.
Our bodies then hold the unresolved survival energy, which may show up as:
Chronic people-pleasing even when it hurts you
Shutting down or avoiding conflict
Over-explaining or storytelling to hide vulnerability
Being “the joker” to keep intimacy at arm’s length
Hyper-vigilance and distrust
Staying in relationships that don’t feel loving or true
Keeping others at a distance to feel safe
Somatic therapy invites these stuck patterns to complete. In the right conditions - felt safety, a non-judgemental witness, and a de-shaming space - the body naturally does what it couldn’t do then.
Your role as an adult and as a mother is to listen, allow, and gently re-parent the parts of you that needed care. We’re not forcing; we’re following.
What a somatic session (with me) looks like
We meet online and start seated, talking briefly about what’s present you either in the moment or from your recent experience.
I’ll invite your attention to here-and-now sensations (warmth in the chest, tightness in the throat, a pulling downwards, an image that appears). If this is new to you, there is a lot of support, guidance, and space - you aren't expected to ‘know’.
Together, we track your body’s impulses and either support them, express them, or let them complete. All while staying supported and safe.
If emotions or memories arise, we pace them so your system stays within a tolerable range.
We often come to a natural ‘end’ where there feels like some completion or resolution of that experience.
Your healing
Through this process, often mothers will connect with love and care for their inner, authentic self - which transforms the way they speak to and treat themselves throughout their everyday experiences. Things like being able to advocate for themselves, set boundaries, or communicate differently in their relationships.
As you heal your relationship with yourself, the nurture you are able to give yourself enables life to become more manageable and joyful - there are more moments of contentment and inner peace.
The space that is created where resolution and discharge of stuck energy occurs, enables creativity and inspiration in place of what used to feel like consistent stress or tension.
It is also common to experience physical changes in your immune system, chronic pain, or other chronic conditions, as a result of reducing the survival stress that you had been holding in your body.
This way of working and healing is not for you if you’re in crisis, or unsafe in your physical environment - there are crisis services better equipped to support you.
Work with me
Curious to feel this for yourself? Book a free connection call to explore fit and ask questions.
Want a gentle first step? Download my 12-minute practice Recenter & Reconnect to start listening to your body today.
