"The body keeps the score." This phrase, popularized by psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk, captures a profound truth about trauma: it's not just stored in memories and thoughts—it lives in your nervous system, your muscles, your gut, your breath. You can talk about trauma for years without healing it if you don't address what's happening in your body.

This is where Somatic Experiencing (SE) comes in—a revolutionary body-based approach to trauma healing that integrates mindfulness at its core. Developed by psychologist Peter Levine over four decades, SE recognizes that trauma is fundamentally a physiological experience, not just a psychological one. By bringing mindful awareness to bodily sensations and incomplete survival responses, SE helps the nervous system release trauma and restore natural resilience.

If you've experienced trauma and found that talking about it isn't enough, or if traditional therapy has left you feeling stuck, understanding Somatic Experiencing might open new paths to healing.

What Is Somatic Experiencing?

Somatic Experiencing is a naturalistic, body-oriented approach to healing trauma and stress disorders. It's based on the observation that animals in the wild regularly face life-threatening situations yet don't develop PTSD—because they have a built-in capacity to discharge survival energy and return to equilibrium.

Humans have this same capacity, but we often override it through our thinking minds, social conditioning, and coping strategies. The result? Trapped survival energy that manifests as trauma symptoms.

The Core Premise

Trauma occurs when the nervous system becomes overwhelmed and stuck in survival mode. It's not about the event itself—it's about what happens (or doesn't happen) in your body during and after the event.

When you face a threat, your nervous system activates one of several survival responses:

  • Fight (aggression, defending)
  • Flight (escape, running)
  • Freeze (immobility, shutdown)
  • Fawn (appeasing, befriending the threat)

The problem arises when these responses can't complete:

  • You want to fight back but freeze instead
  • You want to run but are trapped
  • You start to escape but are caught
  • The threat is prolonged or repeated

When survival energy can't discharge, it remains bound in the nervous system, creating symptoms like:

  • Chronic tension and pain
  • Hypervigilance and anxiety
  • Intrusive memories and flashbacks
  • Dissociation and numbness
  • Difficulty sleeping and concentrating
  • Emotional dysregulation
  • Sense of being constantly "on edge"

Somatic Experiencing helps the body complete what it couldn't finish during the traumatic event, releasing bound survival energy and restoring nervous system regulation.

The Science: Why Animals Don't Get PTSD

Peter Levine's initial insight came from observing animals in nature. A deer chased by a predator will:

  1. Activate (sympathetic arousal—flee!)
  2. Freeze if caught (immobilization as a last-ditch survival strategy)
  3. Shake and tremble after the threat passes (discharging survival energy)
  4. Return to normal within minutes—grazing, resting, playing

The shaking isn't fear—it's the nervous system's way of completing the survival response and releasing mobilized energy.

Humans often interrupt this natural process:

  • We tell ourselves "It's over, I should be fine"
  • We suppress the shaking (social conditioning—"Keep it together")
  • We distract ourselves or numb out
  • We rush back to "normal" life

The survival energy remains trapped, and trauma symptoms develop.

Polyvagal Theory Connection

SE integrates perfectly with Polyvagal Theory (which we explored in our article on Polyvagal Theory and Mindfulness). Both recognize that healing trauma requires working with the autonomic nervous system, not just cognitive processing.

The three states:

  • Ventral vagal (social engagement): Safety, connection, optimal functioning
  • Sympathetic (mobilization): Fight/flight activation
  • Dorsal vagal (immobilization): Freeze, shutdown, collapse

Trauma keeps you cycling between sympathetic activation and dorsal shutdown, unable to access the ventral vagal state of safety. SE helps restore access to this safe state through gentle, mindful body awareness.

How Somatic Experiencing Works

SE is not about retelling your trauma story or re-experiencing traumatic events. Instead, it uses mindful body awareness to track sensations, notice patterns, and support the nervous system in completing interrupted survival responses.

The SE Process: Titration and Pendulation

Titration: Working in Small Doses

Rather than flooding yourself with overwhelming trauma memories, SE works with tiny amounts of activation at a time—just enough to work with, not enough to overwhelm.

Think of it like touching a hot stove: You don't grab it with your whole hand. You touch it briefly to sense the heat, then pull back. With practice, you can tolerate more contact without getting burned.

In SE, you:

  • Touch into a sensation connected to trauma briefly
  • Notice what happens in your body
  • Pull back to a neutral or resourced state
  • Repeat gradually, building capacity

Pendulation: Moving Between Activation and Settlement

Healing happens through rhythmic movement between:

  • Expansion (some activation, aliveness)
  • Contraction (protection, withdrawal)
  • Expansion again

Rather than staying stuck in one state, you practice oscillating—"pendulating"—between them, which restores nervous system flexibility.

Example:

  1. Notice tension in your chest (activation)
  2. Track sensations without judgment
  3. Notice your feet on the floor (grounding/settling)
  4. Return to chest tension briefly
  5. Notice shoulders relaxing slightly (settling)
  6. Continue this gentle back-and-forth

Over time, the nervous system learns it can handle activation without becoming overwhelmed, and it can settle without collapsing into shutdown.

SIBAM: The Five Elements of Experience

SE practitioners track five channels of experience simultaneously:

S - Sensation: Physical sensations in the body (tight, warm, tingly, heavy) I - Image: Mental images, memories, or visual impressions B - Behavior: Impulses to move or act (curl up, push away, run) A - Affect: Emotions (fear, anger, sadness, joy) M - Meaning: Thoughts, beliefs, interpretations

Trauma tends to fragment these elements. You might have:

  • Sensation without knowing why (unexplained body pain)
  • Emotion without context (sudden panic)
  • Images without feeling (dissociated memories)

SE helps re-integrate SIBAM: As you track sensations mindfully, images, emotions, and meanings naturally emerge and connect, creating coherent experience and resolution.

Mindfulness: The Foundation of Somatic Experiencing

SE is fundamentally a mindfulness practice—specifically, somatic mindfulness (body-centered awareness). But it's a specialized form of mindfulness adapted for trauma healing.

Interoception: The Felt Sense of Your Body

Interoception is your capacity to sense what's happening inside your body:

  • Heart rate and breathing
  • Muscle tension and relaxation
  • Temperature and moisture
  • Gut sensations
  • Energy level and vitality

Trauma often disrupts interoception. You might:

  • Feel disconnected from your body (dissociation)
  • Feel too much (overwhelming sensations)
  • Misinterpret body signals (safe situations feel dangerous)

SE uses gentle mindfulness to rebuild interoceptive capacity:

  • Start with external sensations (what you see, hear, touch)
  • Gradually move to boundary sensations (skin, contact with ground)
  • Slowly include internal sensations (breath, heartbeat)
  • Always at your own pace, with choice and control

Tracking: The Core SE Skill

Tracking means following sensations moment by moment with curious, non-judgmental awareness—classic mindfulness applied to the body.

How to track:

  1. Notice a sensation: "I feel tightness in my throat"
  2. Describe its qualities: "It feels constricted, like a band around my neck, slightly warm"
  3. Track changes: "Now it's moving up toward my jaw... now softening slightly... now warming"
  4. Allow without forcing: Don't try to make anything happen; just observe

Key principle: Sensations are fluid, always changing. By tracking them without interfering, you allow natural processes to unfold.

What tracking reveals:

  • Sensations that seemed solid and permanent actually shift and change
  • When you stop fighting sensation, it often transforms spontaneously
  • Your body has wisdom you don't consciously access

Resources: Building Internal Safety

Before working with trauma material, SE emphasizes building resources—internal and external sources of safety, strength, and well-being.

External resources:

  • Safe places (actual or imagined)
  • Supportive people
  • pets, nature, art
  • Activities that bring calm or joy

Internal resources:

  • Body sensations of strength or calm
  • Positive memories
  • Qualities you possess (resilience, courage, creativity)
  • Breath and grounding

Practice: Resourcing Exercise (5-10 minutes)

  1. Think of a place where you feel safe and peaceful (real or imagined—a beach, forest, cozy room)
  2. Notice sensations in your body as you imagine this place: Warmth? Openness? Relaxation? Breathing more fully?
  3. Track these pleasant sensations: Where are they? What are their qualities?
  4. Anchor the resource: Take a deep breath, notice the good feelings, let them settle in
  5. Practice returning here: Anytime you feel activated, recall this place and notice body sensations

The purpose: You're training your nervous system that it can access safety and calm. This becomes an anchor when working with difficult material.

The SE Session: What Actually Happens

While SE is typically practiced with a trained therapist, understanding the process helps you appreciate how mindfulness and body awareness create healing.

1. Establishing Safety and Resources

Sessions begin by ensuring you feel safe and resourced:

  • Comfortable seating, control of environment
  • Identifying resources (safe places, supportive people)
  • Establishing grounding (feeling feet on floor, contact with chair)

2. Tracking Sensations

The practitioner guides you to notice body sensations in the present moment:

  • "What do you notice in your body right now?"
  • "Where do you feel that?"
  • "What are the qualities of that sensation?"

This isn't analysis—it's pure observation.

3. Titrating Activation

If working with a traumatic memory or situation:

  • You don't retell the whole story
  • Instead, you touch into one small element
  • Track sensations that arise
  • Pull back to resources frequently

Example:

  • Practitioner: "When you think about that incident, what's the first sensation you notice?"
  • You: "Tension across my chest"
  • Practitioner: "Stay with that tension... what else do you notice?"
  • You: "My shoulders are pulling forward, like I'm protecting myself"
  • Practitioner: "And if you let your body continue that movement, what wants to happen?"
  • You: "My arms want to push something away"
  • Practitioner: "Go ahead, let them push..." [You make pushing motions] "What do you notice now?"
  • You: "The tension is releasing... my chest feels more open... I can breathe deeper"

What just happened: You completed an interrupted defense response (pushing away the threat) that your body couldn't do during the original event.

4. Discharge and Integration

As bound energy releases, you might experience:

  • Trembling or shaking (like the deer after escape)
  • Deep breaths or yawns
  • Warmth or tingling
  • Tears or laughter
  • Spontaneous movements

These are signs of healing, not breakdown. The nervous system is completing its cycle.

The practitioner helps you:

  • Stay present with these sensations
  • Track them without judgment
  • Allow them to complete naturally
  • Notice the shift to more settled states

5. Integration and Closure

Sessions end with:

  • Grounding and orienting to present environment
  • Noticing resources and any positive shifts
  • Taking time to settle
  • Not rushing back to activity

Between sessions: Changes continue as your nervous system integrates the work.

Key SE Concepts and Practices

The Felt Sense

Philosopher Eugene Gendlin introduced the concept of "felt sense"—the implicit, bodily awareness of a situation that exists before you can put words to it.

Felt sense is:

  • Broader than a single sensation
  • The whole-body "knowing" of something
  • Often vague or unclear initially
  • Rich with information when you attend to it

In SE: You learn to contact the felt sense of trauma—not by thinking about it, but by sensing into the body's experience of it.

Practice: Contacting Your Felt Sense (5 minutes)

  1. Choose a mild concern (not your worst trauma—something manageable)
  2. Pause and sense inward: "How does this sit in my body?"
  3. Wait for a sensation or image: A weight? Tightness? Color? Temperature?
  4. Stay with it curiously: "What's this like?"
  5. Notice if something shifts: A word, insight, or sensation change
  6. Acknowledge whatever emerges: "Ah, there's something about this..."

The felt sense often contains wisdom your conscious mind doesn't access. Attending to it with mindfulness allows implicit knowing to become explicit.

Completing Defensive Responses

Much of SE involves supporting the body to complete what it started:

Fight responses:

  • Pushing away
  • Hitting a pillow
  • Growling or yelling (when safe to do so)
  • Tightening fists and releasing

Flight responses:

  • Running in place
  • Pushing feet into the floor
  • Making escape movements
  • Noticing legs wanting to move

Freeze responses:

  • Allowing the freeze without judging
  • Tracking the stillness
  • Noticing the first impulse to move
  • Supporting very gradual movement

Important: These aren't theatrical reenactments. They're gentle, mindful movements that follow the body's impulses, allowing trapped energy to discharge.

Voo Breath: A Specific SE Technique

Peter Levine teaches the "Voo breath" for settling the nervous system, especially dorsal vagal shutdown:

How to do it:

  1. Sit or stand comfortably
  2. Place hands on lower belly
  3. Inhale naturally through your nose
  4. Exhale slowly while making a low "Voo" sound (like "voo" in "food")
  5. Feel vibration in your torso and hands
  6. Repeat 5-10 times

Why it works:

  • The low frequency vibration stimulates the vagus nerve
  • Vocalization naturally lengthens exhale (calming)
  • Feeling vibration increases interoception
  • It's grounding and soothing

When to use: Feeling disconnected, numb, shut down, or after any practice that brought activation.

Orientation: Reconnecting with Environment

Orientation is the natural scanning behavior animals do to assess safety—looking around, listening, sensing the space.

Trauma disrupts orientation: You might:

  • Stare blankly without really seeing
  • Focus inward constantly
  • Scan for threats compulsively

Healing orientation:

Practice: Mindful Orientation (3-5 minutes)

  1. Without moving your body, slowly move your eyes around the room
  2. Let your eyes land on objects: Really see colors, shapes, textures
  3. Notice what draws your attention: Follow curiosity, not fear
  4. Listen to sounds: Near and far, pleasant and neutral
  5. Feel your body in space: Sitting, breathing, present
  6. Notice any sense of "I'm here, it's now, I'm okay"

The purpose: Orientation activates the social engagement system (ventral vagal), helping shift from survival states to connection and safety.

Integrating SE with Other Mindfulness Practices

Somatic Experiencing can enhance and be enhanced by other mindfulness practices:

Meditation Practice

Traditional mindfulness meditation + SE:

  • Start with grounding and resourcing
  • If overwhelming sensations arise, use titration (touch in briefly, pull back)
  • Track sensations as they change rather than trying to maintain focus
  • End with orientation to environment

Adaptation for trauma:

  • Shorter sessions (5-10 minutes)
  • Eyes open or partially open
  • Permission to move and adjust
  • Focus on pleasant or neutral sensations more than difficult ones

Yoga and Movement

Trauma-sensitive yoga naturally integrates SE principles:

  • Choice and control over movements
  • Invitation rather than instruction
  • Tracking sensations during poses
  • Allowing spontaneous movements
  • Not pushing into pain

SE adds: Awareness of when you're activating survival responses (holding breath, pushing too hard, dissociating) and supporting completion and discharge.

Breathwork

SE perspective on breath:

  • Don't force or control breath initially
  • Track natural breathing patterns
  • Notice restrictions or holdings
  • Gradually support fuller breathing
  • Allow spontaneous shifts (yawns, sighs)

Practices like Voo breath offer gentle ways to work with breath that don't overwhelm the nervous system.

Working with Specific Trauma Symptoms

Hypervigilance and Anxiety

SE approach:

  • Notice where you feel activation (chest, belly, shoulders)
  • Track the "on edge" sensation without judgment
  • Practice orientation (scanning environment consciously)
  • Discharge through movement (shaking out arms, walking)
  • Resource with safe places and grounding

Mindfulness practice: Rather than trying to calm down, track the energy of vigilance. Where is it? What does it feel like? What does it want to do? Following it with curiosity often allows natural discharge.

Freeze and Dissociation

SE approach:

  • Don't force yourself to "snap out of it"
  • Track the freeze state (what does numbness feel like?)
  • Look for the first tiny impulse to move
  • Support microscopic movements (finger wiggle, eye blink)
  • Use Voo breath to stimulate ventral vagal
  • Orient to environment slowly

Mindfulness practice: Contact with texture, temperature, and pressure can help (hold ice, feel fabric, notice feet pressing into floor).

Intrusive Memories and Flashbacks

SE approach:

  • Recognize you're in a flashback (past is intruding into present)
  • Orient: "Where am I right now? What year is it?"
  • Ground: Feel body contact with chair/floor
  • Resource: Recall a safe place, person, or sensation
  • Track: Notice sensations while staying present to now

Mindfulness practice:

  • Name what you see: "Blue couch, wooden table, clock showing 3pm"
  • Feel sensations: "Feet on floor, hands on legs, breath moving"
  • Remind yourself: "That was then, this is now. I'm safe here."

Chronic Pain and Tension

SE approach:

  • Pain often holds frozen survival responses
  • Rather than fighting pain, get curious about it
  • Track qualities without judgment
  • Notice impulses (desire to push, pull, twist)
  • Allow micro-movements that feel right
  • Watch for softening and release

Mindfulness practice: Explore the difference between:

  • The sensation itself (pressure, heat, tightness)
  • Your resistance to it (bracing, fear, story)
  • What happens when you accept the sensation as it is

When to Work with an SE Practitioner

While you can incorporate SE principles into your mindfulness practice, working with a trained SE practitioner is valuable, especially for:

  • Complex or developmental trauma (prolonged abuse, neglect)
  • Severe PTSD symptoms
  • Dissociation that interferes with daily life
  • When self-practice feels overwhelming
  • To learn the skills with guidance

What to look for:

  • Certification from Somatic Experiencing Trauma Institute (SETI)
  • Experience with your specific type of trauma
  • Collaborative, non-directive approach
  • Emphasis on your agency and choice

SE works well in combination with:

  • EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing)
  • Internal Family Systems (IFS)
  • Sensorimotor Psychotherapy
  • Trauma-focused CBT
  • Other mindfulness-based therapies

Daily SE-Informed Mindfulness Practice

You don't need to be in therapy to benefit from SE principles. Here's how to integrate them daily:

Morning: Settling and Resourcing (5 minutes)

  1. Before getting out of bed, notice your body

    • What sensations are present?
    • Any tension or ease?
    • How's your breath?

  2. Recall a resource

    • Safe place, supportive person, or positive memory
    • Notice pleasant sensations this brings

  3. Set an intention

    • "Today I'll track my body with kindness"
    • "I'll notice when I need to ground or resource"

Throughout the Day: Body Check-Ins (1 minute each)

Every few hours:

  1. Pause whatever you're doing
  2. Notice: "What am I feeling in my body right now?"
  3. Track one sensation briefly (breath, feet, temperature)
  4. Orient to environment (look around, notice where you are)
  5. Continue your day

Purpose: Prevent accumulation of tension and activation. Regular check-ins maintain nervous system flexibility.

When Activated: STOP Practice

S - Stop: Pause what you're doing T - Track: What sensations are present? O - Orient: Look around, notice environment P - Proceed: Continue with awareness

This prevents reactive behaviors and allows your nervous system to settle before responding.

Evening: Discharge and Integration (10 minutes)

  1. Shake it out:

    • Stand and gently shake your body
    • Arms, legs, torso—let everything move
    • Bounce, sway, wiggle—follow what feels good
    • 1-2 minutes of playful movement

  2. Voo breath:

    • 5-10 rounds to settle nervous system

  3. Resource review:

    • Recall one positive moment from the day
    • Notice pleasant sensations
    • Let it settle in

  4. Gentle body scan:

    • Lie down or sit comfortably
    • Slowly bring attention through your body
    • Notice areas of ease
    • Don't force attention to difficult areas
    • End with feeling whole body breathing

The Liberation of Embodied Presence

Perhaps the deepest gift of Somatic Experiencing is the return to your body as home—a place of wisdom, resilience, and aliveness rather than danger and pain.

Trauma disconnects you from your body. You learn to:

  • Live in your head
  • Ignore bodily signals
  • Push through discomfort
  • Distrust your instincts

SE reconnects you to your body as ally:

  • Your sensations carry valuable information
  • Your impulses reflect natural intelligence
  • Your nervous system knows how to heal
  • Your body is not your enemy—it's been trying to protect you

Through mindful body awareness, you discover:

  • You can feel without being overwhelmed
  • Sensations change and move
  • Your body has capacity you didn't know existed
  • Presence itself is healing

This is the profound integration of somatic work and mindfulness: Your body becomes a gateway to presence rather than a prison of past pain.

Starting Your SE-Informed Practice

1. Begin with external awareness:

  • Practice orientation daily
  • Notice what you see, hear, touch
  • Build capacity for present-moment awareness
  • Don't rush into internal sensations

2. Establish resources:

  • Identify safe places (real or imagined)
  • Recall supportive people
  • Notice activities that bring calm
  • Practice accessing these regularly

3. Titrate everything:

  • Start with 5-minute practices
  • Work with manageable sensations
  • Pull back when overwhelmed
  • Gradually build capacity

4. Track with curiosity:

  • Notice sensations without judgment
  • Describe qualities: warm, tight, tingly, heavy
  • Watch for changes
  • Allow natural unfolding

5. Seek support when needed:

  • Find an SE practitioner for deeper work
  • Join trauma-sensitive yoga or movement classes
  • Work with trauma-informed therapists
  • Connect with healing communities

The Promise: Your Nervous System Can Heal

Trauma isn't a life sentence. Your nervous system has an innate capacity to heal, return to regulation, and restore resilience—the same capacity that allows animals to face life-threatening situations and return to balance within minutes.

Through Somatic Experiencing and mindful body awareness, you:

  • Complete what couldn't finish during trauma
  • Release bound survival energy
  • Restore nervous system flexibility
  • Rebuild trust in your body
  • Return to embodied presence and aliveness

The journey requires:

  • Patience (healing unfolds in its own time)
  • Gentleness (forcing creates more contraction)
  • Support (professional guidance and community)
  • Trust (in your body's wisdom and capacity)

Every moment you track a sensation with kind awareness, every time you allow a tremor or breath to complete, every instance you orient to safety—you're practicing liberation. You're teaching your nervous system that danger has passed, that it can settle, that home is here in your body, in this moment.

This is Somatic Experiencing: trauma healing through the mindful wisdom of the body.

Related Articles

Somatic Experiencing offers a gentle, effective path for healing trauma that honors the body's natural wisdom. Through mindful awareness of sensations and completion of interrupted survival responses, you can release what's been held and return to the resilience that is your birthright.