Sneaky Powerful - A Podcast Dedicated to Somatic Experiencing®
Sneaky Powerful is a podcast that explores the journey of healing from trauma. Through the perspective of Somatic Experiencing®, a naturalistic modality of trauma healing developed by Dr. Peter Levine, Ali Capurro and her guests explore the process and intricacies of reclaiming vitality. Within these artful conversations there are many threads, and specifically threads of hope, healing, and love.
Sneaky Powerful - A Podcast Dedicated to Somatic Experiencing®
16 - Body Wisdom: Navigating Trauma Through Somatic Therapy
Kelly Shaw joins us to explore the transformative power of somatic therapy in addressing trauma through bodywork and touch. Through his unique approach combining acupuncture, osteopathic modalities, and somatic experiencing, Kelly creates a healing environment where bodies can feel safe to receive therapeutic touch.
• Transitioning from acupuncture to somatic experiencing after discovering trauma patterns in clients' bodies
• Developing a therapeutic approach based on three intersecting factors: practitioner's toolset, client's needs, and client's ability to receive
• Understanding body consent as distinct from verbal consent in therapeutic touch
• Working with the female body's history of medicalization and helping clients find authentic boundaries
• Finding the hypotonic (under-resourced) areas rather than just addressing hypertonic (tense) areas
• Taking daily naps as essential practitioner self-care to remain present for clients
• Exploring Body Dynamics as a developmental framework that complements trauma work
• Recognizing when addressing developmental resources is more effective than targeting trauma directly
For those interested in learning more about Kelly's work or to schedule a consultation, visit www.shaweastasianmedicine.com or contact him through the information available on his website.
Hey everyone, welcome back to the Sneaky Powerful Podcast. My name is Allie Caparro and I'm so glad you're here. Today's guest is my friend and colleague, kelly Shaw. Kelly is an acupuncturist, herbalist and somatic therapy practitioner in Portland, oregon. Clinically, he is focused on trauma, co-regulating touch therapy and the use of somatic developmental methodologies. He is also currently a counselor in training at Northwestern University, where he is pursuing studies in psychodynamic therapy. My discussion with Kelly was so meaningful to me personally and professionally. Our conversation gets more lovely the more we talk and I am so deeply moved by Kelly's work and offerings to this world. I really hope you enjoy this episode. Hey Kelly, welcome to the Sneaky Powerful Podcast. How's it going?
Speaker 2:Good. Thank you very much for giving us the opportunity to come on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm really excited to see, as you said, what we come up with and where we go with this conversation. But how about? I wanted to ask the first question, which is tell me about how you got into somatic experiencing.
Speaker 2:I don't know anything about your road to SE yeah, Road into this, into this land, yeah Well, so I let me think about that. So I, you know, I graduated from in CNM, what is now in UNM as a you know. As for my acupuncture degree, in 2013.
Speaker 2:And then I started practicing in 2015. And very quickly I found that I needed more resources, more tools to work with the clients I had. So the very first thing I did is actually I went and I started studying osteopathic modalities. So I started studying cranial sacral therapy and visceral manipulation and and craniopathy and started doing that both with, like you know, various institutes that teach those things, then also started working with a mentor of mine, uh, a woman of dr sheila murphy, who's now retired but had been one of my professors uh at ncnm uh and was also someone who had done a tremendous amount of craniopathy, cranial psychotherapy, and also was a somatic body therapist, and so she had actually studied a system called body dynamics and also had done, had worked through, a system called psychosynthesis and had been exposed to a lot of the early folks in the body work world and the somatic therapy world.
Speaker 2:So she worked directly with, like Ron Kurtz from Hikomi. Um, she actually did her body dynamics training with Peter Levine, uh, from somatic you know, obviously the, the founder of somatic experiencing uh had worked with, you know, like Pat you know, Pat Ogden had worked with her directly, had worked directly with Bessel van der Kolk, like a lot of these folks had worked with them directly, um so anyway.
Speaker 2:So, having known her in grad school, uh, and known what she could do with her hands, that's what first inspired me to start working with the cranial sacral therapy and with, with osteopathic modalities. And then, very quickly, I found this thing in people's bodies called trauma, and yeah, there was.
Speaker 1:I was excited. I was like what's he gonna say? Oh, trauma.
Speaker 2:And so people are.
Speaker 2:You know, I had these really powerful experiences with people on the table having these really big emotional releases, and sometimes they seem like they're positive catharsis kind of experiences, and sometimes they were not, or, you know, they didn't have this kind of dysregulated place and kind of a place I would.
Speaker 2:But now I've known what I'd call as reenactment rather than as integration or release, or and so, from that then I was, I decided that if I was going to continue that kind of work, I needed to get more resources in how to deal with trauma and how to deal with the nervous system directly, and so that led me to working.
Speaker 2:You know, I read, uh, the first book I read by peter levine was in an unspoken voice, um, and you know I was like, yes, this is what I, this is what I need to help my clients, um, and so then, yeah, so they went and did the training, um, and then continued after that with doing touch work, training with Kathy Kane and Steve Terrell, um, and then more work with Steve Terrell, and have done a ton of other body work and touch work therapy as well to add onto that. Um, the interesting thing is now, in my practice I primarily somatic experiencing and and somatic experiencing touch work, but less and less of the osteopathic work directly um, because I find that it can be too um, too cathartic for folks, that people can have too much come out from it.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, so you just said about, like, let me think, let me be realistic like 300 things that I want to follow up on.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's not realistic, but wow, um, so exciting to talk about all of this. Uh, let's go. There was immediately a question when you said that you had gotten your acupuncture degree and you decided you needed more resources. And that's when you sought out the osteopath kind of information and I was thinking, what did you see like doing acupuncture? That you thought, oh yeah, I need more resources. I'm super curious because I love, love, love acupuncture and I'm wondering what you saw.
Speaker 2:Yeah, totally, a lot of it was again because of experience I'd had in grad school with. Yeah, totally, um, I mean, a lot of it was again, you know, because of experience I'd had in grad school with with my mentor, dr Sheila Murphy. Uh, you know, I had these experiences where I'd be working with people in acupuncture and be like, oh, this looks like so it's like one of those things that she used to talk about, right, either it'd be like a kind of emotional holding pattern in the body or, um, something that's going on with. Like this seems like the cranium might be twisted a little bit. Or I did a lot of a lot of my clients have been folks with, like, whiplash injuries and you know cause.
Speaker 2:In my practice I work with both, like you know, physical ailments directly people's shoulder pain, neck pain you know all the pains and then also with you know, psycho-emotional conditions that folks deal with all the time too, and so you know there's pretty quickly is, you know, clear that there's a an interrelationship between those two in my practice and one part of it was reaching it and one part of it wasn't, and so I'd had just enough experience from working with with my mentor that I could tell that there's this like edge of something there that like, yeah, I could, I could stick a needle in this, but also it seems like there's this like edge of something there that like, yeah, I could, I could stick a needle in this, but also it seemed like there's there's something I want to do here with the body and something that this, these people needed that wasn't quite being satisfied by the acupuncture I was doing. Um, and so in you know, I'd done body work training while I was in school, uh, and so I had pretty good hands. I had done palpation work with with Dr Murphy again and done, uh, you know, two years of of shatsu training with one of my other teachers there, uh, dr Jim Cleaver Um, and so I had really good hands, could also feel that things were happening in people's bodies that I needed more information for as well. Um, and you know, there's kind of a difference too.
Speaker 2:In the traditional, traditional model for Chinese medicine you learn body work first and then, after a number of years, you come and you learn to do acupuncture after that. So the American model in most schools inverts that, and so partially what I at that time I was also looking at was that I knew I needed to go and get more body work skills and more hand skills to be able to eventually develop the kind of acupuncture skills that I was looking for at that time. So those things all kind of dovetailed together really nicely, along with the experience of what my clients were having. That you know it wasn't. You know there's something there I needed to touch but couldn quite get to um with the needles alone.
Speaker 2:I needed other skills to continue that yeah and and part of it was kind of the, the, you know the mental, emotional and the kind of traumatic or or now also developmental things that were underlying folks. Yeah, I knew needed to be nourished or touched in some way, contacted in some way in order to be resolved, and I was also hungry to find a place to help my clients with that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm curious. I know that I'm going to, at some point, have an appointment with you but I'm curious what it might look like. I've had acupuncture and cupping, but I'm trying to think of what it would look like to combine any of the body work. Or do you combine the SE with the acupuncture? What would an appointment? I guess there's not a typical appointment with you, but what would a typical appointment, if you can quantify it at all?
Speaker 2:They look. I can't really quantify it, but I can try and give it a. I can try a little bit.
Speaker 1:Yes, you go, kelly.
Speaker 2:You know the the range of what people come to see me for.
Speaker 2:I have a big enough tool basket that people can come for a lot of different stuff, and you know a lot of my work now looks like it's just didactic work where I'm like, or traditional SC, where I'm just talking to the client, right, Um, and you know doing work like that, where it can also look like I'm doing deep tissue or myofascial release or, um, you know that kind of really intense body intervention, kind of therapy.
Speaker 2:Or it can look like osteopathic work, where I'm, you know, having five grams of pressure less on someone and you know manipulating tissues that way, or manipulating rhythms in the body that way. Or it can look like me just holding someone's kidneys, um, and all of those things can be inter interrelated in the treatment room, right, or you know? Or with traditional acupuncture too, or traditional herbs. It really depends on what's going on with the person and kind of where where our relationship meets therapeutically in the room, and so there's also what's also true is I have a lot of skills that a lot of other practitioners don't have, and so if someone has an osteopath in their, their team of people, I'm probably not going to do that for them, cause I'm going to try and focus on the things that I have that they don't have from other people in their care team.
Speaker 2:Got, it Got it, and so the the irony of that is I don't actually do that much acupuncture anymore, right, because the truth is is like people come in to see me and they're like, well, here's all the stuff I got going on, I want acupuncture. I'm like, great, well, let me do all those other things. And you know, go go down the road to the community acupuncture place and get acupuncture for $25.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then come back to me and we'll like, let me use the other skills I have to help you in these other ways now.
Speaker 2:But acupuncture with a lot of clients, um, you know again, still depend what's going on Um and it.
Speaker 2:You know I have done the thing where I've combined SE and acupuncture, where the first half of the session will be SE and the second half of the session will be acupuncture, um, and I've seen really good results with that as an example. Right, you know, where you kind of deal with some stuff, get, get the nervous system, you know up and juicy a little bit, um. You know up and juicy a little bit, um, especially folks who have developmental stuff where they kind of struggle to get regulated on their own, yeah, uh, where you can kind of go into the content a little bit because you're not spending the whole hour there. You spend a little bit of time getting the contact into the juiciness and then let the needles regulate them. Wow, right, so then, because their system can't necessarily self-regulate yet it totally, you can put the needles in and let the needles do the job of giving them that that deep regulation from in their nervous system right uh, and then they don't have to do anything and you don't have to do anything.
Speaker 2:They get a break from contact. So if there's attachment stuff or yeah, you know all that, they can have that break where they can just sit and integrate with their feeling, while they're also being nourished, potentially by the by that when you, when you mentioned that about the needles let the needles regulate.
Speaker 1:It's like my body heard that and remembered the last time I got acupuncture and I was like, oh, I'm melting needles, that's right it's lovely, right, you know oh my gosh, so lovely.
Speaker 2:I love it so much yeah yeah, and it's such a powerful that that's one of the things I love about acupuncture that does it is a very powerful modulator of state.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right.
Speaker 2:And you can move people out of a state that they're otherwise stuck in Right. And the same thing's true of the body work I do where you know. Now, if someone can't regulate, I'm like nine times out of 10, I'll just put them on the table and do body work with them. That I know is going to be regulating. And you know they get up off the table and they're like I don't, I don't know what happened.
Speaker 1:It just feels so different to worry about it, but you feel better. That's the important part, right.
Speaker 2:And so, yeah, so like a typical session with me can look like a lot of things. I have this kind of I have this kind of thing I do with my clients now, which is, you know, I kind of I often, often the struggle for me when people come in is I don't know what it is that they expect or what their expectations are for treatment. Right, and because I've done, I've done enough things.
Speaker 2:sometimes I'm like, well, I don't know if this person wants me to do you know A or Z or right or right, anything between so this little trick that I do now, which is I look to see who referred them and I think, oh, what does that person think I do? That's funny, and and often that's what they want back from me, like, oh yeah, I heard you do this and I'm like oh yeah, okay, I do that, I'll do that, we're gonna do that today and then that's funny, that's a good idea and then go from there right, Based on whatever their experience is Right.
Speaker 2:So, and then again, you know, based on what their needs are and kind of where they need to be. And and you know, I, I also kind of described to my clients often as kind of Venn diagram of of three things the first, the first circle, is what, what my tool sets are and what I'm capable of doing, Right. And the second circle then is going to be what my client needs, Okay. And then the third circle is going to be what can they receive and how can they receive it oh, that's an important question that I don't think it's asked.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah and so you say it again I'm right, I'm taking notes.
Speaker 1:What can you say? What can they receive?
Speaker 2:yeah, what can they receive and how? So the the first circle again is like what, what my tool set is and what I can give them, and then the second set being what their needs are and the third set being what they can receive or what their capacity for for receiving is, and and where we ideally I'm going to be working in the like that little tiny space where all of those things intersect to be working in the like that little tiny space where all of those things intersect.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and, and part of that too is recognizing that they may have needs.
Speaker 1:but they can't receive them yet.
Speaker 2:Totally Right. And so you know, even with touch therapy, when I'm doing touch work with people, there's people who may need a very gentle approach to their body, but they may not be able to receive gentle contact yet it may not feel safe for them yet, or vice versa. Someone may need really deep tissue contact, right when it's like okay, like I got to get through your axilla down underneath your rib cage, down to where your subscapularis is, and it's going to hurt but you're going to move. What's my?
Speaker 1:axilla. The axilla is the armpit. So wow, so you're going to push into that and go through those layers yeah, and it's going to hurt.
Speaker 2:And so then I have to be able to to kind of judge can this person receive this contact or not?
Speaker 2:And then, if they can't, can I help them to receive it or get their nervous system to a place where it can receive it safely, and then can I actually do the work so I can then, you know, like in that case, like maybe free up their shoulder mobility, right, and then all of that would still be in the context of working with what SE has taught me, because I'm going to be looking at the nervous system to see if the nervous system is overreacting or underreacting to contact, like over bracing or under bracing. Is it going, are they going to collapse? Are they? Are they bracing too much? Right, you know? And how do we work with those things in order to be able to get my clients to a place where they can receive the contact that they actually need, and that may be again, that's another question that brings in things like attachment, as well as trauma, history and developmental picture and all of those things, and including just social history of people.
Speaker 1:So how did you learn about in the midst of learning all of this other stuff? How did you learn about the things like attachment and developmental trauma and things like that in your own, in your spare time?
Speaker 2:I did, or less.
Speaker 2:Actually, I have a very large wall of books at home that helps a lot.
Speaker 2:Again, most, a lot of those things came because, you know, as I started studying trauma therapy and and somatic therapy in general, which somatic therapy has always been, you know, the big, wide umbrella of somatics is really my passion in what I do, and SE and acupuncture and the body work I do are all aspects underneath that big umbrella of just I love working with the body and the magic of just I love working with the body, and the magic of what happens when you work with the body. Um, you know, so as as I was just working those realms, it's kind of impossible not to run into attachment. And if you're paying attention and so you've got a client on the table who you know like as an example, uh, just doing like the kidney work where all you're doing is holding the kidneys and holding intention for supporting the person, it's a really passive modality but it's very powerful and you know, and it's a very right brain to right brain kind of modality. But right away I have a question.
Speaker 1:Would you be willing? Would you say that it's sneaky powerful. I would say it's sneaky powerful I did it. I did it.
Speaker 2:We might have to edit that out um, so, even when you're just holding the kidney right, uh, so then all this, all these attachment dynamics come up why the kidney, is that a?
Speaker 1:is that a tcm thing or is that no, actually the kidney, is that a TCM thing, or is that?
Speaker 2:No, actually the kidney Well, so you can do it from a TCM perspective, but the work that I've learned that from is actually from Kathy Kane and Steve Terrell's work on somatic resilience and regulation. And I learned other work around the kidneys from osteopathy, again for visceral manipulation and Chinese medicine. You know Chinese medicine. The kidneys are the place where we tend to hold fear. Fear is the emotion of the kidneys.
Speaker 1:Oh, that makes me feel teary. Yeah, that makes sense. Okay. And then attachment and fear, obviously so connected deeply.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and then yeah, and so of course you know when you're working with the kidneys too, there's the adrenals on top of them, which are our big part of our stress and cortisol system.
Speaker 1:Right, Right, right.
Speaker 2:So these are mediators of of our bodies in big ways, and the kidneys themselves help to mediate our blood pressure, um, as well as the adrenals on top of them. So so these are places where we can go to have that kind of deep contact, Um.
Speaker 1:And so, when you know how people take in my hand, just being present there is really important, and I'm trying to understand that like yeah, what would you notice if someone's really able to like, for example, receive your holding as opposed to something, and I get it? This is hard to articulate, I understand that, but if you're willing, I would love to just know as much as you can.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so like, so, like one example of someone who's really able to take in contact, for instance, might be, that I, you know, I come in contact with their kidney and they sink into my hand and their whole nervous system gets quiet and deep yes, okay yeah, yeah, and so, and you can. They look like they're a baby going to sleep. Yep right, the nervous system calms down. It doesn't go into collapse, though there's a.
Speaker 2:There's a difference there, right right, they're not going to freeze and they're not going into collapse, they're not going to association, they're, they're being held, and so their nervous system is calming down and coming down because it's receiving some nutrients there, right? So, and then another context maybe what you see is you put your hands there and the whole nervous system ramps up.
Speaker 2:So you see, like their breath go up, their heart rate goes up, they might get hot in the face, right you know they might have. One of the things you can feel, you can kind of palpate, is fluid dynamics, so you can see that you can feel the fluid moving through the tissue more um which is an aspect of the heart rate going up Right. Um uh, and they might pull away from you a little bit right, they might turn their head away from you, or they might actually roll a little bit right.
Speaker 2:You might just get you know, I get you know. I pay a lot of attention to what I'm feeling when I'm doing this too, of course you might just get the sense that like something doesn't feel right in the contact right um, and so you know, one of the things I'm always looking for when I'm doing any kind of touch work uh, which is, you know, would be included of this kind of touch work, right is I'm looking to see if the body is consenting to the contact or not.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And you know, a lot of times people will orally, they'll tell you, they'll say like yeah, do the thing. They'll say yes, 100%.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:But the thing I'm looking for is I need to have the oral permission, the oral consent and the physical consent from the body in order to be able to do the kind of work that I do.
Speaker 2:And if the body doesn't give consent, then I'm going to start working with them around body consent and helping them to step into having body consent to them, like working with that as a dynamic and so like, for instance, instance, I can think of one client um won't give their name, obviously uh but you know years ago who is here, uh, in my you know my room here in portland, and she had come in for some somatic body work, uh, and as soon as I put my hands on her back, her whole system came into a like a sympathetic response and she was breathing hard and she was bracing on the table and like, not looking at me, just looking, you know, dead ahead on the table, and I was like what's happening for you right now? Right, and we're able to begin a conversation that backed up and let her recognize that her body wasn't consenting and she was a body worker too. And so she was like, well, I'm supposed to let you do this. I'm like, no, you're not, actually, you need to, not let me do this.
Speaker 1:Honor the no right.
Speaker 2:Honor the no and let the body have the no, and so, as a result of that conversation, we then spent some time where we were working with contact back and forth to find out what contact was safe for her body to receive and what contact wasn't safe for her body to receive.
Speaker 1:What a beautiful exploration. I am so excited by what you're talking about yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So so then we, you know, if we go back to that Venn diagram, then we're actually working with where can she receive and expanding that capacity within, again, an attached relationship because, she gets to have an experience of being with somebody who actually who's paying attention to her body in a way that's caring but also really attuned to her nervous system and really tuned to what her system really needs, rather than a body that's being medicalized it's so beautiful because I'm thinking one of the things.
Speaker 1:So I have some trauma in my own past and sexual abuse is part of that trauma, and I was thinking how there's such a um, a common like outward, in um description of like, have boundaries, have boundaries, like people telling me, have boundaries, and it's so complicated, when being boundaryless helped me survive certain situations. Not, it wasn't even a choice. You know, you know how that goes, you know trauma. So. So when you describe this, I'm thinking, oh, that's how I could find places where I can have boundaries and then extend that to other places, like this beautiful exploration of where can I receive and then building on into where, um, I need to be able to receive or want to receive, or want to protect, like, like. It just feels so beautiful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't even know if that made sense, but it made sense totally to me, so hopefully someone will get it out there. Yeah Well, and that's more of the process, right? It's like the first thing is like helping people to recognize that they can say no to me even though they need to do it.
Speaker 1:Yes, exactly, exactly, exactly.
Speaker 2:And then recognizing that's, you know, and especially because I'm often a dynamic where I'm a male practitioner working on often female bodies, right, but this is true of me working as a male practitioner on male bodies too. But often, you know, there's just more women who come to see alternative medicine practitioners than men.
Speaker 2:So as a result of that, most of my clientele are women, and so there's always going to be that dynamic of having a male body working on a female body when that's happening in the room, and so so many women have had to consent to things that they didn't actually consent to, and also so many women's bodies, much more than men's bodies have been medicalized in ways that men's bodies don't often get Right, and so they've had to consent to medical treatment that they didn't really want to receive or they didn't have any support around receiving is that what you mean by medicalized like, or maybe you could explain that to me? Well, I mean, like you know, uh, you know, you know how, how often you have to go in for an annual checkup with your gynecologist yeah, right right, right, men don't do that right right how much, uh know how much are women's bodies medicalized around birth control like men's bodies or not.
Speaker 2:You know, there's all these ways in which women's bodies have like receive medical interventions for more often yes, and that makes often are like literally touching their bodies, that men don't receive.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And so there's a. There's a way in which the female body is more medicalized than the male body and women also, look, you know, are far more likely to go looking for care than men. Are, right, it's part of the gender dynamic that men often don't like, neglect their bodies and don't look for care that they could need. So they could ask, they kind of choose a little more.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, but in general terms I get that, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And so. So then you know, women come in who have often had very medicalized bodies and then, so, then, and that conditions them to saying yes in a medical context, absolutely, absolutely Right, and then. So part of the trauma work is actually working back through those past contacts that may not, you know, may have been quote, unquote, consensual or required, but it doesn't mean that their nervous system got the support that it needed while they're having them Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And it doesn't mean that that. It certainly doesn't mean that because they've had more touch like that, the touch is more neutral. In fact, it means that touch like that could already be more, more charged absolutely, so absolutely working with the body and consent and be able to, to pay attention.
Speaker 2:The nervous system gives me an opportunity to be able to, to notice that and bring it to awareness in the room in a way that hopefully and like I've had many good experiences with this in the room where then helps people to come to a place of being able to consent or not to contact yeah and then we can start to play that, what you were just describing earlier around like, yeah, where, where's contact work?
Speaker 2:where does it not? What kind of contact? How close does the contact need to be or not be? And then, and then that brings in all those aspects of attachment and developmental yes, you know um processes that are super important for being able to hopefully bring about a repair in that kind of contact with people that's funny, that's the word I just wrote down was reparative, like it could be.
Speaker 1:It has potential. This kind of work has potential for being so reparative. And there's actually another interesting perspective that I wanted to share, if that's okay, I wanted the.
Speaker 1:So one of the things with sexual abuse is this is the kind of touch like there's a lot of in my experience I'm working with patients and clients. Like there's a lot of in my experience in working with patients and clients, there's a lot of confusion because it's like attention and care might be needed, but not that type of attention and care, right. And so there's often like this, this bind, this double bind or this complexity to it. Like I'm so scared and alone. This is better than nothing, which I hope that comes across how I mean it when I say it. But I it's so beautiful to think of how any sexual abuse survivor, having the opportunity to say that's not the kind of touch that I need and you're not going to leave, you're going to help me figure out a safe way to experience this touch, you're going to still care for me within this appointment. Like that's freaking amazing, like there's no other way to say it Honestly.
Speaker 1:Kind of lose my words with that, because it's so beautiful.
Speaker 2:And that's exactly right that people, in many contexts, you know people are trying to get, you know, touch work done of any kind, like well, we know, I don't want this and it's like, ok, well then, session's over.
Speaker 1:Yeah right.
Speaker 2:And there's not the chance for them to have anyone to really work with them on what that's like right uh, right, um, and so that to repair it does require that someone be able to work with them, talk with them, be in relationship with them around it yeah, exactly right, yeah, I'm not gonna leave you because you said, no, I'm not gonna.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2:And, in fact, what I'm going to try and do is try and find the kind of contact which is the like the most comfortable for you.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And so that contact may be me having no like, might be being very physically close but not physically touching me, standing on the other side of the room.
Speaker 1:Right, that makes sense, yeah Right. Helping them find the yes, yes and yeah, giving them the space, helping a person find their yes so important. And then there's congruence, right, which we know is so healing, like the inside matches not only the outside, but even the layers between the outside and the inside, the tissues and the yeah, yep, oh, yep, oh, this is so tender.
Speaker 2:That's part of what I think happens right Is because they've had to, or you know they, whether they've had to or not, they've chosen a consent to contact that they don't really want to consent to.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's a, that's a discongruence between the insides and outsides Right. Exactly.
Speaker 2:And then the second part of it is that I have to be congruent, because if I'm there being like, oh, it's okay that you don't want me to touch you, but really, the inside of me is not.
Speaker 1:They're going to feel that, yeah, yeah, big time.
Speaker 2:Right. So then part of the navigation often happens is me helping them to recognize that I'm really okay, like if they don't want me to touch them, that does not like, that doesn't hurt my feelings, it doesn't destabilize me, it doesn't upset me.
Speaker 1:They're totally allowed to have the boundary that's real for them and genuine for them. So you said destabilize, and referring to yourself, and actually that was a question I had early on when we were talking, and I'm curious about it again what do you do? Or there's two questions kind of coming in at the same time, but one of them is what do you do to stabilize, stay stable? That's one of the questions. But the other question is kind of a bigger question about, like your, a little bit of your history, who you are and, um, were you ever like dysregulated? And so you pursued this career to seek regulation like the rest of us?
Speaker 1:yeah, um, those are very big questions, I know, and maybe we could do round two on the podcast, so you can just pick the easier of the two.
Speaker 2:Yeah, maybe To maybe answer the question about how do I stay stable. Yeah, so in the room there's a lot of doing my own somatic work with myself.
Speaker 1:Love this. Yes, doing my own somatic work with myself.
Speaker 2:So, yes, tracking myself, tracking my breath, tracking sensation, my body, noticing the emotion as it comes up, Um, and you know, needing like, if I need to ground or center, doing that, um, and then also really just being okay with my own emotional response, whatever it is, um, so you know, I think a lot of you know. Again, coming back to my, you know the woman I owe so much to my mentor, dr sheila murphy. Um, you know, part of what she really ingrained in me over the years I worked with her, uh, was the importance of practitioner cultivation and working on my own stuff, and so if something's really triggering to me in the room, it's a really good idea to go figure out what that's about and work with it, and so that's helped me to be able to stay stable with folks in a lot of different kinds of responses.
Speaker 2:And also really kind of separate from who I am from their response.
Speaker 2:Whatever it is, that really has nothing to do with me, it's their response Right To avoid that counter transference or transference yeah, that's right, yeah, and then and then, when it does happen, to use it as a lever actually, if it possible, right? So you know, I do a lot of that kind of self-care in the room and you know one of the things when, when I, you know, sometimes I mentor folks in somatics, and you know, of course, one of the questions that comes up when you're mentoring people a lot is like how do you make it safe for other people to do their trauma work, how do you make it safe in the room for them to do that? And the number one thing, in my opinion, is that we have to make sure that it's safe for you to be in the room first, and so that's interesting.
Speaker 1:You might have tell me more about that, yeah.
Speaker 2:So if you know, if, if I'm in the, you know if I'm in the room with someone that scares the hell out of me, the first thing I need to do is get safe so that my system is regulated.
Speaker 2:Or if they're telling me a story about something that scares the hell out of me then I need to figure out how to take care of myself before I ever worry about regulating them or taking care of them. And so to me, the most important person in the room to be taken care of first is the practitioner taking care of themselves, and then, if they're resourced, then they have the opportunity to provide those resources for other people. And so that's kind of what I mean by that right. And so sometimes when I'm in the room I am doing more self-care than I am really externally focused on my, my clients, and it happens less and less as I get more and more resourced, and you know. But if something's really big and powerful, then I'm going to be, I'm going to be working with me and maintaining stability in myself first, and, if nothing else, part of what I'm doing there you know unconsciously, subconsciously for them is I am actually demonstrating them in my body how they can regulate themselves.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, right.
Speaker 2:But if I can't regulate it for myself, then anything I do that's going to be intervention is going to be incongruent.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's going to be incongruent for them and they're going to like. You know people as you know. You know people with trauma are very, very sensitive and will smell that out. Oh my gosh, in a minute, no-transcript horror stories that people have. That can be really rough.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And so there's a balance for me in terms of taking care of myself and staying stable, between staying stable in the room for the client, but also being able to feel and have my own authentic reaction to whatever it is. And so I think for me, uh, like people have asked me, how do you, how do you do this and not, uh, you know, not suffer a lot of vicarious trauma.
Speaker 2:For me that's kind of. Actually, the trick is that I feel what I feel when I feel it right, rather than waiting to feel it later. Right and uh, you know, and so long as that's an appropriate emotion, then I will likely show it like share it with my client right or allow myself to have the external expression of that emotion without it looks like, um, if it's something that's inappropriate, that I'm not going to do that yeah, right but you know, like you know, one of my clients, um, uh, you know, you know he was talking about some very, some very difficult things in his family and as he left, he said you know, you were, you were really there with me, with that right, you cried with me me with that right.
Speaker 1:You cried with me. You're like, yeah, I was.
Speaker 2:Oh, holly, that's so tender I can't wait for my appointment gonna be tomorrow now, well, if you come down, here. I know I fly now, so you know you can come down anytime you want, but so but that's actually for me to be able to be, um like, truly authentic in the room with people actually allows me to be more stable too that makes sense, letting it move through you instead of, like, pocketing it away in some of your tissue or muscle, or yeah right, that's, that's right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and and also because I'm, because I'm a body worker and licensed as an acupuncturist, you know, I don't have the same kinds of ethical uh or professional boundaries that traditional mental health therapists have. Yes, yes, nor do I have the same training. Right, I don't have that training. I have a different set of training, and my training allows me to be, uh, emotionally present in a way that might be unethical in a more traditional psychotherapy practice, and so I take advantage of that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah Right. So, yeah, such good stuff Is that is the stability part of your napping routine Will you tell us all about your napping. I am in love with this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, maybe actually yes. So, yeah, part of my self care routine we talked about this before we started recording is that every, every day that I'm in in the treatment room, I take a nap. So I, you know, I'm very thankful that I, because I work in private practice- I can structure my day any way that I want, and not everybody has this opportunity. It's a very, it's a massive privilege that I have this in our modern world. But I take a two hour lunch every day and I go and get my food.
Speaker 2:Usually, you know, I'm all like you know, do charts, whatever, and then while I'm eating, and then I take a 20 to 30 minute map every day that I'm in the in the room, I take a nap and that helps me tremendously to be able to be fresh and kind of, you know, rinse out from my body what was happening in the earlier part of the day so I can be present and awake and alive for the second part of the day. And yeah, I didn't used to always do that and I would. I would literally start falling asleep on clients in the afternoon.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right.
Speaker 2:And so I? I just learned that I can't do that. I have to do, I have to take my naps, I have to take care of myself, and that goes a long ways towards my clients, me being present in the room with my clients which is what they really need me to be.
Speaker 1:So exactly, yeah, you're kind of influencing my, my work life. I'm thinking of some things I'm gonna tweak, and change is just from this beautiful conversation.
Speaker 2:Well, I also have the I have the great privilege of, also because I do body work. I have a table in my room I can sleep on is that where you sleep?
Speaker 1:I was thinking. I was like, where are you taking this nap? But I have a table in my room I can sleep on. Is that where you sleep?
Speaker 2:I was thinking I was like where are you taking?
Speaker 1:this nap.
Speaker 2:Well, I have like you know now that, now that it's, you know the fall has come and the winter is coming right. You know I have a, I have a table warmer and I've got big blankets, like I can be very cozy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, yeah, highly recommend. Yes, I know I'm in a situation right now where I'm not allowed to get paid to take a nap and we disagree a lot with that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, there, yeah as I've said to many of my friends, there's a reason I work alone and for myself. This is one of them.
Speaker 1:It's a good one it's a really good one, let's see. So we have a few minutes left and I am trying to decide what. What area I wanted? Oh, I know I so looking at my nose, I wanted to go back to body dynamics for a minute I. There's some real similarities between SE and body dynamics. That accurate?
Speaker 2:okay, there is yes yeah, yeah, so body dynamics is a. You know, it's a system that comes out of denmark. Uh, the primary founder of it was my name of lisbeth marcher, um, although you know there's a few other folks who are involved too. I think all together there's about don't quote me on this exact number anybody, but I think there's about 13 people who came together, uh and helped develop the system, uh, and so it's a. It's a psychomotor system, so it's a developmental character structure system, so it's based on understanding. Uh, they have seven character structures that they go through, and in each character structure there's there's developmental tasks that are, uh, that we're supposed to accomplish at different ages, and what they do is they look at the coupling dynamics between those developmental tasks and the motor processes that we're we're getting into, uh, while we're doing them yes and from there they then have what they call the ego functions, which are things like boundaries, grounding, centering, interpersonal skills, things like that right, positioning, right that then are in each one of the character structures.
Speaker 2:We have to go back and relearn how to do them in that character structure. So, yeah, so, for instance, one of the character structures, the first character structure is existence.
Speaker 1:Okay, right. So yeah, the first developmental task is to exist.
Speaker 2:Right, that's the challenge, okay, and in fact it is for a lot of people, right?
Speaker 2:A lot of people like you know, I have a client recently who we were talking about this and like, yeah, it's like I don't fully exist yet and I'm like, yeah, you haven't completed all the developmental tasks here yet.
Speaker 2:So the first developmental task is existence. So, in existence, you have to be able to center yourself in existence, you have to be able to ground yourself in existence, you have to position yourself as someone who exists. Right, all those things exist. All those character structures, all those developmental things have to be done in that character. And then you come into need, like, okay, now I have to be able to center myself in my needs. I have to be able to, like, ground myself in my needs. I have to be able to create boundaries in my needs, okay, and then we're coming to autonomy, and then so and so on and so forth. Right, so you have to. The part of the brilliance of the body dynamic system is you get to be able to go in and really identify which character structure and which ego function is lacking in each of them and then be able to do a really potentially focused, uh, therapeutic intervention based on that that's awesome, a cool map to identify.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this yeah, oh cool yeah it's a it's in fact.
Speaker 2:They like, they do a thing called body mapping, which is where they go through and they, they test the tissues of the body, they test the muscles of the body in order to determine if they're hypo or hyper. Uh, and that's going to determine part of what's going on with the ego functions or character structures.
Speaker 2:That's part of their diagnostic system is to use the actual tension in this, in the system, in the body, um, and so, yeah, so this is actually a model that, from from my understanding, uh, peter levine actually went and studied, um, and he did the program, and so there actually is a number of things in in. You know, I did, I did somatic experiencing training first and then I went and did body dynamics. Now I'm coming back and assisting in somatic experiencing trainings again, and then there's a whole lot of things I'm like oh, that's, that's from, that's from them, that's when the body dynamics folks that we just kind of borrowed into the system, um, of course, there's no like trademark on on these things, right, but right um, there's certain things that definitely, like you know, for instance, when we, in somatic, experiencing, when we do, uh, the boundary exercise, where we push, yeah right and then, like one of the common uh kind of cues is make sure you push all the way so that your, your hyperextents, your triceps, are fully engaged.
Speaker 2:Right, that's directly body dynamics.
Speaker 2:Uh, that's a body dynamics um intervention and the reasoning behind it is actually in body dynamics, um so, but it's also based on tracking the system, tracking the body, identifying these kinds of places where people are holding in their bodies different content, and helping to rework it. One of the brilliant things about the system was the focus or the understanding or the inclusion of the hypotonic states. Was the focus or the understanding of the inclusion of the hypotonic states? So, you know, and if you look at things like like rolfing, structure integration or you know which is one of the modalities I've studied, but I'm not not a certified rolfer you know a lot of what that looks at is like, where there's tension in the body and trying to break it open.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So we would say from a body dynamics perspective is well, where the tension is, is where there's hypertonicity in the system, is where the body's had to over-resource itself. So what? We? We don't necessarily want to break that open, because it's doing something, it's doing a job.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right.
Speaker 2:And, and so this is then brings up why a lot of times the cathartic model of psychotherapy doesn't work necessarily very well right Is that you're breaking open the system where it's holding, but you're not resourcing it where it's not.
Speaker 1:Right, right, it was there for a reason. It's there for a reason, yeah, yeah, and, and you know what I?
Speaker 2:see so often my clients, even just folks come in for for massage, right? It's like, yeah, this is like my shoulder pain. It's always there and we relax it out and then they come back next week with the same shoulder pain because none of their patterns underlying it, None of the reasons why they need that shoulder pain have changed, and so the tensional system still just recreates it via its own energy, rather than to release the energy temporarily.
Speaker 2:But the body just recreates it. So if, but if instead you can come in, you can find where in the body it's under resresourced or where in the ego functions they're under-resourced, then you can start to develop the skills around that and then they don't need the hypertonicity somewhere else and the body will often let go of where it's been over-resourced as a result of that. So you know, for instance, like if someone has a lot of trouble centering themselves, that may show up as hyper boundaries.
Speaker 1:Interesting yeah.
Speaker 2:Right, right. Because, like well, I keep getting knocked off my center and I'm not very good at getting back to it, so I'm just going to put all these walls up so nothing can get in to touch me Totally.
Speaker 1:So I'm not ever pushed Totally.
Speaker 2:But you can't help that person by giving them more boundaries. You help them by or by breaking their boundaries. You help them by helping them to center right and teaching them the developmental task of centering in their bodies. And then they're like, oh yeah, now I don't need these boundaries as much, right or I don't need hyper boundaries as much, and so in in body dynamics we look at how that couples to the body and how we can actually use the body as a tool to help develop centering or whatever the ego function is Right.
Speaker 1:I feel so hopeful as you're sharing all of this. I think I think one of the things in my own personal healing journey it's it's like one thing carries me so far and then I'll need a different modality, and it's not because one's bad, it's just like I need a different angle, perhaps, or yeah, so, as you're talking like yeah okay, I have a better idea of what I need moving forward.
Speaker 2:I actually think the somatic experiencing model and the psychomotor model from body dynamics are natural allies.
Speaker 1:Next time when we're together and we're assisting, I'm going to be bugging the crap out of you to tell me the body dynamics, things during the training.
Speaker 2:I didn't actually finish their professional training. I've done parts of their professional training, but I haven't completed it. Um, so I'm not a full body dynamics practitioner.
Speaker 1:Um does that have a certificate as well?
Speaker 2:like, kind of like okay yeah, yeah, their, their system. It takes a lot longer to finish their their training than it does se. Um, I think they have a total of well, they have the. They have a year of a foundation training and then the, which is a year. I think it's 27 days for the year the first year and then for the professional training there's 75 days of additional training.
Speaker 1:So the time you're done.
Speaker 2:It's a four-year program and over 100 days in those four years, right, yeah, so it's extensive training.
Speaker 1:Right, it always makes sense because of what you need to learn to you know, be, I don't know. I guess the word that comes to mind is a congruent healer. Yeah, is a congruent healer. So you need that kind of thorough training. But it is also frustrating because of the privilege it takes to get that and opportunity and, yeah, because everyone needs this shit. Let's just be real.
Speaker 2:Yeah well, and and yeah, part of part of the thing with with the biodynamics, right is it's a developmental psychomotor program, right? So it's really it's they do have, they do have trauma training, they do have a model for working with trauma directly. Uh, but the primary thing of body dynamics is working with developmental resourcing and trying to get people skilled up, rather than a model of of you know, rather than, rather than a shock trauma model, which is what SC primarily is Right and it can be used for other things too, right.
Speaker 1:Right, right.
Speaker 2:Um to lessen that at all. Uh, but the tools around SC are primarily around their, their, their affect regulation tools or nervous system regulation tools to help people to encounter, um, their trauma in ways that are skillful and successful. And the tools in body dynamics are around doing the same thing, around being able to encounter and challenge developmental resources that have not been developed.
Speaker 2:And then those two build into each other, of course, because if I don't have the, you know part of what may make me more liable to suffer a shock. Trauma is missing developmental resources.
Speaker 2:Absolutely so if I can build up the resources of my clients or build up the resilience in myself, then that is making me more capable of addressing trauma in my body and addressing trauma that may come in the future. Yeah, so that model has really helped me to see that sometimes the place to start with my clients isn't trauma at all, and that often goes further than actually working with the trauma directly.
Speaker 1:That's. I mean it makes me automatically think of the counter, counter vortex and orienting to the positive, like we did originally when we started today before recording. But yeah, yeah, absolutely yeah go ahead, please, no, no, yeah, I've talked after your turn well, I was just gonna say how honestly touched I am by this conversation and um so glad that you're in our healing world and now they're doing this like truly it's.
Speaker 1:My heart feels really tender and hopeful, yeah thank you so much and because I get to see you so personally a few weeks away I know, know, I'm so excited. Yeah, so one of the things as we close up is that I like to offer people is like where they can find you if they want to know more about Kelly. Where can they look that kind of stuff?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so probably the easiest place is my website, which I have to bring up myself because it's it's a long URL and I always forget all the parts of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm that guy.
Speaker 2:So if you go to wwwshaweastasianmedicinecom so it's my last name, eastasianmedicineeastasianmedic medicine, all one wordcom you can find my website and there I am.
Speaker 2:And that's you know that's contact information. People can email me, or you can email it directly to the page or they can contact me. My phone number's on there and then, yeah, I'm always. You know, part of what I offer to clients is people just have questions or want to chat. I'm always happy to do that with people before they come in, to make sure that I'm a person that can really help them and, if not, to help them, maybe find something they can.
Speaker 1:That's so sweet and important. Yes, yeah, actually I know now, because the first time I had asked you like what do you do? I think it was at the last training, as a matter of fact in Portland, where you live. It was like tricky. The answer is complex, like as we've laid out here today. And so good news Now I know exactly what I want and what I hope to get from our appointment.
Speaker 2:So that's, great. Yeah, that helps me to actually give you what you want Exactly.
Speaker 1:I'm like, yes, watch out world. I'm feeling great, Okay, so again, thank you so much for taking the time to come on this podcast. I appreciate it more than you know and I look forward to seeing you in a few weeks.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you so much. It's been great to be here.
Speaker 1:Hey, bye, kelly.