Why do humans get stuck in Trauma while wild animals recover naturally? In the 1970s, Dr. Peter Levine noticed something remarkable: Wild animals face death daily yet don’t develop PTSD, Depression, or Anxiety. His discovery revolutionized how we understand trauma forever:

Dr. Peter Levine discovered Somatic Therapy after watching wild animals in nature. He found that even though these animals often face dangerous situations, they don't suffer from long-term trauma. On the other hand, humans and zoo animals are the only mammals that develop

After stress, animals undergo a natural healing process. They shake, tremble, or breathe deeply, which helps their bodies recover and calms their nervous systems after intense stress. If these stress hormones are not processed, they can lead to PTSD, depression, and

Most people believe trauma is only a psychological issue. It’s not. Trauma is stored in the *nervous system* Your body gets stuck in survival mode: fight, flight, or freeze. Symptoms include: - Fatigue & more - Emotional numbness - Anxiety & Depression - Chronic pain - body

The conventional approach to healing trauma is “top-down” Talk therapy. Reliving the event. Cognitive reframing. While helpful for some, this approach often misses a crucial piece: the body.

Peter Levine revolutionized trauma healing with a *bottom-up* approach. His method, Somatic Experiencing, focuses on discharging trapped survival energy in the body. The goal? Restore your nervous system to a calm, balanced state permanently.

When you experience trauma, your nervous system activates a survival response. If the energy isn’t discharged, it gets “stuck” in a loop of stress. Over time, this leads to: - Hypervigilance (fight/flight) - Numbness (freeze) - Chronic dysregulation Levine’s work

Here's what being stuck in survival mode feels like: - You’re constantly on edge (fight/flight). - You feel disconnected, numb or avoidant (freeze). - Talk therapy helps you understand—but doesn’t change how you feel. If this sounds familiar, it’s because your nervous system hasn’t *completed* it's stress cycle.

Somatic therapy was created to address this through science. It uses biology, neuroscience, and psychology to reset the nervous system of bottled-up stress. Here's what it looks like for humans:

When I first explored somatic work in graduate school, I didn’t believe it would work. But after trying these techniques, I noticed something incredible: • My body felt lighter. • My mind felt clearer. • I no longer felt stuck in the past. • I healed from PTSD, complex trauma, and depression Healing wasn’t about “thinking”—it was about feeling.

Watch me go through the somatic discharging exercise. You'll see my body in action, releasing tension through involuntary movements. This is the autonomic nervous system releasing stored stress. Notice the smile at the end (it feels like bliss):

In my experience as a therapist: You can't heal years of anxiety, depression, and stress by thinking (or even talking) your way through it. The key lies in working with your mind-body system as a whole to find safety naturally. Somatic therapy is the best tool I've found to this day.