EMOTIONAL DIGESTION & SOMATIC HEALING

Emotional digestion is not so different than that of food. Both move through the body via the path of the digestive system. Both require digestion, assimilation, elimination and integration. Undigested emotional charges are often at the root of digestive issues. They build up physically, blocking the space needed for proper digestion of food. There is no escaping the mind-body connection.

When an emotion is overwhelming and can’t be digested in real time, its charge is stored in the body until it can be processed. In interest of not feeling this charge, we don’t breathe into the place we store it, resulting in involuntary chronic contractions. These contractions often land in our organs, our fascia, our digestive system. In this way, the energy becomes physical, affecting our health and wellbeing.

Somatic Healing is an art of healing the body with emotional digestion. This is done in a container of safety and support, in order to bring one’s consciousness into these places of contraction, via the return of the breath. Once these places are contacted, emotional processing begins. We must feel the body to heal the body. We don’t need to understand why we feel the way we feel, or to know where our feelings came from. Sometimes we find emotional charges from before we could even speak. They can’t be rationalized, and the power is in embracing their irrational nature. We need to validate our emotions, releasing them from judgement, guilt and shame, so they are free to digest. My teacher, Gilles Marin, calls emotions “the food of the soul.”

Assimilation is the ability to take the wisdom from the emotion, setting us free to eliminate what we don’t need. From there, we integrate a new level of spaciousness, free of that emotional charge. Our nervous system responses are then able to change. Triggers and symptoms become helpful signs on the road to healing instead of running our lives. We learn to differentiate a “remembering” from a “happening” and begin to move into real-time emotional digestion. 

Emotional digestion often takes place during sleep, in dreamtime, the only time we allow ourselves to be 100% emotional. Dreamwork can be illuminating during the healing journey, as it invites us into the deepest intimacy with our emotional selves. I’d be honored to be your ally on this beautiful healing journey. xo Lulu