As you probably know, I’m passionate about exploring how feelings and bodies work together, and how emotions are created through embodiment.
Often when people are experiencing anxiety and trauma, a psychiatrist might tell them that they need to talk about it. Their intense feelings are seen as a mental or emotional state, and the body can get left behind.
Trauma Emerges When Bodies Are Stuck
As I’ve come to understand, from my personal explorations, and decades of body work with people experiencing pain, trauma and anxiety, trauma actually emerges when bodies are stuck in overprotective reflexes.
And when our bodies are stuck, we are stuck as people, because our thoughts become less flexible, our choices are more narrow, and our bodies are stuck, trying to protect us. What we might say is that old parts of the brain are stuck trying to protect us, and they change how our physiology is working. They change the fluid, chemical milieu, they change the action patterns, they change all the reflexes in the body.
There are lots of really great folklore phrases that teach us that emotions and bodies work together, there’s are beautiful links in our language between emotions and the body:
My heart is broken
I can’t get over this
I can’t stomach that
I’ve got a gut wrenching decision to make.
How we make sense of these feelings is beautifully complex.
I would offer that emotions, thoughts and memories all emerge at the same time, they co-emerged in response to raw feeling states.
There’s a nice technical word we can use here, called affect. Affect is the first readout of the physiological state of our body. Homeostasis – the balance of do I like this or dislike it? How calm am I? How busy do I feel? These poles of valence – of like / dislike, agitated or calm – are the raw substrate of all and all actions, as well as all thoughts, and all memories.
As a bodyworker, my goal is to help people feel more comfortable with affect, with these raw feeling states, and to learn that there is a gap between the physiological response, and the complex meanings that emerge.
I guide clients and students to cultivate that gap, and learn to slow down when we feel a little bit of tremor in our breathing, or a pounding in our chest, or a tension in our muscles. And once we’ve slowed down, to realise that what we are feeling isn’t actually anger or anxiety, but rather our bodies trying to protect us. This can become a very, very powerful tool.
Upcoming Trainings with Steve Haines:
Tension and Trauma Releasing Exercises (TRE®)
TRE Intro Days:
London: 20 Jan, Mar 10 – save the dates and we’ll send a link to register soon.
TRE 1 Year Trainings:
London: starts May 2025
Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy (BCST)
The Art of Touch 2 Year Trainings:
London: starts March 2025
Galway: starts Oct 2025
The Art of Touch Intro Events:
London (evening): 23 Jan
