Somatic avoidance

The word somatic means relating to the body, especially as distinct from the mind.

When you are in your head trying to figure something out or distracting or numbing yourself out from what is happening in your body, you are engaging in somatic avoidance.

You may have noticed that even if you identify as a person who is sensitive to emotions or are someone who has been in psychotherapy for a long time, you may still have trouble identifying and staying with your emotions. You might still be distant from your moment-by-moment bodily experience, your somatic experience. Two patterns are common here:

1) Individuals who are sensitive to emotions often learn and then reinforce behavioral patterns that make them experience their emotions more intensely.

Sensitive individuals are often less able to identify and allow their emotions because of the intensity of their emotions and because of the way other people respond to them.

2) Typical psychotherapy practices are very focused on the content of your thoughts.

Some theories of psychology focus on gaining insight into your narrative until you are able to come up with a different narrative that caused you less distress. Sometimes exploring how you came to understand who you are and how to respond to life in light of that narrative is helpful. But, sometimes, the more you talk in psychotherapy, the more you feel like you need to talk to feel better. It’s as if you need to just get the narrative right and if this magical therapist perfectly understood you, then you wouldn’t feel distressed anymore.

It isn’t true. We all have a variety of narratives within us from a variety of sources. Our brains take in information from the environment, our minds turn that information into a narrative. Narratives are super helpful for collaboration and problem-solving. Humans took over the planet due to our ability to generate and spread narratives. In your personal relationship with yourself, however, modern psychological theory suggests that we should never take our narratives too seriously.

Rather than getting involved with and “figuring out” exactly why your thinking or feeling whatever your thinking and feeling (that is, adding narrative), instead you can come back into your direct reality.