Celia Bray on Somatic Processing & Staying Anchored in an Intense World

Debbie:
Hey, Celia, welcome to the podcast.

Celia Bray:
Thanks Debbie, it’s amazing to be here.

Debbie:
Yeah, I’m looking forward to exploring your work. Another pretty new topic for the show, which excites me. I’m actually, as this comes out, I’m over 500 episodes. So it’s not every day that I get to bring in a whole fresh topic. But I would really love to learn more about you and how you can support our listeners and parents in kind of better showing up for themselves and for the kids that they have. So how I’d like to start this conversation is would you mind telling us a little bit about your just kind of your big work in the world and why you do the work that you do, how you kind of got into this space.

Celia Bray:
Yeah, sure. So how I started to really value the body as a way of healing emotional wounds as well as living an amazing life is both a personal and professional story. So certainly in my own childhood, I shut down any connection I had with my body because feeling was way too intense. So I was so logical. Even at university in my shared house, one of my housemates named me Spock. And he’s like, I’m in control of my emotions. Like it was even visible to other people. And if someone would kind of say something to me that was really like not in the logical frame, I’d honestly be thrown. Because I like the whole emotional world was just not a safe space for me. And so realizing that I needed to learn how to make friends with my body and learn to feel was a really personal journey. And from a professional perspective, I wanted to be a psychologist for, since I was 16, I was fascinated with how we work and trying to figure out why people fight and conflict. I was very confused about why is all this conflict necessary? I mean, in today’s world, still asking that question. 

And so that led me down that exploratory path. But it was when I was actually in Kenya, I was living in Kenya for five years and I really realized that Kenyans are very embodied and there was a terrorist attack in Kenya killing 67 people and having hundreds injured and I wanted to offer a trauma healing process for victims of this terrorist attack in Nairobi and I instinctively felt talking therapy is not gonna cut it, it’s just not. And so I reached out to my five rhythms movement teacher in Australia at the time and said, look, I really wanna offer an embodied trauma healing process. And I’m not qualified in that area, but I just know that that’s gonna be what’s needed. And so it ended up getting someone in from South Africa who did heartbeat embodiment processes. I’m a Gestalt therapist, so I worked with the Gestalt Training I had with another colleague and we ran this movement music art embodied three-day workshop and it was fascinating like people were literally like starting by lying on the floor rolling on the floor to kind of get grounded to feel the safety of the ground underneath them and to really land in their bodies before any connection to the trauma or the emotion and it was a participant were blown away by it and they didn’t have to share the trauma of the story verbally to actually really see it just dance itself out or move itself out or you know like whatever it was people did share verbally but a lot of it was just still in the body like the shaking the nervousness the tightness in the chest the fear of any loud noises like it was all just kind of the freezing and so just being able to notice it and let it move and I was blown away and then people wanted more. So I’m like, I wanted more. So I’m like, I need to stop being trained in this. So that’s when I really got that and in the West as well, like how do we reconnect more to this incredible intelligence system that is actually shaping our lives every day, but culturally when not as connected to the emotional wisdom of it. So really that was how I really got into somatic work professionally.

Debbie:
What a fascinating story I can imagine experiencing that. And while I have a couple of questions, one, would you mind defining what gestalt therapy is just for listeners who aren’t familiar with that?

Celia Bray:
Sure. like psychoanalysis, which is Freud and the stereotype of where psychology began, is very much around memories and childhood memories and stories that we have. And going back to your childhood. Gestalt is all about every experience that we’ve ever had is still alive in our bodies and our system right now. So we don’t have to go back to the past. How are you doing your relationships right now? How are you doing your work right now? What’s showing up in your life right now? Because that’ll tell you the childhood story because that’s where it got formed. But we work with right now. So what are you feeling in this moment right now? What needs to be expressed right now? What’s in your body? What’s in your… 

So sometimes it’s empty chair work where you kind of have different parts of you talking to each other. So you’ll be sitting in one chair perhaps as your resource self and another chair as the scared part that doesn’t want to go to work. and then you kind of swap back and forth and then you just trust what comes up. You don’t have it scripted. People think it’s super weird, but when they’re doing it, it’s extraordinary the resolution because we’re often split internally. We often have different voices in our heads going, well, I should do this because it’s the right thing. And the other part goes, but I can’t, I’m too scared. And that’s going to go badly. And then, no, but we have, you know, all of this goes on. So how do you actually find ways to integrate and be at peace internally. So there’s some of the gestalt.

Debbie:
Thank you for that. And so from this experience that you had in Kenya, you you said, want more of this. I want to learn more about this. So how has your work evolved into the space where you are now? I mean, you reached out to me about your book, which is called Inscribed, Your Body’s Hidden Script, Decode Your Body’s Wisdom for Emotional Healing, Wise Choices and the Path to an Awesome Life. And I know Sematic therapy somatic experience is part of your work. So how did you kind of decide, okay, I’m going to take this and run with it and then really support humans in experiencing this?

Celia Bray:
Yeah, so with the Kenya experience, the participants wanted more. And so I thought I better get trained in this because the other practitioner went back to South Africa, she wasn’t going to stay. So I’m like, well, time to get trained. So I did a course that was a two year training in open movement. I’m sorry. Open floor movement therapy. And that really helped give me some skills in therapy in motion. So working with people to see what wants to move in their body on a group level as well as one-on-one. So that was a really beautiful introduction. And I also just started looking for somatic therapy training and I did work in that as well. And it just, just really fascinating. So that’s how I developed my skill base in it. And one of the things around where it also led me was a commitment to my own somatic practice. So I was kind of trying to do all the right things. Like I was working nine to five. I got back from Kenya and thought I’m going to buy a house. So I got a government job and I was working nine to five and I was supporting the family. And, and I got to a point where I’m like, I know that I’m a square peg in a round hole here. Like, this is not me. And so I made a promise to myself to reclaim myself. I didn’t know what that meant. No idea. But I started really committing to the Semitic practices. So I was meditating every day. I was doing movement. How does my body want to move? Whether I was going to the gym as well, because that helps me get into my body or walking in nature. It’s like something really physical, really important for that. And the more I listened to my body, the more it just started taking me on this journey. 

And my mind couldn’t, I couldn’t will myself. away from it, like it started to kind of pull me out of work, like I started feeling like I couldn’t muster the strength to go to work and it wasn’t a physical issue, I just was shutting down. And the same with my marriage, like it was like, it was like just the ashes, everything was being burnt to the ground as I was returning to myself. And it’s not like anything was wrong with the job, there’s nothing wrong with my husband per se, but actually I was not able to be myself in those environments. And the more attuned we are somatically, the more it will lead us into what’s authentically who we are and it’s an incredibly joyful life. So now, like I really keep practicing those things that bring me closer to myself and it still takes trial and error, cause my mind will be like, well, I need security to need this and that’s fair enough. I’m always gonna be in this tension, but I now kind of really say, you know what, my body’s never let me down. Like I feel so much more me, so much more. free in myself. I’m not fighting myself as much and I’m just really trusting how things are moving. So, I feel really like I practice what I preach. I’m not just writing a book and saying, it works for clients. Actually, it’s helped me. It’s helped me to be able to accept my emotions. Still a journey for me, have to tell you. Strong emotions come up and I just feel overtaken by them and sometimes I’m like, oh my god, am I getting anywhere or is this part getting me anywhere? But when I look back at who I was and then where I am now, I keep remembering actually this is a huge, huge change. And so I’m hugely grateful for it.

Debbie:
Okay, I’m going to try to formulate this question in a way that makes sense. But as you were talking about learning to listen to your body and really reclaiming yourself in this journey, I was thinking a part of you must have been scared, or I would think people are scared, right? Because sometimes it might reveal things that we don’t want to know, or it might feel too scary to lean into this other thing or start to notice, all these things around me that I’ve constructed don’t feel in alignment with me. So I’d love it if you could talk a little bit about that resistance. And I imagine it’s cultural too, that some cultures are much more shut off from even wanting to tune into what their body has to say. But yeah, can you talk about that resistance that you must see in your work against actually deciding, okay, I’m going to reconnect?

Celia Bray:
Yeah, it’s in all of us because as you say with culture, every culture is just a set of rules, right? Like about how we get along and it doesn’t matter what culture it is. I’ve lived in a few different cultures now and I like living in different cultures because it teaches me more. And so our culture says this is what we need to do but intuitively we might know that that’s not quite a good fit, but we still have to plug in somehow. And that’s, you know, what to do, right? That rub is going to be there. It doesn’t matter what culture you live in or where you’re at. But in terms of the fear, like I remember, like I have a client who, when she first walked through the door and I said, what are you noticing in your body and what do you feel in your body as you’re telling me this? She looked at me as if she’d seen a unicorn. She was like, what are you talking about? my body is just a machine to get me from A to B. There’s no, so that disconnect was there. But the more she started to actually connect, she actually realized when she went back to ask her children, said, do you speak, do you, he had teenage children and she said, do you feel emotions in your body? And I went, yeah, when I get blah, blah, blah, I get nervous in my stomach. And when, and she was like, and then she started to go, okay, maybe there’s something in this. But when she started to connect to her body, what she realized is that she’s actually in fear most of the time. And to feel those emotions and to even be with the fear was overwhelming for her. So we spent a really like slowly, slowly creating safety for her. And a lot of that was the therapeutic relationship. She needed to trust me. She didn’t trust, she never trusted anybody in her whole life. She’s like, she realized she created these decisions that I’m on my own and I have to sort everything out on my own and to trust people is too risky. So that internal resistance was really, really strong for her. So what I’d say is be really gentle with yourself and just lean into the small things that make you feel safe. that make you feel connected to yourself. It doesn’t have to be going into therapy and dealing with all of the things. It can be, you know what, when I go and just sit in the park or when I am in bare feet with my feet on the grass and it’s beautiful, soft grass, takes a moment and I feel like I’m in my body. I feel like I’m in myself. So the resistance is definitely going to be there, but we don’t have to go nuclear with it. You know, we can just be one step at a time and then take a breath and say this is me. You know the rest of the world is out there. I can but I have permission in this moment to be with me and slowly slowly that you’ll start to feel safer in your body and then you’ll be able to listen. In terms of making decisions that might show up that are like my gosh this doesn’t fit for me my life doesn’t fit for me and I’m in the wrong place. That’s what happened to me. And I can tell you, the more you feel like you’re in your body, the more you just don’t have a choice. But to start making decisions that align with you, it’s not like, and the fear will be there and the grief, you know, like just of letting go of things. But the cost that we have to our own physical and mental health of staying braced and staying tense. and forcing ourselves into roles and into situations that are misaligned for us is also really high. So there’s no easy path with that, but the path that will bring you into flow and ease into alignment with how we’re designed as human beings is through the somatic path. Because our body is so intelligent. It knows when something’s right. Your mind might be trying to tell you a story. This person’s fine. You know, like they just misunderstood something, which is fine. Go and try and sort it out. But actually your body and your gut says, you know what? This person is not ever going to understand. I don’t feel safe. I’m not going to feel hurt. You can feel it because you feel tense in your stomach. You feel like you start to not be able to think when you’re around them. Like, so it’s kind of going, well, what’s going on in here? So it’s yeah, I just feel like I could keep riffing because not every sensation we feel is like, oh, beacon of truth, follow it. Sometimes it’s showing us where our trauma wounds are. Sometimes it’s showing us, you know what, I can’t trust this person, like my client couldn’t trust anybody to do anything. And that’s because she didn’t have anybody around when she was young, she grew up alone. So that’s the sign to say, okay, how do I feel safe in my body to trust? And sometimes, our somatic wisdom is right on the money for our authentic decision in this moment in time around what path to follow. So there’s discernment. Yeah, that we need to develop.

Debbie:
Yeah, I just think of, again, listeners, parents, people in my community, and certainly I’ve experienced this too, of just being so kind of cut off because we might feel like we’re in survival mode, right? And so we’re just, always in this logical part of our brain. We’re problem solving. We are reacting to whatever is coming up in any given moment and that trust, that distrust, I think about how many of us are encouraged to go down certain paths with interventions or with choices that we’re making for our kids that don’t, that feel scary or there’s something that feels out of alignment, but we’re not taking the time to tune in and really pause and see what’s true for us. So I’m wondering, you know, what are some other ways that this might show up? Fear? I think that distrust, thinking about other ways or maybe reasons why, people would say, I’m just going to not go there. What have you found in your work?

Celia Bray:
Yeah, well some signs that you’re actually not listening are going to be feeling really flat and heavy like this. or just feeling like overthinking is just going bananas, like you cannot shut it off. It’s just like, that keeps us disconnected, but it also is a sign that actually we need to stop and we need to listen, not to quiet the mind because I think that’s an impossible task except for the monks in Tibet, but for the mere mortals, at least checking in underneath the noise. Some of the anxiety as well. It’s your body trying to tell you something. If there’s something going on, you talk about survival mode, that’s right, you’re just exhausted, but you keep pushing, you’re feeling like you just got this to-do list and you just keep running from one thing to another. So there are lots of the ways that you can go, I’m actually, this is how I’m checking out. This is how my body’s trying to show me that I need to check in because I’m not able to listen to myself.

Debbie:
Would you define somatic therapy, somatic processing, just so we kind of, again, have a, I don’t know if there’s a neat definition, but what exactly are we talking about when we’re talking about somatic processing or experiencing?

Celia Bray:
Yeah, okay. Somatic processing is listening to the sensations and the feelings that are in your body, literally viscerally. You go to the wisdom of the body. So if there is a heaviness in your legs or there is a sense of this chronic tightness across your shoulders, what’s the story that it wants to tell? And because our whole experience of life, our body was there. Even if our minds were checked out, our body remembers it exactly as we experienced it. Somatic therapy is listening to the stories of our life that our bodies hold and learning how to trust the body to let them go and heal them because the body knows how to do that naturally. But the mind shuts it down and says, I can’t handle this, this is too much, so I’m going to try and put it in a box. I’m going to push it down there and I’m going to avoid trying to feel that ever again. And then it gets stuck and then that shapes our whole identity. So somatic therapies are learning to trust and listen that the body knows how to let go once we feel safe enough to listen to.

Debbie:
That was such a good definition. Thank you for that. I feel like I understand it in a whole new level. And I read your book, but I really appreciate that, the way you summarize that. Okay, so I can’t even count the number of times my therapist has asked me, where are you feeling that in your body? And I’m just like, I don’t know. It’s always been hard for me to access that, and I’ve trained in learning how to do it, but it’s still really hard. So could you talk about what that looks like for someone using that phrase, where do you feel that in your body or what’s happening in your body is a complete blank, right? Like, I have no idea. Where do you start and how do people start to tune in?

Celia Bray:
Yeah, so that’s a really important question. Where’s the entry point? Where’s the access point? So sometimes it’s too hard to know where you specifically feel something in your body. You can’t say, well, I feel a little tightness here or I feel something, something. Sometimes it’s just like. What’s the general weather? What do you notice? Like, do you feel heavy? Or do you feel like you’re just gonna, you know, burst and go out of the, like, just explode? Do you feel like you want to fly? Like, you know, like, what is it? What’s the general, what’s the general weather in your body? And so if I was to ask you that, does that feel a little accessible?

Debbie:
Yeah, I think I could feel like a general mood or energy for sure.

Celia Bray:
Yeah, so sometimes clients for me say, know, I can’t, I don’t know what you’re talking about and you say, notice the sensation such and such, but if you tell me what’s my overall life force feel in this moment or whatever it is, just a general sense. And other times it can be things like just noticing the touch of the cloth on your skin right now. Noticing your feet on the floor and your feet in the shoes. Do your feet feel warm? Do they feel cool? That’s just as significant as anything that’s really deep and emotional. It’s all the same. Like people prioritize as if they’re trying to find something special, as if they’re trying to go, well, there’s this magic feeling I’m supposed to be looking for. No, no. My butt’s sore. I’ve been sitting here too long and I can feel that. You know, like that’s a perfect place to start. Or my neck is crinking or, know, like, just feel like I just want to kind of lean back for a bit or, you know, things like that. Like just, just taking notice of those. basic things. Notice I’m fidgeting. It’s interesting. Let yourself fidget. You’re not trying to stop. But just kind of feel the sensations of the fidget. I can feel my fingertips. So they’re really important places for us to start to get an entry point.

Debbie:
And so that’s super helpful because yeah, now even hearing you talk about that, I’m thinking about my feet and I’m thinking about the feel, you know, I was, I was fiddling with this in my hand, the cord of my microphone. And so, yeah, it’s, so it’s really bringing awareness to drawing attention to, which is something we can do if we just even pinpoint a specific body part, right? So. And you write, have an exercise in the book called Landing in the Body. So is that what you’re talking about? Or maybe you could walk us through that and how listeners could try that at home.

Celia Bray:
Yeah sure. So landing in the body is a really good place to start as a way of just practicing coming back. So what I’d be inviting listeners to do is make sure that you are going to be somewhere for five minutes that no interruptions turn off phones because you’ve got your brain somewhere over there checking and vigilant for some distraction you can’t land. So you just want to have somewhere this is my time for five minutes. Then you can make yourself comfortable lying down, sitting down, closing your eyes if that feels comfortable. And then start literally just noticing your breathing as you breathe in and breathe out. And you can just feel where you feel it. You feel your chest come out a little bit and come in or your belly, whatever it is. Spend a minute there. And then you move to noticing your feet. Again, simple sensations. Are they warm? Are they cool? Are they on the floor? If you’re lying down, maybe they’re in a different position. You’re just noticing them and moving your awareness from your feet all the way up to your head. Just noticing I can feel my legs on the chair. I can feel my back against the chair. I can feel my hands. And I can feel my head. Don’t forget your head. People think the head is separate. Sometimes they’re like, I’ve done body scan, but I don’t ever do my head. I’m like, but your head is physical. Like this whole thing. And how does your brain feel? Like, you know, you sometimes our brains feel like, oh, I feel heavy inside. Actually, maybe you don’t feel anything at all. That’s okay too. And then at the end, so give yourself a few minutes just to do that. Just to walk through wherever you notice sensations. You’re not looking for stuff. Sometimes you won’t. and then breathe again at the end, notice your breathing and just say to yourself, I’m here, I’m allowed to be with me. It’s really important that we give ourselves permission to be with ourselves. So that’s a practice that you can do just to come back. And there’s no getting it wrong, by the way. Many people think, well, I was checked out most of the time thinking about all the things I had to do. That’s fine. That’s how our brains operate. So people then think they can’t do this and then they think they blah, blah. And that I just want to, I’m one of those people that’s, that’s like that too. And I’m just like, no, there’s just that one moment when you notice your feet or you notice something that’s contact with you. That’s amazing. Celebrate it. Even if you checked out for 99 % of the time, you’ve still made the effort. And over time, you’ll notice more sensations in different places or you’ll notice you’re breathing in different ways. So it’s really being very kind to ourselves. We spent our whole lives being focused in the head and thinking that’s the captain of the ship and that’s the most intelligent part of us. This is a retraining and a rewiring. And literally, it’ll be like you’re hiking through bush that’s got no path and it feels like you’re not going very fast. So you’re rewiring your nervous system that way. just say you know what I managed to sort of just kind of walk one little step in this moment and celebrate it.

Debbie:
Hmm. I appreciate that. You know, there was a chapter in your book for whom, well, you share ideas for whom meditation isn’t a fit, which meditation is not a fit for me. So, I really appreciated that because there are, as you just explained, there are ways to reconnect that don’t make you feel like I’m doing this wrong or I shouldn’t, my mind should be quiet. So thank you for that. And would you connect what you just shared? I guess in the context of what listeners, how they can really benefit in their parenting lives too, is doing this work is a way to fortify ourselves or help us be more quickly able to return to what you call the window of presence, which can dramatically, I think, impact or influence how we’re able to show up with our children, with whatever’s going on. So could you unpack that a little bit for us?

Celia Bray:
Sure, so the thing about children and we were doing it as we were kids and your children will be doing it as well, everybody’s children, we are tuning to our parents nervous system. So parents might be saying one thing, but the children are tuning into is mum okay? Is she safe? Is she angry? Is she upset from the body? This is where the body wisdom is, children are fluent in it. They haven’t been trained out of it yet. the things that we do as parents, I say we, so I don’t have children, so I’m just going to, but what parents can do is to be able to take a moment to tune in, to notice what they’re feeling and what they need and say, you know what, if I just take a moment to pause because I’m feeling really frustrated right now, I just really want to. you know, get this thing done, I’m busy, I don’t have time for a distraction, we’ve got to be places, whatever it is that’s going on, and you’re feeling like you’re pushing and the energy’s tension, then that’s a moment to check in and say, okay, can I take a breath? Only needs to be 20 seconds, 10 seconds, where I just take a breath, feel my feet on the floor, and say, what’s the priority right now? Like what’s the real priority? Is it getting this thing done or is it just taking a moment and connecting with a child that might be feeling that and feeling quite or escalated themselves? They may be also add aside their window because the window of presence is where we can feel lots of emotions, but we don’t feel like we have to check out. So what that means is you still might feel angry, you still might feel sad, you still might feel frustrated, but you haven’t got to the point where you’re either just you’ve lost it and you’re yelling and screaming, or you just collapse and go and have to sleep and do a doona dive because you can’t function anymore. Like you’re still able to say you’re still, and that’s where we need to be. So when we start to notice ourselves getting to the point when we get really anxious or where it’s gonna control our actions and we’re gonna do something outside of our value system, we know we’re outside of our window. So the job is to say, if I’m outside my window right now, because I’m about to do something that is not going to be the best outcome for me, and I know that, and we all have those moments, sometimes we catch ourselves, sometimes we don’t, then that’s the time when you say, okay, I need to take a break, I need to take, and I need to get my nervous system back into the window, and need to take a pause. We can’t do it when we’re on the fly. One thing about this thematic work, You absolutely have to be able to take a pause because our body needs us to slow down. Our minds want to be run, run, run, and our bodies speak a very different language. Actually, we need to stop. We need to take a breath. We need to feel the breath so we can hear and actually also learn to settle our nervous system. Really important.

Debbie:
Yeah, I feel calmer just having this conversation, just going to say like you’re you’re slowing down your cadence and you’re the way that we’re talking and it’s making my nervous system calm down. So thank you for that. And is this something that we can become more fluent in? So you wrote one of the quotes I pulled out in the journey of somatic healing, the aim is for you to quickly return within your window of presence if you get triggered. And so the more we become attuned to what’s happening in our body and maybe have this kind of deeper fluency of the messages that it’s sending us, is it something that we can just kind of get more almost like a shorthand? So we’re like, this is happening. Now I know what I need to do. Like, it get to be easier?

Celia Bray:
Yeah, it’s a really good question. It definitely gets to be easy. There’s a few things that’ll happen. Some signs that if you’re practicing this, one of them is instead of boiling in whatever the upset was for days or weeks, you’ll be boiling for a lot less time. Okay, it’ll just shorten and shorten. So you might be upset about something. It’s not like we’re going to become enlightened from this. Good luck if you are, I’m jealous. But it means you’re still gonna get upset. You’re still gonna feel all the things it means to be human. However, because the body knows how to let go when we don’t try to shut it down, it’ll get processed so much faster and be able to move on and be happy again. So that’s really one of the huge freedoms of it. The other thing that really shows up is the more fluent you get at listening to your body, to body speak, is you’ll know when you’re outside your window and you’ll say, know what, just don’t want to let, can you just give me some time for a second? want, I’m, this conversation is really important or this moment is really important. I don’t want to, I just want to be really present and I just need to take a little break and go and get him back inside of my window. You probably wouldn’t say that out loud, but you know, in your own head, you can be saying that so you can pick it up. So instead of you finding yourself in the middle of this argument or finding yourself And the other thing that’s also really amazing that I love about it is you also don’t get so affected by other people. You know, it doesn’t go in and through you as much as it, and then you kind of end up in this like reactive kind of like, well, you said, there’s a sense of you get developing a boundary to say, well, their nervous system’s over there and mine’s over here and I can stay over here. Therefore I feel safer with this. And I know that I don’t, I can have a boundary here and say, you know what, that’s not okay how you speak into me instead of just going, well, you rah rah rah and blah, blah, blah and retaliating. So there’s a sense of actually this is not okay and you can have some boundaries and you’ll get much clearer. I’m making much more scary decisions than I did around saying no to things that I’m, my head says it’s scary to say no to. And for example, resigning from my job when we had no income coming in and that’s a big one but even sort of saying no to somebody who wanted to be friends with me but they were in a position of power like there’s a guy who’s processing my visa in India right and he was just like I want to be you know let’s catch up for coffee and my nervous system was like no way but because he’s got you know if I’d say the wrong thing he could deny my visa like why would I want to do that and I just felt so annoyed with him because doesn’t he realize the position difference and I was churning over it and normally I would be too scared to say no to this person in case it messes up my visa but I’m like you know what come what may my boundary is no and I’m gonna tell him that and I’m gonna do it really nicely but I was gonna say we can’t be friends like it and he said well why not because like it’s fine I said it’s fine for you it’s actually not okay for me And so we can’t be friends. And he accepted that because I was quite calm about it. So, but I was terrified to say no because of the potential consequences. So it’s really noticing your boundaries as well and being able to say, I’ve seen it with my clients as well, where they used to kind of merge with their partner about things. And now they’re realizing actually I have a different view on that because merging was safer. It’s like, yes, I’ll agree with you because it’s safer. But actually it wasn’t who they really were. And so now they’re doing the somatic work. They’re like, actually, I know what I really feel right now and it’s different to you. And so let’s have a conversation.

Debbie:
Hmm. Yeah. Super interesting. And I think, you know, going back to what you said before about being better able to not get in mesh in someone else’s nervous system experience, that’s so important again for parents whose kids are escalating or, or highly activated. It’s, you know, so easy for us to just kind of jump into the, pool with them. And so to have more. space, right? Kind of energetic space around ourselves to protect ourselves so we can just be with it and not get pulled in. Sounds pretty great. let me, there’s so much we could get into, but let me just ask you for listeners who are like, okay, this sounds interesting. I am feeling pretty cut off or I haven’t even considered that my body is a source of information that I should be paying. more attention to what would be an invitation for them to start to explore this in their own life.

Celia Bray:
Yeah, it’s a really good question. Everyone’s got a nervous system that’s imprinted in its own way. So what works for one person won’t necessarily work for another. The first step I would say is to actually say, know what, I’m going to listen. To make a declaration, I’m going to start listening and then trust what your body leads you to. So little ways that I listen that may, is things like, if I go for a walk, I’m like, What way do my feet want to go on my walk rather than I’m going to go around the block so I always go around the block. Now actually I’m going to start walking and which do they want my body, does my body want to go left, does my body want to go right right now. Like not necessarily knowing where you’re going to go right, you’re just letting yourself get lost. Small things like that are kind of little ways to start listening but from a more formal way I would be looking for somatic therapists. I’m a psychologist that does this work. There’s less psychologists that do this work at the moment. It’s just coming into the psychology frame. There’s more therapists that do this work and they can be extraordinary. So they might be trained in somatic experiencing. They may be trained in sensory motor therapies, which is Pat Ogden’s work. So there’s lots of great therapists out there. Some massage therapists are also emotional release type. massage therapist as well. That’s another way. Yim yoga and trauma informed yoga is really an accessible way to start to notice what happens when you slow down. It might be quite uncomfortable initially because your body’s used to going all the time, but actually starting to. So you have support. One of the things I would say is please get support for it because we are relational beings and nervous system to nervous system. Like you said, you feel calmer because we do, tune into each other’s nervous system. So having, I always reach out to a therapist or to somebody when I need to process something because that being held peace is so important. And even if it’s like you go with some friends because you feel a bit weird about it initially to try a few different things like yoga classes or things like that. Also, if you’re into movement, Things like conscious dance are a fantastic way to go into that. And don’t think of it as I have to dance. It’s movement. How does your body want to move? You can move however you like. don’t have to… People say, I don’t dance. That’s fine. But does your body want to shake? Does your body just want to stand there? know, does it want to lie on the floor? Like really, there’s lots of different ways. And being in nature is also really important. So it’s slowing down, connecting. You can do formal pathways or you can do more low-key things as well. Just make a declaration initially to listen.

Debbie:
Yeah, that’s great. And listeners, if you want to explore this more and kind of dip your toe in, I highly recommend Celia’s book. I’ll read the name again.

Celia Bray:
Can I show a copy?

Debbie:
Yeah, please. It’s called inscribed your body’s hidden script, decode your body’s wisdom for emotional healing wise choices and the path to an awesome life. It’s very thorough and it would be a great introduction. And then you’ve shared so much in this conversation today. So I’m sure it’s definitely piqued people’s interest and even if they make that declaration for today and start paying attention, that’s pretty interesting. So. Thank you. Is there anywhere else that you would like folks in addition to checking out your book, is there any presence online that you would like people to connect with you?

Celia Bray:
Sure, so I have a website, it’s somaticpsychologyinternational.com. So yeah, and there you’ll see the book and you’ll see some of the different approaches that have the somatic links. There’s heaps of blog posts for you to be able to look at. I’ve got a YouTube channel as well that’s on the website that you can look at different meditations that I give and things like that. So there’s lots of different resources for people.

Debbie:
Wonderful. Great. So I’ll have links in the show notes page. And also if you’re listening to this, you can see this on my YouTube channel and I will collab with you over there to see all yes, so we can get this spread far and wide. But thank you so much. I really appreciated you reaching out and this fascinating conversation. Yeah, I thank you for coming by the show.

Celia Bray:
Thank you, Debbie. It’s been wonderful. Really appreciate it.