Everyone in the training had the opportunity to ask questions about the somatic demonstration I had done with one of the students in the class. It had been a very intense demonstration, and the student had also done a demonstration with me the week before.
She had severe neck pain which had been present for years, and during the somatic session, it became clear to her that the pain was a way that she was punishing herself. She was punishing herself for being in an environment where she had experienced trauma, punishing herself for not following her intuition and leaving the environment. Her pain had significantly decreased and her neck range of motion had significantly increased just after the first somatic session. By the end of the second session she could move her neck fully and said that she felt good. In addition to the change in pain and movement, she was on video when she normally wouldn’t have her camera on, and during the session, she had laughed a lot. At the end of the session, when we were doing some integration of the session she said that she had tried everything for the pain and thought that she would have to live with the pain for the rest of her life.
As students were having the opportunity to ask questions, I turned my energy from the single student back to the whole group and began looking for student-to-student check in with them visually and energetically. During the demonstration, my energy had been locked on the student in the demonstration, but I had facilitated groups for years, and I knew that this depth of a demonstration would likely have a significant impact on some of the members. As I looked from student to student, one of them caught my eye and I began to track her more closely.
As I was answering a question from another student, I noticed that she put a comment into the chat inside Zoom. She said that the demonstration was very emotional for her to watch. Before I could finish answering the current question, I watched another student respond to her. He said he would love to hear more about what emotion it was bringing up for her.
When he finished answering the question, I asked if she would like to unmute and come on and talk about the emotions that were coming up.
She unmuted and began to speak between sobs, “I don’t know if I have words to explain what I feel,” she said just before the wave of emotion overtook her. Intense tears flowed from her as she struggled to catch her breath. We all sat silently, witnessing her and listening intently as her body spoke every word needed through the form of tears. Even if she had never spoken a word, everyone in the group understood the magnitude of what she was feeling. In fact, her body spoke more clearly than her words ever could have. The training was focused on allowing the body to express itself and to feel emotions inside of the body as a way to heal, which made her tears and emotions a perfect way of expressing.
Eventually, she told us how grateful she was to have access to this profound and deep form of healing and how beautiful it was to her to witness her friend healing.