Embodied Shadow Work

Via Dreams & Somatic Experiencing

I’ve been going to therapy on and off since I was a teenager. I haven’t always been very intentional nor my approach particularly discerning. At what point are you educated on how best to find the right therapist or the right kind of therapy? I sure wasn’t, and so it has been a meandering exploration of trial and error.

In the past, I have tried to select a therapist who seemed, by a very brief consultation, to be a good fit. However, what I have learned over the years is that it’s not just about personality alignment. A key factor to a successful therapeutic relationship is the therapist’s training and orientation, which informs not only the skills they draw upon to facilitate therapy, but also their theoretical framework through which they relate to your situation.

In the early years, I saw “standard” therapists who utilized talk therapy and not much else. I found this to only go so far before I hit a psychic inner wall. Also, as I dug deeper into shadow and old memories, I began experiencing an overwhelming somatic response like insomnia and emotional flashbacks. This required me to find new forms of therapy to address not only the symptoms, but the underlying cause.

Lost in the Imaginal

I have always had a strong visual and imaginal aspect to my psyche. When I first started meditating, I naturally followed inner visions rather than sit in a space of stillness with an empty mind. When I learned how to do shamanic journeying, I easily dove into the lower and upper realms; interacting with the various animals, entities and natural environments that came to mind. I took easily to active imagination and remembering my dreams. In some ways, the imaginal world felt more real and intense than the concrete world of reality.

At a time when I was steeped in Jungian theory and other esoteric exploits, I was called to focus on the body. My long neglected physical experience could no longer be pushed aside, it demanded attention. The embodied shadow, the somatic unconscious and the dysregulation of my nervous system sent a clear message by the most direct path that I would listen, a dream.

The Dream

In May of 2021 I had been in Jungian Analysis for a few months. I had finally returned to therapy and been excited to work with a practitioner who could relate to me through a Jungian framework. I would say the analysis was going well, but for a time I had been feeling that something was missing. On May 1st I had this dream:

I am standing in a room of people, women with long necks extended from their bodies are lying on the floor. I sense that each of them has a painful story, a tragic event, a trauma, pain that they carry. Each woman is paired with a practitioner who sits beside them, their hands gently atop their bodies. The main facilitator is walking around the room, talking about the healing they are experiencing from within the body.

My analysis of the dream and its images:

• Women with the long necks

  • Speaks to the disconnection between mind and body I’ve been experiencing.

  • My tendency to inhabit the analytical space in therapy, which leads to me being disembodied.

  • Recalls the alchemical operation of sublimatio which symbolizes an ascent that raises us above immediate, earthly experiences. It is detachment from the body into spirit and reason.

  • The long necks also gave me a sense that I needed space and for the head to not play as big of a role.

• The Healers

  • Working in a somatic way, no discussion happening (a compensatory image to contrast the current therapy I was in).

  • The healing work was receptive, embodied, gentle, and grounding.

• Main teacher

  • An aspect of my own psyche who is providing insight to the style of healing needed, the focus on awareness of the body and healing from the bottom up.

  • An authority figure that can steer me towards the type of work I need most right now.

• Observing POV

  • I found the point of view of the dream ego interesting. I was not participating, but watching the process happen. In this sense, I am outside of it, observing, not yet fully engaged.

  • It left me with the question: How does this new point of view contrast and shift my conscious attitude towards healing and therapy?

Returning to the Body

Within a week I ended my Jungian Analysis and reached out to a Somatic Experiencing (SE) therapist. I had been interested in SE since I read Waking the Tiger by Peter Levine.

“Traumatic symptoms are not caused by the triggering event itself. They stem from the frozen residue of energy that has not been resolved and discharged; this residue remains trapped in the nervous system where it wreaks havoc on our bodies and spirit.”

- Peter Levine

SE helped me bridge the connection between psyche and soma. As I talked about a situation, I was invited to check inwardly for any sensations, and then track how they shifted or evolved as I noticed them. I began to see patterns, that if I moved into an intense emotional state, there was always a corresponding somatic reaction with it that actually seemed more intense, as if the distress began in the body and then moved up to other cognitive and feeling channels. Catching the sensations allowed me to slow the process down and use techniques to ground myself.

When it comes to the delicate nature of trauma work, I have learned, and continue to be reminded, how important somatic and nervous system regulation is. The body has evolved to self-regulate, but that process can be disrupted through trauma, leading to a psyche and body that fragments, an unclosed loop of somatic processing that can lead to further ailments.

My dream was an important message, in some ways a reminder of the early days of my own inner work where yoga, meditation and breath work were the catalysts for much of my healing. Embodied shadow work has greatly shifted my ability to hold the intensity of my emotional states, expand my window of resilience and deepen somatic awareness.

For more on Somatic Experiencing, check out this week’s podcast episode: