How Somatic Therapy Heals Trauma & Anxiety: A Deep Dive

Welcome back, my fearfully and wonderfully made humans. I'm your host Diana from Through the Valley Therapy and Transform Mind Consulting and Coaching. And you know, I love diving into topics that blend science, faith, and holistic healing. A couple of weeks ago, I attended the South Florida Clinical Collective Networking meeting where I was on the lookout for someone to demystify a buzzword that keeps coming up, somatic.

I've been hearing it everywhere and I thought, why not bring in an expert or two to not only teach me about this, but also share their knowledge with you. So today I'm joined by Amy Hagerstrom, LCSSW somatic experiencing practitioner and safe and sound protocol provider.

She helps adults struggling with anxiety, the effects of trauma, and midlife stress, especially when those stress cycles feel nerve-ending despite trying other therapy approaches. Amy specializes in sematic experiencing, a bodybased trauma healing method, and safe and sound protocol, a musicbased therapy that stimulates the vagus nerve to help regulate the nervous system.

If you've been following the podcast, you might remember we touched on safe and sound protocol back in episode 48 with Rosara Henapy where we explored healing trauma, immigrant mental health, and the safe and sound protocol. Today, we're taking that conversation even deeper as Amy breaks down how these bodybased approaches help clients process stored trauma, regulate their nervous systems, and reconnect with themselves.

She also works with children and teens, particularly when big emotions, sens sensory sensitivities, or regulation challenges make daily life overwhelming. Based in Fort Lauderdale and working exclusively online, Amy's here to help us understand why somatic is more than just a buzzword and how tuning into the body can lead to deep healing.

So Amy, thanks for being here. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. All right. So, we know every wounded healer has a story and I want to know a little bit about you and what led you to sematic therapy. Yeah. So, I struggled with my mental health for a very very long time.

I was in talk therapy since I was about 14 years old. Um, long time. a lot of really severe depression, a lot of anxiety, and there was a particularly rough time when I asked my therapist what she thought about yoga. And she was like, "Oh, it's great.

I have I have a yoga teacher for you." So, I started going to this yoga class where I was by far the youngest person in the class. It was a bunch of older ladies and it was a really gentle yoga class where at the end of the class there was 15 minutes of what's called yoga nidra which is just yoga sleep.

It's deep relaxation and I was going to these classes weekly and after a while on my drive home I started to cry and it was a really really nice cry in this period of my life. I like to explain it like it was like a purgatory.

I was I I didn't cry, but I was hurting. Was really really hurting. And this crying was so it was just so nice. It was like I was starting to be able to come home to myself again.

Wow. classes where there was this gentle movement and safety and co-regulation support we use a lot in in therapy and sematic therapy with the other ladies in the class with the teacher um just the safety of the the movement and that started to maybe thaw things a little bit but it wasn't quite enough I was still going to therapy and there was no mention of the body at in therapy and I was, you know, just talking and searching for answers and analyzing, but it only got me so far.

So then from a roommate and friend I learned about sematic experiencing this body-based trauma healing modality and I started to see my own actually I saw a few of them different ones sematic experiencing practitioners and I went through the training myself while I was in social work school I learned about poly veagal theory which is the there's different parts to it.

But the main thing is that there's fight, flight, and freeze or collapse. And that the body's always looking out for safety and danger and the body has to respond to that, right? And I started to learn that this deep depression, these mood changes that I had, this stuckness wasn't that I was deeply flawed because I believed I was deeply flawed.

But that my body did I didn't feel safe. Yeah. I didn't feel safe and my body was just really trying to protect me. And often it happened in social situations or interactions because when we have early relational trauma in our families that sets in that we're looking out for am I safer or am I in danger in relationship?

Yeah. And logically, you're safe. Logically, nobody's coming to get you or to hurt you, right? When you have really early trauma, if you're feeling unseen, not understood, it can be as if you don't even exist. It can feel really, really threatening. So, it took away so much of the shame that I felt.

And that's where heal healing really started to happen and to recognize those things in session. Yeah. My therapist and Wow. Wow. Amy, thank you.

Thank you for sharing that because so many go through that and then they that guilt and shame that they carry or they don't understand like they beat themselves up because I hear this a lot. they beat themselves up because logically I should be doing ABC logically I know what I need to do to move forward logically and so to me when the body starts reacting right or get disregulated so we use these words because we know

them like you're LCSW I'm LHC we use these words it's kind of also like a a lot of my listeners may be Christians and then we have the Christianes where we we know say salvation and sin and all that but those are vocabularies is that we learn to use so we can talk to each other.

Tell me what actually is somatic and co-regulation a little more maybe to get the audience that has no clue like remember where you were in the beginning because now you do this you're a practitioner you're a therapist you you get to utilize these methods and you're teaching others but say there's someone right now listening they're like what is a somatic somatic because like you know I I get it I read the body keeps the score that's one of the number one books that we all Right.

And I'm also a holistic practitioner. So, so please explain to the audience somatic like where's that word come from? What's it actually mean? Yeah, it means the body. It's the body. Okay. I think it might be Greek or Latin. I don't know. Um, it means the body.

So when you're talking about sematic therapy, you're talking about bringing the body in into the therapy. We are mind and body and spirit. Um but we often forget that or don't think about that or act like it's just um extra. But when we're able to bring awareness to what and if if you struggle with anxiety, you likely know, you likely have felt it.

You feel what it's like to have your heart beating out of your chest. You feel those really awful butterflies in your stomach or the the clammy hands. That is your body reacting to what it thinks is danger. I'm nervous right now. So my body I'm feeling it.

I feel my heartbeat. I feel my face being flush. That is my body reacting. When we leave the body out all together, we're really leaving out an essential element there, right? Yeah. Yeah.

So, so what is the difference between like the like you said talk therapy because to me you know I understand that there are different clients out there and I also know when I can't do all of it right because I'm not trained in sematic experiencing I'm not trained in DBT you know dialectical behavioral therapy and and to me these different modalities have its place.

Yes. Right. And I'm I'm c I'm, you know, I'm I'm straight up. I'm CBT. I will challenge the thoughts. I'm more like a psychoeducational trainer coach. Like you come to me after you felt all that stuff with Amy. You come to me and I'll give you a plan that we can move forward with.

And then you handle the sematic experiencing with someone else that might be able to do that with you. Like I do have clients where I'll send them to EMDR or DBT skills groups or now that I know you do this and this is your this is your you know this is what you are really well at at doing.

I'm like all right you need like five sessions with Amy to really get to your body because I'm not trained in that and that's okay. So, you know, I want to talk about chronic pain a little because Amy, I'm telling you, like I have an autoimmune be due to my own CPTTSD, due to, you know, childhood trauma.

Um, and I've worked it like I but I remember going to yoga and that is when I realized I had to go to EMDR because a lot of stuff that was happening in my yoga, I had no idea. I was getting flashbacks in I think I talked to you about that, Amy, in the the bird.

Well, not what's in the pigeon pose. Pigeon pose. Yeah. And I'm in pigeon pose going, "What's happening here? What's happening?" Because I finally allowed my body to be in that restful state, right? And we have to be careful with that because sometimes as practitioners we're like, "Oh, this method would be the method that's for everybody or it would help."

But I'm like, "No, I want to empower our clients to be um in their gut state, right? In their intuition to to respect it." So I went into yoga. I did it. It was wonder. I have to say I loved it. I did.

And at other times I had to battle some stuff and I had to know when to it's okay to stop without guilt or shame. Yeah. Right. But I believe in feeling your feels. If you got to feel it to heal it, you got to go through the valley.

That's why I named it through the valley. You got to go through it. Right, Amy? So tell me about chron the reason I brought up chronic pain because um I was diagnosed with um oh my gosh chronic inflammatory response syndrome sers and back in the day I was you know there were so many different things that I was diagnosed but I did not know how it all comes together and pain can cause depression right and other things.

So, how do you use, you know, like can you break down the mind body connection and how unresolved emotions or trauma might be showing up in the body as pain? Yep. Um, so I have fibromyalgia. I'm I I know about this intimately. um when we have a whole lot of undelt with emotions.

Say you have depression or anxiety. Anxiety is a really easy one to to use an example. You're nervous. You're bracing. You're bracing. Your muscles are tight. They're tight. And maybe they get tight in certain areas of your body. Certain areas are more protective than other areas. the hips with pigeon pose.

That is a lot on those muscles long term to be bracing and to be bracing. You're pro it's probably going to start to hurt or get really tender. Yeah. And then you start to get scared of the pain. So the fear causes the body's always on the lookout.

Am I safe or am I in danger in our environments relationally and in in our body? So then the pain becomes a threat and that activation in your body, that fightlight response goes up again. more bracing on top of this area that's already been so tight and working so hard to protect.

It thinks it's protecting. Yeah. Yeah. So that's depression, anxiety, you can get you can get pain because of those because our bodies are always responding and that's a lot on the body to always be bracing and then to feel that fear again and you're just in a cycle, right?

It's a training of the brain. It's like rewiring your brain to protect you. I mean, your brain is constantly, it's been like that for thousands and thousands and thousands of years. It's like the saber-tooth tiger thing that we learn, right? It's like we're always protecting.

And so then all of a sudden, you feel that pain and you're like, "Oh no, here it comes again and now we're going to embrace even harder whatever it is." How do you how do you get out of that? like to c can you just share some of the things you might do with a patient or a client or what worked for you?

Yeah. So, one technique I use is to help people find a spot in their body that feels pretty good. And if there's no spot that feels pretty good, a spot that feels neutral or feels less bad. And even if it's your big toe or the tip of your nose and practice being there, noticing that helping your system know cuz pain is loud.

It's so loud. It's and that loudness is trying to protect you. But being in that pain, you're not nec it's perceived.

It might and go to your doctor like I told you know make sure nothing's actually really really wrong or even if it is you can still right because these are pains I realize Amy like you said fibro I can never say the word correctly but I know my aunt um had that she was diagnosed but then you look into her history and she came from a traumatic background right so it is you know understanding like that

pain and that's another thing that we I I'm sure you probably gone truth this too if you have fibromyalgia and at me with the situation we look okay right we look pretty healthy we look right so then the assumption of like there's nothing wrong with you because it's not a broken bone that you know you're not in a cast you're not having these situations that you're seeing these are things within ourselves the worst part was when

the medical doctors would gaslight I don't know if you were gas lit you know like there's nothing wrong with you there's what it's all in your head you need to go see a psychiatrist and go CBT.

No offense to me since I am a CBT to you, but I've been told that. Yeah. Challenge the thoughts. Challenge the thoughts. But honestly, when I went to my functional integrative doctor and they look in the genetic components and everything, they were like, "No, you have a gene that" and and I'm like, "What?"

And with the fibromyalgia and other things like um there's another one, not just fibro. Um what's another um the sleeping one? The chronic um chronic fatigue center. Yes. Okay. Yeah. I mean the it is a real it isn't it it's in your body too.

It's it's all connected and people forget and they want to just say no this is all in your head. Go get psychiatric medicine and yeah. So what do you say about that? It's horrible. It's horrible to go through the process when you know I mean the the pain is very real.

It's very real and it's not mine's not detected and sometimes it's better. I most of the time I'm I'm good but I do a lot to take care of my nervous system and and my body and when I overdo it or when I'm especially stressed it's not so good.

But and yeah, when people see you like it, you look you look fine, you look okay. So, it's a really hard experience to go through that. Um, and emotional support in this in like the capacity that I provide it can help so much because what we're doing is helping let the body know that you're safe.

Helping to bring on then that's why I say go to a we practice going to a part of the body that feels better because then you're practicing going away from this part that's screaming at you. Look, there's something different. And it's going to go right back to the screaming.

Okay, we hear you. We and we honor you. Like that part of the body. Let's see if we can go back. And then this is called pendulation. So we just go back and forth to what feels good to the I call it the yuck to the yuck to what feels good to the yuck.

And maybe there's nowhere that feels good in the body. And so that we practice going outside of the body. Oh, mindfully. Would it be okay to take a look around the room or look around if you see something? You don't like keep looking?

Cuz if somebody if we're doing Tella Health and somebody's at home and they see piles of laundry or dishes and it's I think of it of like what else is there? The pain is screaming at you and it wants you to think that's the only thing that's there.

So we're looking at what else is there. So when you're looking at the room or you're looking at you're noticing another part in your body. Oh, that's there too. That's like the pie. You know, the pain is a part a piece of the pie.

But there's all of these other parts in your body that have different sensations than the pain. Those deserve a little attention, too. and the the space that you're in and looking around the space. It's called orienting. Orienting to the space that you're in.

When you're in a lot of pain, when you're highly stressed, you're not looking around. You're not seeing what else is there. Maybe what really cool or interesting things are there. Um maybe even in your body, we might play with rubbing hands together or feeling.

And somebody with pain, this might not feel good, right? There might be something. And I was rubbing my arms for those who are listening. And this will be on YouTube, too. So, if something you want to see, you could go on YouTube. Um, we play like we do we we naturally do things to s to self soo and we don't even know it.

People play with their rings. They shake their leg up and down. So, be sway back and forth. I love it when that shows up in session. And then yeah, a lot of us were shamed for those things when we were kids. We might have got in trouble for them.

Pencil on the desk. That was your body trying to regulate. So let's talk let's talk about that regulate because people people will listen and be like I hear this a lot on your on your you know show Diana you know co-regulate disregulate you know um just to emotionally regulate what does that actually mean?

So from my perspective it's not calm a lot of people think of regulation as being calm. It can be, but we want to be able to bring down that activation, whether it's the anxiety or whatever heightened feelings that you're feelings enough that we can think clearly, that we can be connected to the people that we're with, that we can be engaged.

So, what we're doing is bringing on this gets into poly bagel theory. There's so many terms. Good. I want to know more about poly because I know I have the book. I never do dove deep in it.

I kind of like did the shortcut version of like going on you you know YouTube your university and because there's so much to learn nowadays and I'm always trying to find tools for my clients but then I also know when I'm not when I'm not enough for them which is fine because my job this is how I see it like sometimes I could be a general practitioner but but you're gonna have to go for a little

while or maybe find a new one that's like the EMDR because I your your trauma is I cannot I don't have the tools and I know what what my boundaries are.

Yeah. And I need to make sure that it's first do no harm. I'm not going to pretend so I could keep you forever. Our jobs as therapists is to to get you functioning in a society that is dysfunctional. I'm sorry to say totally.

I I think about that all the time and it's so hard today. We have things pulling our attention in every which way. And then we have these devices that are designed to keep us on and away from our lives. And everything pulls us away from our ability to be in the present moment to be being able to be in the present moment and being here.

That's a that's regulation. That's like that capacity. The word capacity comes up for me so much. I look Have you heard of the window of tolerance? Yes. You want to explain that for my audience? Yes. Dr. Dan Seagull is a child I don't know if he's a child psychiatrist or psychologist.

Um he came up with this term window of tolerance. So when you're in the window, you can think clearly. You can be connect. It's it's think of that social engagement system that I just mentioned. Think clearly, be connected to people. There's creativity, there's problem solving, but we want the window of tolerance to be able to handle some agitation.

We want it to be able to handle some anger that you can still keep the lid.

Like he also came up with this hand brain model to teach kids keeping the lid on. um the cognitive part of your brain because when we get think about when you've gotten totally triggered or you lashed out at somebody or you totally spiraled and panicked your cognitive brain wasn't there because your there's this part of your brain called the amygdala and it's the threat it does several things but one of its jobs is to detect if you're safe or if there's threat.

So it's the threat detector. And if it detects threat, it's going to send messages down to the brain stem for you to go go into fight, flight, freeze, collapse. I think a freeze is break and gas on at the same time. You're fighting or flighting and you're not going anywhere.

Heart beating out of your chest, but you're frozen. And it's designed to do that. In today's I got a little off of what the original thing was, but today's world, it's really hard to we have these these phones that maybe we're expecting a message from somebody and we're afraid of what's going to be in that message.

Um maybe your boss you're is not happy with the work that you do and you're con we're constantly on alert in today's world. traffic. Oh my. Especially in South Florida because didn't you just got get to Florida? I just got here and let me tell you, so I lived in Chicago and I didn't have a car and I if I traveled somewhere, I'd rent a car, but I was used to public transportation and walking places.

I get here and most people don't use turn signals out of the road where I live. People turn left in front of me and I'm like they they don't really care if the light is red just after yellow. They're going to take it.

No, that's South Florida. Amy, welcome to South Florida. Yeah, this is something I hear a lot when people come to visit or they know that I live here from like other places of the country and uh it's just like, oh my goodness, driving in South Florida, it's like I know it's kind of like driving in a third world country.

Go. A driving tip is to feel the seat. See if you And you can do this. So, this is there's a lot of different definitions of grounding. I think the original was feet off like in the grass. Um, but just noticing the surface that your body is on.

So, anybody listening, you right here, you can feel the chair like really feel it or the floor. Yeah. And I see that you're smiling. There was a little something that happened there because you just reminded me, Amy. This is why we need to understand that.

I really feel that's why it's important like if you're listening and you're wanting to learn this technique to go see Amy, who's a somatic, experiencing practitioner because she's done this to me now twice. Because guess what? If you hear my if you hear me speak, you understand.

I'm a my I I Zoom. I'm I have zooies. My husband's like, "You got zooies." Like, I had zoom everywhere. And so Amy's already now twice made me think about something that nobody makes you really think about. Like, can you please like chill and just not chill, but sit and feel?

And you just did that. That's why I was smiling cuz I was doing what you were just telling me to do. Is there something you can do right now for us to the listeners like to just like maybe a cool little what you do maybe in one of your or I would love to just stick with that and do more with the grounding.

It's just such a something that I come back to in my work with clients all the time. So you can sit or lie down any way that you want to. There's no requirement. I almost never tell anybody how to sit. I might ask them if one or another way might be nice, but if you could I'm gonna assume that you're sitting just cuz I am and that's that's easy.

Feel feel the seat. Feel each part of your body that's making contact on the seat or chair. And I'm talking left butt cheek, right butt cheek, the back of and if you're sitting cross-legged, that's okay, too. But the the backs of your legs, each one.

And you might notice that there's more pressure on one side than the other. And that's okay. It's just noticing. And you might notice the edges of where that contact is and where it's not. And if there's a back to your chair, if you're lying down, feel that, too.

And that's going to have a totally different quality of the feeling. And as you're doing this, if your body is telling you to move, to wiggle, to stretch, please lean into that. We want to listen to our bodies and honor what they're they're wanting.

And if your feet are on the floor, and they don't have to be, but if they are, or if they're on a stool or something, feel that contact, too. And then you can, if they're on the floor, you can play with going from toes to heels, maybe the outside of your feet to the inside, and maybe rolling your ankles, and continuing to feel that contact with the floor.

And remember the chair. And then if you want, you can feel the clothes on your body. And if any of this doesn't feel good, please honor that and tune into something else. And your eyes can be open or closed if you want. You can keep feeling those surfaces and let yourself look around the room or whatever space it is that you're in.

I'm going to say it here. What I say to my clients, if you see something you don't like, keep looking in this attempt to bring on some of that. It's called vententral Vegas. Ventrol. So, we have this vagus nerve that's this long wandering nerve that starts in the back of our neck and goes through our throat and intervates all of our organs.

And from the diaphragm on up, it's the vententral vagus. If you feel calm and safe with somebody, um, that's activated. It's a really good place. If you're feeling really irritated by the person you're with or something's going on, that might not be so activated and you might be if it's more irritation, you're in your sympathetic nervous system, fight or flight.

If you feel shut down, then you're in your dorsal veagal nervous system, and that's the vagus nerve below the diaphragm. That's that freezy collapsed place. And what we do in somatic experiencing when somebody's been through trauma, being still, slowing down can be so hard.

It does not feel safe. We work on that. And we work on that starting with wherever somebody is at. Um, some people bulldoze when they talk. just absolutely bulldoze. And so I ask them if it's okay to to slow down to to notice.

And some people say, "Nope, I'm not there." Great. Thank you. Thank you for speaking up that you're not there. And sometimes it's more in the beginning of session and as we've had co-regulation that term, right, which is you're with a regulated other. Um we can think about this like in parenting if a if a kid is disregulated a parent can get really dis like regulated and you have co-isregulation.

Yeah. If a parent is able to to stay grounded, which is really really difficult to do, sometimes you need to remove yourself, feel those feet on the floor, maybe say take some deep breaths and then come back and then you can offer that co-regulation that feels safe.

That's going to allow that parasympathetic vententral vagus nerve to to come in and activate. Wow. Yeah. So, when when I was going through this with you, I and I finally quieted my mind, right? Because to me, my mind it goes 100 miles per hour and and and so you could tell, Amy, I know you could tell, right?

But at the same time, I've I have had to do a lot of work to have like my morning ritual and routine of breath work of mindfulness of prayer. So I can't and at night so I could sleep and these are the things I do right because I had to figure out how to function without self-medicating and very unhealthy coping tools and Right.

So, so to me when you were doing uh the somatic experience and I think it's what right I started feeling my heartbeat when when that when we were when you were just going through it with us and I and it was just I I heard it in my ears because I have the headphones on and I'm like and it started really soothing me like the boom boom boom boom boom boom and I'm like ah she's good.

I love, you know, and I love that you said that. I have to say for me, so I used to struggle with in insomnia a lot and I was always always read do breath work, do really slow deep breaths. For me, that would cause me to feel my heartbeat and I would panic.

Wow. See, it had the opposite effect. And I think that's just important to point out because there's no oneizefits-all. Exactly. Everybody's nervous system is different. Everybody's experiences and what feels good and doesn't feel good is different. And that was another thing where I felt like, oh, something's wrong with me because the thing that's supposed to help isn't helping me.

And that's where learning all of this was another thing that would helped reduce the shame that no, nothing was wrong with me. And that's like fantastic that that that was s soothing for you. This was just a re really regulating it downregulated you.

Yeah. And and I also want to say that some people naturally have more energy and others are naturally calmer and that's all okay, right? Like there's nothing wrong with anybody for having the temperament that they have. And if you're not able to slow down, if that doesn't feel safe, that's just information.

That's information that maybe some regulating or bo like this bodybased work might be good for you. Or maybe it would be nice to spend time with somebody who do who does help you to feel safe or to do some activity that helps you to feel safe. um repeatedly like you do every morning and yeah and it took time and it took time to understand that that's what I needed.

It took time to understand me and become that curious observer and do the work. It's not you know as you know you get a client who just wants to hurry up and heal and honestly there is no magic anything. There is no like abracadabra here you are and you're cured.

It's part of being human because what you were talking about earlier the word resiliency like the window of tolerance you're learning how to be resilient and being responsible for you and but in a safe place because especially if if you grew up with a lot of tra traumatic experiencing, right?

So you go from traumatic experiencing to summatic experiencing. I love I love it. Yeah. Not the trauma experiencing. No, no, no, no. And it's just being validated and understanding that we are human beings that are very unique. You know, this is why to me I love the thumbrint.

This is why to me in my belief system it's it's really understanding like you know what actually do you believe about yourself, right?

and and that we're nobody's perfect, but we all have a thumbrint and we're all responsible for ourselves and also to be in a community in a respectful loving community and and that's sometimes what's missing and thank goodness like Amy that you chose to utilize all the situations and I have no idea your story but I can imagine because a lot of us in this field have had situations.

This is why we went into this field and you have chosen to do the hard work to now pass the baton to people and become an expert in these field. And it's hard because the word expert, right, is just like I know I do too.

Like you're an expert and I'm like uh I don't know. No, actually you're the expert of yourself. It's just are you listening? Yeah. Yeah.

So c is there any kind of resources or books or other things where somebody that might not be able to you know we're only we're only could take certain amount of clients but may they might be listening in Europe somewhere they can't work with us right but like where would they start to learn more about sematic experiencing or the we didn't even touch the safe and sound protocol but but you know because look already 47 minutes

have gone by and so tell me like what is it like what resources or practical tips can you give the audience yeah I think the first thing that I would say is it's really helpful to find some kind of body- based activity like yoga or tai chichi something um where you're going to be able to start to tune into your body and I think classes are a great way to to do that.

And you know, it doesn't have to be yoga's an easy one that people just just know. Um, but I I think having that experience of starting to tap in and really experience your body um is invaluable. I also think that on your own, just taking mindful moments during the day, um, you could simply check in.

Do I do I need to use the restroom? Am I thirsty? Am I hungry? Does my body feel like it needs to have I moved much? Especially when you're at work. If you're at work and you get into a flow, how's my posture?

Potentially doing like a body scan. Am am I holding tension anywhere? And I think it's important to notice that first before doing an automatic like first check in start to get to know your own body. As far as re resources for books, um I would say waking the tiger um by Peter Lavine.

He's the he's the one who created sematic experiencing that can be read by anybody. You don't need to be a practitioner. Um he wrote another book too, Peter. Um the trauma you wrote many books. So this is the famous one. Waking the tiger with the tiger.

Um, yeah, I've never read that one. There's in an unspoken voice that is geared more towards practitioners. Okay. Um, but that's really good. There's actually several books that he's written that I haven't read. I'm going to mention The Body Keeps the Score. Um, that's like the go-to.

And the reason Oh, go ahead. No, it's because I put everything, all the resources we talk about into the show notes. So, in case the the person's listening and they're driving, and by the way, I hope you guys weren't driving when she was putting us on into a trance.

But, but I will put the links into the show notes so then you can go and click on the links of like Peter Le or you know, you'll have that information so you guys can look it up yourselves. Okay. So, body keeps the score, the waking of the tiger, waking the tiger.

What other what other things or Yeah, I mentioned the book in an unspoken voice. Okay. Um, you know, if you're a clinician, my training isn't just it's long. It's three years. It's expensive. It's not going to be accessible to everybody, but traumahealing.org has information about it.

There's something called the EmBody lab and they have a lot of classes that are shorter, much more accessible, um that are body- based. Okay. Um yeah, there's a lot of books that I mean there's a lot of re Dana has done a lot with polyagal theory to make it really accessible. her books tend to focus on there's a lot of almost worksheet type exercises.

I don't really work that way with clients, but that might be nice for people to start to get f familiar of whether they tend to be in fight or flight or whether they tend to be in freeze and to be able to start to identify when they're in those states and also what helps to bring you out of those states.

So basically what helps you to feel safe enough to come out of those states. Yeah. Some people don't even understand what that word means, safe. What do you mean I feel safe? And then they realize, no, they've been on that kind of uh fight mode most of their lives and they think that is safe and then then realize when they sit, they're like, oh, this is why I don't have healthy relationships and I can't keep a job or you know what I mean?

Because it's just totally because we think of physical safety and not the felt safety.

M there's a very there can be a very big difference and the more experiences that you've gone through that have been traumatic or um really really hard or maybe really hard without support the more your system how we talked about how the brain and body is always detecting safety or threat is going to perceive threat. it's going to perceive threat in a conversation where somebody's tone got a little bit harsh or even where somebody's affect.

So when somebody has had a lot of childhood trauma or relational trauma in childhood, there's research that shows that they're going to sense a flat affect as threatening. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So listen, like we could probably talk for another hour or two hours or three.

Honestly, I know I can with you, Amy. I know. You know, but um if somebody wants to work with you, where can they find you? Yeah, at my website it's amyhaggerstrom.com. So it's just firstandlastname.com is the best way to reach me for Wonderful.

Yeah. So listener, well thanks. Is there any any final words? Any quotes? Anything before we say goodbye? Oh, I can't think of anything. No, just be kind to yourself. Know that your our bodies are going through a lot in this world. And um we often perceive that we're not safe when we might actually be.

And I think it's just so important to have some compassion for ourselves um because of that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. All right, listener, you heard her. Be kind to yourself and remember, trust in the Lord, guard your heart, and renew your mind.

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