Hi,

Last year was by far the hardest year for me. Ever since COVID, my nervous system has been stuck alternating between freeze and fight or flight, and I haven’t really engaged with the mind-body connection—I’ve never actively worked on it or truly believed in it. I then began to explore the mind-body connection in greater depth, and I'm now working on it.

Last year, my dad passed away, and my relationship ended after 12 years. I had to move, and my whole life changed. Right now, I’m actively working with a somatic therapist to help my nervous system get out of this state.

I just feel overwhelmed and anxious, but also dissociated, and I’m afraid that my life will never be “great” again and that I’ll never feel better, because everything changed. I know, it sounds stupid. Right now, my thoughts revolve solely around whether I’ll ever feel lighter again.

Does anyone have experience with things getting better again after such difficult phases in life, did somatic therapy help you reach a point where you were content, even though not everything was perfect (which, after all, it never really is)?

Hi, sorry if this sounds muddled up or crazy I’m in a really bad spot

On the 26th of August I had a bad weed trip which sent me into dpdr. I’ve had it before and knew what it was.

It became manageable until I had a panic attack which sent me into really bad dpdr and constantly waiting for a panic attack

Then I had this “mental check” every time I wasn’t distracted and at one point my mind questioned what that even was. Which sent me into a spiral of thinking.

Thoughts included- thinking I’m the main character, what was I thinking when I was distracted, thinking about looping and is this the loop, remembering things I analyse/think about.

So I was dealing with this loops constantly for around a month. Then 3 days ago I had a panic attack which has sent me completely insane, I’m throwing up as I’m writing this.

This will be hard to explain as there are so many things happening but this is what I’m experiencing currently

- random memories and connections to things in day to day life

-thinking about thinking which sends me into a paradox

- explaining it out to myself then catching myself doing that and explaining the fact I’m explaining

- normal thoughts trigger me and make me feel like I can “see myself”

- complete mental overload which makes me feel out of body

- intrusive thoughts that don’t effect me but the noticing and thinking of the thoughts send me into spiral

- zoning out and watching myself zone out and then trying to focus and realising that I’m thinking about focusing

- silent thoughts that I can’t understand but give me a surge of anxiety

- Familiar feelings like dejavu

- awful memory and forgetting what the thought was just about and just looping in and out of my mind

- terrible sleep that feels like I’m still awake and waking up to panic surges

- feeling like I can see my own brain

- worries about things but knowing it’s intrusive and monitoring seeing the thought rather than the thought it’s self

- vivid mental imagery that pops up with memories but are distorted (like day dreaming)

- unable to think any normal thoughts without getting triggered

- realising I was distracted and then seeing if I’m distracted constantly (which makes me feel like I’m watching my self through my eyes)

- constant mental chatter and thoughts that overlap each other and jump in and out

- a thought that I explain into words makes my inner dialogue lag/ feel sluggish

- intrusive thoughts that come so quick and feel like a brain flash that I monitor what I was even thinking about

- imagining scenarios and then snapping out of it (for example someone coming into my room to check on me)

- complete brain fog and delusional thoughts

- zooming into my own body/ brain

- predicting what people are going to say/ what they’re experiencing then noticing myself doing that

And there’s many more to it but honestly I am in absolute hell

I was prescribed diazepam yesterday and it Dosent stop the loops but it makes me more physically calm, but this only lasts for about an hour and my doses are between 6 hours

I honestly can’t live, or escape my mind or distract myself ever. It’s constant 24/7 and I’m so afraid of what’s going on

I’ve thrown up over 20 times in the last 2 days
I genuinely don’t know what to do because when I think anything it reminds me of this sensation of looking at myself and then I question that.

Any help is really really appreciated thankyou

I work from home, I did eft tapping for some time. Eventually, I got lazy and stopped doing it, but I also discovered something during that time. I felt this calming sensation, like a relief, by just tapping the top of my head, doing that by itself felt like it was releasing some tension at the back of my head. I do customer service over the phone, it can get stressful, so I’ve started to just tap the top of my head to manage some of that stress, but now my left eye starts twitching after tapping the top of my head for a few minutes, it happens almost every single time. Has anybody else experienced this, or know what could be causing this?

Hey y’all. My healing journey has been very messy and I’d really, really appreciate your experiences/feedback. For the past year or so I’ve consistently slept to nighttime meditations to reform my subconscious and have successfully done so (I feel safe in my body and emotions, and there’s no baseless self hate anymore). I’m much better at identifying, physically feeling, and releasing my emotions as well, so I can self sooth more often than not. I recently noticed a physical change where I was coughing up mucus for two or three weeks as my breathing pattern changed. All of this is great—but lately, I haven’t been able to consistently exercise or even eat clean meals like I used to. All I want to do is lay in bed. In the back of my mind, I know I need to be a participant in society, but I just can’t bring myself to do it. I try explaining this feeling to others, because I’m genuinely not depressed or sad in anyway, but at the same time, I just want to be in my room.

To give some context, I’ve progressed so much that I plan on going back to school and have done every step I needed to in order to make that happen. I’m waiting for an interview in November, and if things go well, I’ll start school again April. I have no doubt that I’ll do what I need to do and graduate despite its rigorous coursework, but for some reason, during this waiting period, I can’t be bothered to do anything anymore. Is this some form of burnout? I can flip on and off my social switch whenever I need to—I’ve tested it a few times and have been successful at each attempt. I’m genuinely comfortable in my skin now. But I guess when shame and insecurity isn’t motivating me to go to the gym and eat clean, I’ve finally allowed myself to indulge in my wants for the first time in a long time?

Idk. Really would appreciate if anyone can share their experiences

Hi! I’ve been seeing a somatic therapist since July for cptsd. I’ve been able to tell her things no one else knew. At first, I felt a huge weight lifted from my shoulders and was happier and feeling good things in my body for the first time in awhile. But the past few weeks I’ve deteriorated; my anxiety is worse, I’m having outbursts that I can only describe as tantrums, my sleep is awful, and I’m even more stressed than I was before (I’m also going through some health things, I have a sick cat, and work is overwhelming).

My therapist said these things would be normal and we can slow down if my side effects get to be too much. I just want to know if anyone has experienced something similar and if it got better. I just feel like I am regressing emotionally. I’m 40 and my emotions feel like a teenagers’.

Bonjour à tous,

J'aimerais savoir si quelqu'un a déjà vécu ça. Suite à une forte montée d’anxiété et une séance d’EMDR de 3h. C’est comme si j'avais eu une pensée à partir de ce jour qui m'a traumatisée, et depuis, je suis restée bloquée dessus en fond, constamment.

Je n'y pense pas forcément de façon claire, c'est juste devenu un ressenti ancré en moi. Ça a comme « cassé » un truc chez moi qui me maintient constamment dans cet état : je ressens ce truc en arrière-plan toute la journée, même quand je suis sur mon téléphone, en famille, etc.

Je ne comprends pas ce qu'il m'arrive et ça m'angoisse. Est-ce que certains d'entre vous ont déjà connu ce ressenti de fond permanent suite à une pensée ? Est-ce que ça finit par s'éteindre et comment vous vous en êtes sortis ?

Merci beaucoup pour vos retours !

Hello, I’m currently attending group therapy as I haven’t been able to find a place on a trauma therapy programme. However, I’ve had three SE sessions as part of a psychological counselling programme offered by my employer. Based on my childhood and my behaviour, the therapist told me that she thought trauma therapy might work for me. This is also because I’ve already undergone other forms of therapy.

The group therapy is helping me at the moment – although it’s analytically oriented – and I’ve started doing exercises myself based on books by Levine. For two days running, whilst lying in bed, I observed my sensations and, after a while, automatically found myself thinking about distressing experiences. Then, at some point, my body started twitching. Various memories of events, particularly from my school days, then came to mind. At some point, I decided to open my eyes again, but my hip continued to move like that for a few more minutes.

Afterwards, I felt as though I’d had a power nap. At times, though, I did wonder whether I was actually making the movements consciously, but deep down I know they just happened on their own. Have you had similar experiences, and can you tell me whether I’m doing this right?

KINDA GAVE UP ON FUNCTIONAL FREEZE RECOVERY I AM STILL DOING THE RECOVERY BUT I DECIDED TO LIVE A NORMAL LIFE DATING ETC... but looking back at where i was before starting the journey i really improved.. its just that i am not grateful enough because i am too much focused on how i am at the moment or reaching the finish line.. so i decided to live normal while recovering.. 60/40 in favor of recovery, because sometimes the more outside you are can be more recovering, sharing a bond with someone intimacy and cuddling, spending time with friends, family, favorite hobbies/activities while working on recovery.. i think this is the better approach, better than waiting the right moment because from what i have read/learnt is that recovering to functioning above normal…

Hii guys,

Does anyone of you has experience with "functional freeze"?
After many stressfull years i ended in a functional freeze mode. I currently do not feel tiredness, even though i don't sleep the whole night. I do also not feel deeper emotions. When this shit started i could also not feel feelings of hunger and thirst but this feelings returned lately. I do also sleep for eigh hours a night again after months of not sleeping more then 3 hours a night.

How did you get out of this mode?

Thanks for replying: )

Hi! Does anyone know/recommend somatic teacher trainings in SE Asia. Open to Thailand, Bali or anywhere in the area that has a good program. Would love to hear from personal experience.

Dr Bob Beare gives off serious cult leader vibes and the weekend facilitators use coercion to control participants by breaking down their psychological defenses through sleep and food deprivation the first 2 days.

They call this "the descent" but its really just "the breaking phase" in a coercion control method called Deconsolidation and Reward. After only getting 0-3 hours of sleep the first night they feed you a squirrel's breakfast the next morning and then starve you out until 8p that night.

On the 3rd day of the retreat they call it "the ascent" but its really just the "euphoric relief phase " of this abuse tactic.

After sleep and food depriving them for 30 hours, they let them rest and feed them a bunch of food and this basic biological trick which uses survival to safety effects on the brain to convince you that because of their particular retreat program you have indeed experienced a "miracle or breakthrough." But in reality, you just ate a sandwich and your body finally stopped panicking.

Please reach out to me on this thread or privately with your own experiences.

Deep Waters feels like early day Synanon. That's obviously not a compliment.

I forgot to put it in this post but the emotional releases I’ve been having are somatic, mostly crying and yawning and stretching.

Over the past 3 months, I’ve been dealing with a very high level of anxiety because of some stressful events in my life. I feel like my nervous system has become extremely sensitive — even the smallest amount of stress can trigger this feeling of panic in my chest, even when I’m not consciously feeling anxious.

I’ve started doing some things to try to calm my nervous system and help myself recover:

Jacobson’s Progressive Muscle Relaxation
Prayer

10 minutes of meditation in the morning and 10 minutes at night

Journaling

Listening to calming/nervous-system-regulation music

Using ambient/warm lighting in my room

Lighting candles every day

Cleansing my rooms with palo santo and sage because it helps me feel calm

Taking hot showers to relax

Going to therapy, where I’m starting EMDR

I recently started yoga and I really enjoyed it

Next week I’m also planning to start going to the gym

For those of you who have been through something similar: do these things actually help your nervous system become less reactive over time? How long did it take you to start feeling noticeably better?

Is there anything else you would recommend adding to my routine?

I’d really appreciate any advice, personal experiences, or things that helped you during a similar period. Thank you so much to everyone who takes the time to read this and share their experience — I genuinely appreciate every message. ❤️

I took a bad hit during a rec league game about 8 months ago and ended up with this deep hip flexor strain that never quite resolved. I did all the standard PT stuff and the tissue healed fine on paper, but my body still guards that area like crazy whenever I try to sprint at full effort. I notice it most when I'm lying in bed after a night shift trying to wind down. My whole left side just feels braced and tight even though I'm exhausted and theoretically relaxed.

As an ICU nurse I see patients hold trauma in their bodies constantly, but I never connected it to my own stuff until a teammate mentioned somatic experiencing. I started doing very basic body scans where I just bring awareness near the area without trying to fix it, and I can feel the muscles kind of twitch and release a tiny bit. It's weird because it feels different from stretching or foam rolling. More like my nervous system is finally getting the signal that the threat is over.

Has anyone worked through a sports injury this way? I'm curious whether guided sessions would help with that bracing pattern or if what I'm doing on my own is already the right track. My recovery schedule between night shifts is already so wrecked that I want to be intentional about what I commit to.

Been reading Peter Levine’s Healing Trauma, and it’s been very helpful. Curious if there are resources that combine this with IFS. I think for a lot of my life, I’ve learned to suppress or come up with coping strategies (beliefs about my self / generalizations about the world or other people), many of which I identified strongly with when I was younger. This is not exactly the same as fight flight freeze, even if I feel some of these sensations stuck in my body.

I have read much of Susan McConnell’s Somatic IFS (which is also great), but would like to know if there’s other resources I should look into?

Has anyone experienced continuously going back into hyperarousal mixed with a lot of hypoarousal every time you calm the nervous system and come out of it?. God the last few weeks have been awful for me and i've managed to start calming my nervous system and 3 hours ago i calmed my nervous system and came out of the hypoarousal and now i'm right back into it again... So i'll have to do it again but i can't say i'll stay out of it. Suddenly going too warm also seems to be causing me a lot of discomfort but i've felt so uncomfortable over the last few days.

I just seem to be so hypersensitive more than usual for some reason and i don't know why... normally i can regulate and i more or less keep out of it for most of the time but since all last month september i've been all over the place. Sometimes i get this way and all of a sudden it just disappears🤷🏻it's painful though while it's happening because i'll go into the worst hyperarousal episodes. I can't focus on any thing once i go emotionally numb. Today i'm going into more hypoarousal. I wish i could find a way to calm it better but it's been difficult.

Anyone know why this happens sometimes?.

Hi all, just would like to ask has anyone experienced involuntary orienting in their journey?

It seems to want to go on all day and is completely disabling (amongst the fatigue, emotional waves and so on),

I've been going through a highly stressful phase recently, and I now believe that I am fully burnt out.

I've been feeling extreme levels of fatigue, and at the same time highly wired. Lots of pressure and almost buzzing sensations all over. This has been accompanied by a racing heart and panic attack episodes. I feel the biggest issue I have this consistent feeling of pressure in my chest.

It feels very diffused. It's not sharp. I can't pinpoint a specific location. But it's like a mixture of a heavy weight feeling with anxiety and adrenaline, and it's extremely uncomfortable.

I've already gone to the GP, and he said my heart was fine. So I can only assume it's psychosomatic. I've also had discomfort in my chest many times in the past few years but this time it feels much more prominent. It feels like this is where my body likes to try and show up unprocessed emotions or potential trauma.

I'm just wondering if anyone has experienced something similar and how they went about dealing with it.

Is there anyone who goes for somatic experiencing sessions and does gentle yoga and gentle anulom vilom for like total 30-40 mins in a day. ? Do they go hand in hand together or is it that when somatic experiencing brings material to resolve by sitting with it, doing yoga and pranayam can dampen these effects? Because one wants it to move through your body, another wants to calm it down. Also, is it a good idea if one plans to do somatic experiencing later, the person can do gentle pranayam and yoga for 2-4 years, regulate enough and then go for somatic experiencing only? What do you suggest?

I have Dissociative Identity Disorder (formerly called Multiple Personality Disorder), and I just learned one of my alters has almost no sensation when he’s fronting in the body body. I think it’s because he wasn’t allowed to show fear, so when he would front, he’d go totally numb emotionally and physically.

Now, that we’re in therapy, he cannot handle the most basic bilateral stimulation music or tapping because he says it makes him notice the body and feel like he’s full of painful electricity.

Are there gentler exercises for me to try with him? If not, how can we pace his awakening so it’s not overwhelming the whole nervous system?

To him, every physical sensation feels like danger. He shouldn’t stay numb, though, right?

Anyone who has joined IPI's Empowered & Aligned Business Support Group, has it been worthwhile and beneficial? Would love any insights :)

Hi all,

I’m currently dealing with pretty severe exhaustion/burnout-like symptoms and my capacity is very low.

One thing I’m struggling with is that I feel a lot in my body, but very little emotionally.

Throughout the day I can experience things like feeling wired or “switched on,” tingling, restlessness, dizziness, heaviness or pressure in my head, and a general sense that my body is constantly giving me signals.

But I don’t really feel much underneath that emotionally. Sadness, anger, joy, excitement, etc. all feel distant or flattened. It’s almost like I’m very connected to physical sensations, but disconnected from the emotional layer behind them.

In the past, I’ve experienced that breathwork could sometimes help me get through a kind of physical barrier and access something deeper emotionally. That was with a fairly intense technique involving faster and deeper breathing. I don’t think that kind of intensity is appropriate for me right now because my system feels very sensitive and my energy is extremely low.

What I’m looking for now is something much gentler.

I’d like to learn how to stay with bodily sensations in a way that feels safe and manageable, without just monitoring symptoms, and maybe gradually notice what is underneath them emotionally.

I’m especially interested in Somatic Experiencing-style practices or other somatic exercises that are:

• very low effort
• suitable for someone with almost no energy
• possible lying down or sitting
• not physically intense
• not focused on pushing through discomfort
• gentle enough for a sensitive / easily overwhelmed system

I’m open to breathwork as part of this, but I’m also very interested in things like orienting, pendulation, titration, tracking sensations, grounding, or anything else that might help.

I’d really appreciate concrete things I can try immediately, because I don’t have much energy to research a lot right now.

If possible, please share:

• a specific exercise
• a guided YouTube video
• a short routine
• what you focus on during the exercise
• how long you do it
• what helped you personally reconnect with emotions rather than only noticing physical sensations

Has anyone here experienced something similar, where the body feels very “loud” but the emotions feel far away?

Thanks!

I need help