One of the hallmarks of Somatic Experiencing (SE) - one of my main practices and professions - is the idea that over millions of years of evolution, our bodies have developed the tools to heal themselves from accumulated stress or trauma. In our modern world, many of those physiological systems are being suppressed by a variety of factors.

In this interview with Steve Hoskinson, a SE practitioner and trainer who studied under Peter Levine, we delve into how to refine the mind body practices and learn some tips to help restart our systems to work properly again.

Steve comes from a deep background in psychology but over his life has come to understand that the body exists naturally in an ebb and flow of intensity. His work focuses on guiding us to allow our bodies the freedom and safety to self regulate their own healing from traumatic experience.

The goal of his work is to embrace our intensity so we can learn to flow through our stresses and let our body’s own systems release us from the Fight, Flight and Freeze states that paralyze so many of us.

We cover a WIDE range of topics.

- Domestication of plants, animals and humans and its role on our current ability to regulate stress.

- Physiology of the amygdala in our brain and its “smoke detector” nature.

- Why taking a deeper breath in states of stress fails to re-set our biology to baseline.

- The need to be careful with various meditative and other attention-based methods so as to not numb out or “anesthetize” our body sensations and emotions.

-The trauma responses in mind-body practice.

Due to my expertise in teaching attention-based movement (via Feldenkrais), we dive into a discussion around tips and practical application that teachers, as well as students, can do to ensure they remain as present as possible in their minds, and most importantly in their bodies.

Learn more about Steve and his continued work called Organic Intelligence here: https://organicintelligence.org/

Enjoy!

Irene.

Refining our Mind Body Techniques – An Interview with Steven Hoskinson

Allowing our body to move through a stress response from some form of threat is difficult in our modern world. ‘Getting over it’ seems to be what most of us try and do.

The problem with that is we don’t give our body, or more specifically, our autonomic nervous system the freedom and time to naturally deal with our stress responses.

The consequences of this can range from having a sore back right through to suffering from some form of illness that plagues us on a daily basis. There is mounting support and evidence that things like migraines, anxiety, fibromyalgia, digestive problems and a whole host of other maladies are caused by our autonomic nervous system being improperly regulated.

In this interview with Anthony ‘Twig’ Wheeler, a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner with a deep background in trauma and the relationship humans have with their environment, I discuss these ailments and what people can do to restore or re-organize their autonomic nervous system and move beyond living under the oppression of accumulated stress and heal from their illness.

In the field of Somatic Experiencing we refer to these illnesses as body syndromes.

Some of the topics covered include:

Overview of the autonomic nervous system (aka: our ANS).
The human stress response and the psychobiology of trauma.
Incomplete motor responses (incomplete stress response).
Syndromes common to a disorganized autonomic nervous system.
Distinction between the dorsal and ventral vagal aspects of our parasympathetic nervous system.
How we can begin to self-regulate on our own.
A future to look forward to.
This interview provides knowledge on the components of our nervous system physiology that, in my opinion, must be understood so that we as a culture can begin to evolve with less disease and illness.

Many of the syndromes talked about are classic of Westernized cultures and are too often suppressed and treated with various pharmaceutical interventions and other forms of medical intervention that rarely address the root causes of the illness.

Illness and Your Body’s Stress Response – An Interview with Twig Wheeler

In this interview I talk with Jennifer Racioppi, who at 19, was diagnosed with two types of cancer and underwent a complete hysterectomy. You can imagine the impact that had on her.

But, Jennifer is a survivor.

Through happenstance and her willingness to keep moving forward, she discovered Somatic Experiencing work after hearing Peter Levine speak in San Francisco. Her journey through Somatic Experiencing has given her a life free of severe anxiety and post-traumatic stress. She’s learned to let herself and her body heal from her trauma and in her words, find her ‘rhythm’ in life.

Irene Lyon

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