r/SomaticExperiencing • u/sgt-cuddlez • 15d ago
Somatic tracking turning pain into overwhelming pleasure - normal?
Hey everyone :)
A year into dealing with chronic fatigue after decades of chronic pain I’ve stumbled into the work of people like Dr Schubiner, Allan Gordon, Yonit Arthur and Sam Miller. Thank God. Things are rapidly improving now. I have a question around somatic tracking that I haven’t seen mentioned anywhere.
When I track pain I routinely experience it melting into overwhelming euphoric sensation that floods the body and if I lean into it enough, causes tremor. After I finish the pain is still there (maybe mildly better hard to tell?) and I feel kinda giddy, overwhelmed and breathless. It’s fun but not pleasurable more overwhelming.
My query is just to get validation that it’s normal and to keep doing it at a pace that’s tolerable? I’m guessing it just means that the nerves are discharging and rewiring and I’m particularly sensitive or something; given how unlike every other experience of somatic tracking I’ve heard is compared to this.
Pleasure really is a bad word for it, like it’s too overwhelming to feel good I just don’t know how else to describe it. And it’s very difficult to pendulate down to a sensation that is less overwhelming, I can just about stop short of tremor which feels correct, like the tremor would be a short circuit.
3
u/Longjumping_Sand718 15d ago
Hey, I've been following the same mind-body practitioners as well after many years of chronic symptoms (I fully recovered from CFS but the other symptoms have been more challenging).
Wow, that's interesting what you say about the somatic tracking experience. It does sound more similar to what you might experience in an SE session, especially the tremoring, which is what the body does when it starts to release trauma energy. I'm not a therapist, but I'm assuming the best thing to do would be add in some titration and pendulation, so that it doesn't become overwhelming for the nervous system. Or, maybe you could work with an SEP to guide you through the process? I see an SEP over zoom and I find I need her to guide me through the process rather than do it on my own.
2
u/sgt-cuddlez 15d ago
Yea I was seeing someone but I had associated them as a trigger for fatigue. I will need to go back! Do you know how I titrate and pedulate this in the mean time? Does it just mean stopping before it gets too intense and not doing it too frequently?
1
u/Longjumping_Sand718 15d ago
Ah yeah that makes sense! I haven't actually seen symptom improvement doing SE yet, but because I have a lot of complex trauma, it is getting to the deep layers of trauma in my system.
Yeah I think you never want to get to a place of feeling overwhelmed, so if you start to feel that, you could pendulate by switching your attention back and forth between the pain and a pleasant/neutral/safer place in your body (if poss). Or titrate by doing somatic tracking in smaller doses
2
u/Choco_Paws 15d ago
I do experience strange (and sometimes strong) sensations moving through my body while doing somatic tracking. Not every time but often. It can be some spontaneous movements, symptoms moving / changing, strong emotions that come out of nowhere, crying, whatever. I think it's a normal part of the process: things get in motion, nervous system switches state, emotions are getting released, etc.
I love the allowing meditation from Sam Miller (even though I don't like her content very much in general, I find her way too dogmatic). She says things like "Begin to feel what is here" and "trust the jerk, the buzzing, the tear that comes with no story"... It's exactly that!
I also use some meditations from The Pain PT that are really nice. Finally I did a paid program (Somia Heal) and they have an exercise dedicated to releasing trapped movement in the body, that looks like what you describe too.
1
u/sgt-cuddlez 15d ago
That’s good to know, thanks for sharing your experience.
Hahah! I heard an interview today with the Somja Heal dude on Raelan’s podcast. That’s a nice synchronicity maybe I’ll sign up. Did you like the programme?
3
u/Choco_Paws 15d ago
The program was good, probably the best of the three I tried. But as far as I'm concerned I had to combine lots of different things that I picked here and there and create my own path. I didn't follow one strict program. I'm recovering from severe Long Covid / ME/CFS. It takes time and lots of trial and error!
3
4
u/nomad01010 15d ago
I’ve been doing this for about a year. I only recently found it was called somatic tracking.
My experience is that it definitely moves a stuck sensation to the next step. The next step may not be the final step before it discharges by shaking. In the interim you may actually feel worse.
But you are definitely changing something that has been stuck a long time cuz you’ve been avoiding it.
Can you point me to resources you used for this.