The end to self-sabotage - are you ready?

“I know better than to stay up until 2am and watch TV but I can’t seem to help it” or some version of “I know what I need to do to stay healthy and balanced but I keep doing the opposite” is something that I hear often. 

All of us can choose to do things that aren’t useful (and sometimes are even damaging), because we’re looking to fill a true need. Usually a need we’re ignoring.

It’s often hard to know what that need even is because these substitute behaviors become so automatic.

It requires slowing down enough so we can truly feel our needs.

That's exactly what we do in Somatic Therapy. 

It takes the help of a skilled practitioner at first until we learn how to do this on our own. The cool thing is that It’s an acquired skill, just like working out for strength and stamina. 

Once we slow down and identify the need the next step is to figure out through asking the body what would be the thing that would fill it.  

Sometimes it’s touch, sometimes it’s rest, sometimes it’s working with an image and sometimes it’s some sort of physical activity or movement. 

What often happens in session is that the client not only gets to come in contact with their need but they realize that they just found an alternative to when they are engaging in an unhelpful behavior and they come up with their own plan for what to do when that behavior surfaces next time. 

The client is basically learning how to become a better ally to themselves, not through “shoulding” or self-reproach, which as you probably know rarely works, but through their own body learning.