In Motion: Embodied Practices for Understanding and Navigating Trauma

Numerous wonderful and miraculous activities take place in our bodies –cells regenerate, injuries heal, food creates energy. These processes work often without our conscious awareness, showcasing the incredible complexity of the human body. Our bodies also adapt to trauma and attachment wounds, and often our early experiences impact the way we live in our bodies–our posture, our breath and our felt sense of connection to ourselves. Connecting with our bodies can restore our sense of them as a resource and provide the capacity to sequence the trauma that is stored within, allowing for healing and emotional regulation.

In this workshop, participants will engage in experiential practices in order to explore the body and reconnect with its healing capacities. We will use these practices to guide us through an embodied understanding of the window of tolerance and polyvagal theory. As we learn to track our own internal experience  and observe and modulate arousal levels, we will build a movement vocabulary and try on different somatic and movement resources. We will discuss how to integrate these somatic practices into your clinical practice.

In this workshop we will:

• Explore Polyvagal Theory and the Window of Tolerance from both a theoretical and embodied perspective
• Build a movement vocabulary to use when tracking the body
• Know and practice the somatic resources

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