Corrective experience creates a new imprint in cells of our body

Through my Somatic Experiencing training I have learnt how to carefully renegotiate the challenging past without re-traumatizing a client. As a therapist of "Counselling Somatic" I go gently back to the edge of traumatic events with the intention of changing it. Visualizing the support we would have needed back then in an embodied way means shifting the past for good: Receiving the support of unconditionally loving people or beings around us, being caught tenderly by the softness of a mattress to catch our fall, being held soothingly by warm water, carried and embraced, a body hugging and hand wiping away our tears, a "lion" protecting us and an assertive person setting a clear boundary for us.

This of course doesn't change what happened to us in our past, but it does change how it is stored in the body! Instead of the body re-remembering over and over again what happened to it years ago it can now let go, arrive in the present time and become finally unstuck from the past. It is a great relief for the nervous system to no longer be in constant fight/flight/freeze when not required. Instead the whole system can now return to equilibrium and engage with the outside world in a relaxed way.

We can store this new imprint in our body on a cellular level so we know how to truly nurture ourselves and how to self regulate. Neuroplasticity means our brain can build new and better neural connections when receiving a new, good and corrective embodied experience. Clients then can make new and better choices, step into the world in a more embodied, empowered and assertive way. As a client recently said coming out of a deep corrective experience when gently working on her childhood sexual abuse: “I feel proud, enlightened