What is Somatic Processing (and How to Use it With the Transformation Wheel)

If you're familiar with the Transformation Wheel tool, you have probably heard of somatic processing as one of the suggested interventions to do while working on it.

This educational post below was written by a therapist who specializes in processing trauma and she kindly wrote this up for me to share with the community. Somatic processing isn't exclusive to the Transformation Wheel. You can use this tool in any part of your life. This post was just written with it in mind as she's also a big believer in the Wheel's efficacy.

If you're curious to learn a new processing technique, read on!

"I want to offer another tool for everyone who is working on their transformation wheels. If you have been journaling and speaking with a listener or therapist, etc, but are not seeing the needle move, this exercise can help increase or speed up the process.

1.  What is it and how does it work?  

Somatic trauma processing simply means processing trauma using your body. When we experience a traumatic event or endure a traumatic pattern in our lives, the ability of our minds and bodies to process the experience is overwhelmed.  To survive those moments of overwhelm, we use a survival mechanism called dissociation. We literally pull our experiencing self out of the situation. This is not a conscious process, but an instinctual process meant to protect us from harm. That unprocessed experience sits in our bodies, actually electromagnetic energy in our cells, waiting to be processed…much like a piece of food sitting in your stomach if your digestive system stopped working.  If we have an opportunity to process the experience in the coming days, we are able to re-associate to that experience slowly and release the energy from our bodies (as well as file the information in our brains properly).

However, often we find that we never find that safe place to process these experiences and most of us have ended up with a “back log” of unprocessed traumatic experiences clogging up our cells. When the events of today remind us of those unprocessed events, that energy gets activated in our bodies, flooding us with emotion and kicking us back into survival mode. 

There are a few reasons we tend to end up with this backlog. First and most importantly, we just don’t know HOW to effectively and safely release that energy. If I don’t know how to process my trauma, it makes perfect sense to find other ways to compartmentalize it! Of course it does! We use further disassociation, numbing, addictions, etc. Even anxiety and depression are ways that we are trying to say disassociated from the painful and scary feeling in our bodies.  Anxiety is usually staying up in my head, in my racing thoughts or staying really busy. Depression is sort of sinking down and numbing out…not feeling ANYTHING, even good feelings, in order to avoid the terrible bad feelings. All of these desperate attempts to stay out of the feeling and memories actually cause further disassociation…further trauma to our systems.  

Trauma IS dissociation. First from painful memories and then, increasingly, from our bodies and ourselves.

Somatic processing brings you back into your body, your safe home on this earth. Somatic processing says, “ok, so these thoughts and memories are not just ethereal and untouchable…they have substance! I FEEL them in my BODY! And if they are electromagnetic energy, that’s ok, because, just like the earth, that has a north and south pole, I am also a magnet.” This tool gives us a very powerful handle to release this energy from our bodies, giving us a huge jump in healing from trauma.

How to use traumatic processing with the transformation wheel:

The transformation wheel is a trauma map, a way to capture the trauma and all of it’s effects in one place. It gives you a view from above, a place to stand above the situation happening in your mind and body and look down at it. Somatic Processing is another way to help you start to release it.

Steps to somatic processing:

1. Create a statement from your Transformation wheel. For instance, you might say “All of my anxiety” or “All of my feelings of fear about the future” or “All of my guilt about how my anxiety is affecting my children”.  It doesn’t have to be perfect, just try to capture the sense of what you have written down. 

2. Sitting comfortably, close your eyes and pay attention to your body while thinking of your statement. Notice if there is any sensation in your body…tightness, heaviness, emptiness, anything at all. Don’t worry if you can’t find it…remember trauma IS disassociation…it makes sense that you are not tuned in to your body!

3. Put one hand over where you feel the sensation. If you don’t feel it on the front of your body or if you feel it in your extremities, just put your hand on the front/center of your body closest to place.  If it’s in your hands, put your hand over your heart. If it isn’t clear or it feels like it’s EVERYWHERE or outside your body, just put your hand over your heart. If you aren’t sure, just put your hand over your heart. 

Your hand can be touching your heart or 1-2 inches off of your heart. This is your stationary hand. It will stay where it is throughout the processing exercise. 

4. Your other hand will start at the top of your head. You will move this hand to 9 different spots on your body. Over each spot, you will say your statement out loud or in your head. Then you will stay there for a moment or two and breathe. Notice any sensations, thoughts, feelings, memories etc. As the energy leaves your body, you sometimes can feel it physically or kind of “read it” mentally. This is just more information for you. If you notice nothing, that’s fine…your experience of it doesn’t seem to change the effectiveness. Some folks are very sensitive to the experience and others are less so…but the physics of it works the same either way. Continue over each of the 9 spots the same way. Move your hand over the spot, say your statement, breath and pay attention for a few moments. Then move on to the next.

5. Here are the 9 body positions.

• Top of the head

• Forehead

• Chin

• Throat

• Heart

• Diaphragm (bottom middle of your ribs)

• Naval/Belly button

• Pelvis (just on top of your lap)

• End of the knee (either one or both) or directly under your seat (or under your chair)

This sounds complicated, but after you go through it a couple of times, it will become simple.
Note: Sometimes when you process a part of trauma, it unblocks access to some feelings you’ve been containing. That’s ok! If you go through a processing and feel sadness or grief or anger or helplessness, etc. Simply go through the process again using the feeling as your statement so that you are releasing that as well. 

6. It can take some time for your system to shift, but you may feel the effects immediately. But the results I would pay attention to are, next time you come back to your transformation wheel to rate them, do you notice the numbers changing for the better? Remember this is a process of your entire system shifting, healing and changing, so our expectation is that you will see those numbers change slowly but consistently.

I hope this has been an informative read! I'd really like to hear from folks who try this. Again, this isn't dependent on using the Wheel!

This is for all of you! Anyone can (and should) try this technique.

Let me know how it goes for you below!

(Some questions that might help to reflect on)
What body emotions did you notice during the exercise? Did they change?
After the exercise, did you notice any immediate or subtle changes in how you felt?
How does your initial statement feel now? Any changes in your thoughts or feelings?