Somatic Therapy And Embodiment As A Spiritual Practice: When The Body Becomes Part Of The Healing
Many people approach spiritual growth through study, prayer, reflection, or meaningful conversation. These are powerful pathways. Yet for many - especially those who carry stress or trauma - spiritual insight can remain largely cognitive. We understand truth in our minds, but our bodies still brace, tighten, or remain on alert.
Embodiment Invites Us Into A Different Kind Of Practice
Embodiment means including the body in our spiritual life. It means recognizing that our nervous system, breath, posture and internal sensations are not obstacles to transcend - but doorways to integration. This is where somatic therapy becomes deeply relevant. Somatic counseling focuses on the lived experience of the body: sensations, impulses, breath, movement, and the state of the nervous system. Rather than analyzing experience alone, it helps us notice and gently work with how experiencing becomes somatic and is held physiologically.
Why Does Being Embodied Matter Spiritually?
Because the nervous system profoundly shapes our capacity for connection. When the body is in survival mode - fight, flight, freeze, or collapse - it is difficult to feel trust, surrender, compassion, or openness. We may want to forgive, but feel clenched. We may long to trust, but feel vigilant. We may intellectually believe we are safe, yet our shoulders remain tight and our breath shallow.
What The Research Shows
Pioneers in trauma research such as Bessel van der Kolk have shown that trauma is stored not just as memory, but as physiological pattern. Similarly, Stephen Porges’ work on the autonomic nervous system highlights how safety and connection are biological states, not merely ideas. When our system detects safety, we are more capable of relational presence, empathy, and spiritual attunement.
How Embodiment As A Spiritual Practice Can Work With Somatic Therapy
Consider breath. Many spiritual traditions treat breath as sacred. In somatic therapy, breath is also a regulator. When we gently lengthen the exhale, feel the movement of the diaphragm, or notice the rhythm of inhalation, we are sending cues of safety to the nervous system. Prayer or meditation that includes awareness of sensation becomes not only contemplative, but regulatory.
Grounding is another bridge. Feeling your feet on the floor, sensing the support of the chair beneath you, noticing the temperature of the air on your skin - these small acts anchor the present moment. For someone whose history includes instability or threat, grounding restores a felt sense of support. Spiritually, this can translate into a lived experience of being held rather than simply believing we are.
Somatic therapy also invites us to notice micro-movements and impulses in our experiencing. Perhaps there is a subtle urge to straighten the spine, to soften the jaw, to place a hand over the heart. When followed gently, these impulses can release stored tension. Over time, the body learns that it does not need to remain perpetually guarded. As the physiology settles, spiritual practices often deepen naturally. Stillness becomes less effortful. Gratitude feels more embodied. Compassion becomes less aspirational and more accessible.
Embodiment Is About Cultivating Capacity
Embodiment is not about chasing peak experiences. It’s about increasing our ability to remain present with discomfort without dissociating, to feel emotion without overwhelm, to experience connection without fear. This capacity is built incrementally, through titrated awareness - a core principle in somatic therapy.
Healing Spiritually Through Embodiment And Somatic Therapy
For those with spiritual wounds - perhaps shaped by shame, fear-based teaching, or chronic self-criticism - embodiment can also be reparative. Learning to listen to the body with kindness disrupts internalized harshness. Noticing sensation without judgment becomes a lived experience of grace. In this way, embodiment becomes spiritual formation.
With somatic therapy and practicing embodiment, you can begin to align belief with biology. Trust is no longer only a theological concept; it is felt in the softening of the belly. Surrender is no longer abstract; it is sensed in your exhale. Compassion is not merely moral effort; it arises from a regulated nervous system capable of connection.
When the body is included, healing becomes more comprehensive. The sacred is not somewhere “above” us - it is experienced within us, through breath, sensation, and presence. And that is where integration begins.
When You’re Ready To Take That Next Step
If you’re longing for healing that reaches beyond insight and into embodied peace, you don’t have to navigate that path alone. You may find it helpful to learn more about Somatic Therapy and how working with the body can support lasting change. I’d be honored to walk alongside you—reach out when you’re ready, and we can begin gently, at a pace that feels safe and supportive for you.