Feeling Stuck? How Movement Can Help You Find Ease
Relational Somatics as Key to Therapeutic Movement
While Somatic Therapy has become popular in the wellness world, and somatic methods can indeed vary widely, I often explain to new and potential clients that while somatic work goes beyond words, and it can be a rich compliment to talk therapy, the therapeutic relationship is still a foundational layer of the experience. Meaning, the experience of relational support, how a trained helper and agreed-upon relationship supports you, is part of the experience of not only nervous system regulation but also healing and growth.
In other words, no quick fixes for feeling stuck or sluggish, or unmotivated or depressed. However, movement, particularly and specifically Contralateral Movement practices that are relationally- and developmentally-informed can help birth inhibited moves, allow for more ease, can help invite energy to flow more freely, for areas or parts that feel stuck, blocked, stagnant, lost.
Contralateral Movement for Flow and Focus
When you feel energy is not flowing as freely, when you feel like there is something that words cannot explain, when you feel you keep repeating the same patterns, and when you can sense (or not!) where in your body the inhibition of movement resides, there are developmentally-informed, relational movement practices that integrate the right and left brain hemispheres of the brain that, over time, can shift your living experience into more ease, clarity, empowerment and self support.
Contralateral Movement can help process the Fight/Flight chemistry that might present when inhibited moves, parts of you that have been shut down, are expressed. You might feel an “is this okay now?” type of experience, perhaps new awareness, waves of feeling that seem unfamiliar but birthing something new.
Over time, these new movement expressions — feelings, vocalizations, breathing patterns, posture, gestures — can be more accessible in a nervous system state that feels steady, present and attuned.
We develop and learn how to mobilize from our center outward in our earliest relational experiences. To move with more flow and focus, to begin a task and follow through, to do the hard but necessary things, to chop wood and carry water through all the inevitable waves of life, is an exploration and continuous practice of Contralateral Movement. 🐾
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Mindful Movement as Mothering Medicine®
A Monday Movement Group (*space open for one new member)
With Caroline Gebhardt, LPC, RYT, Registered Somatic Movement Therapist & Educator
1:00-2:00pm Kirkwood/ATL
Ongoing, closed group
3-month commitment
Interview required
$200 month
All bodies, 18+ welcome
*No experience necessary 🩷
Register: Caroline@MBodiedTherapy.com
www.mbodiedtherapy.com/events/m-bodied-monday-movement-group
Along with developmentally significant yoga poses & sequences, members get to explore somatic movement practices including:
• Navel Radiation: Move from your core with fluidity
• Contralateral Movement: Explore blockages & invite more energy to flow
• Gesture: Discover your energetic skin for presence as well as boundaries with others
• Handling: Expand your movement vocabulary for a more satisfying and eventual self-supported experience
Caroline Gebhardt, LPC, RYT, is also a Registered Somatic Movement Therapist/Educator with ISMETA and Certified Intuitive Eating Counselor. She developed M-Bodied: Mindful Movement as Mothering Medicine as an offering of movement and shapes based on developmental and relational patterns for deep nourishment from the inside-out.
M-Bodied is grounded in the principles & practices of the somatic trauma healing method Chi for Two®, which groups and sequences early relational embodiment practices as symbolic redos for nervous system functioning and healthy relationships.