IFS Therapy and Intensives in Minnesota
for Life Transitions and Religious Trauma
Somatic Therapy
Somatic Therapy in Minnesota
Have you ever told yourself “I’m fine,” but your body didn’t buy it? Your mind knows you’re safe. Your racing heart, tight chest and shoulders, and the knot in your stomach haven’t gotten the memo.
That's because trauma doesn't only live in our thoughts. It lives in the body too. Somatic therapy is body-based trauma therapy that helps your nervous system find safety, so you can release what your body has been holding, not just talk about it.
At All Things New Therapy, Sara Smith, LMFT, offers somatic therapy online anywhere in Minnesota and in person at therapy retreats. She holds a Certificate in Integrative Somatic Trauma Therapy and often weaves somatic work together with Internal Family Systems (IFS).
Body-Based Healing
What Is Somatic Therapy?
Somatic therapy (from the Greek word soma, meaning "body") is a form of psychotherapy that includes the body in the healing process. Traditional talk therapy works mostly from the top down, through thoughts and words. Somatic therapy also works from the bottom up, paying attention to sensations, breath, posture, movement, and the signals of your nervous system.
When something overwhelming happens, your nervous system responds automatically to protect you: fight, flight, freeze, or shut down. Sometimes those survival responses never get to finish, and your body keeps bracing long after the danger has passed. That can show up as anxiety, panic, numbness, exhaustion, tension, or feeling on edge for no clear reason.
Somatic trauma therapy helps your body learn, gently and at your own pace, that the danger is over. Instead of reliving what happened, we work with small, manageable amounts of sensation, so your system can settle, release, and come back into balance.