Wednesday, January 10, 2018

Getting comfortable with the uncomfortable


Let’s share something a little on the personal side.

Before I’d ever heard of Somatic Experiencing, I had a problem.  I was one of those people who had really big ideas but just wouldn’t make them happen.  I’d have notebooks that I’d fill with step-by-step outlines of how to change the world, how to develop my business, how to make myself the person I wanted to be.  They were good plans, too, for the most part.

But I wouldn’t see them into reality.  About one in ten of these plans I’d actually begin implementing, throwing myself into it for about two weeks.  After those two weeks, I’d start tapering off.  I’d get distracted by something else, or discouraged by a small glitch in the plan, and before I knew it, that brilliant, exciting project had fallen by the wayside.


I tried a lot of different methods to get over this hurdle- they’d help a bit, but never to the point that I was craving.  It was frustrating, to know that I was a bright guy with some innovative ideas, but to never actually put them into reality- never to prove that they worked.  I didn’t even know why it wasn’t working- I just knew that I wasn’t doing it.

Eventually I hear about Somatic Experiencing through a friend.  She’s been receiving SE for a few weeks, and she tells me about how her practitioner will notice little micro-movements in her body language.  I was fascinated to hear about how playing with these certain micro-movements would bring up all sorts of emotions for her, which would release and allow her to feel awesome.  I was intrigued.

I go in for my own sessions, and it was just as interesting as I’d hoped.  We talked, moved, I had unexpected sensations and feelings.  But I didn’t understand how all of that micro-gesture business was useful.  So I asked my practitioner:  “What’s the point?  How will this help me?”

What he said laid the foundation for what would finally resolve my follow-through problem.  He explained that in our sessions he observed that I was uncomfortable with intensity.  He said that whenever I got excited about something, or angry about something, or fierce in any way, that energy would build to a certain point, and then collapse.  I would unconsciously diffuse the growing tension by changing the subject, trying to be more empathetic, making a joke, or even singing a song.


He said, “Your nervous system is only comfortable with a certain amount of intensity before it reacts and works to diffuse the internal situation.  Your current comfort with intensity isn’t enough to reach that threshold, that energy level where you really start getting things done.  So, you stay pretty still, you don’t get much done.  If you keep coming in for sessions, your comfort with intensity will increase, and you’ll be able to have access to more and more energy and focus, and you’ll start getting more and more done.  You might not even notice it- things will just start happening.”

I was sold.  After all, that’s exactly what I wanted.
I received weekly sessions for three months.  Somewhere around then, I realized something:  Over the past month or two, I had started multiple projects, and continued them.  I’d taken on a new job as a massage instructor that in the past I would have been completely intimidated by.  I found myself noticing when I was angry or sad, and approaching those moods with curiosity rather than avoidance.  In short:  I was more comfortable with intensity, and, lo and behold, things were ‘just happening’.

Everyone’s nervous system is different.  Maybe you’re not comfortable with intensity, or maybe you’re too comfortable with intensity.  Maybe your system needs to learn how to enjoy the pleasurable moments of life.  Maybe it needs to learn diffuse tension and to become more comfortable with stillness.  In any case, how amazing is it that we can gently teach your nervous system to naturally develop itself in these ways?  You don’t need to have some magical insight about your life, you just train, gently but consistently, until life is just different.

That’s what I love about Somatic Experiencing:  It’s not flashy, but it can be deep and it can be long-lasting, and it can make changes in a way that you never would have expected.

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