How is the practice of Somatic Therapy different when applied to the Female Nervous System?
The nervous system of cyclical bodies – female identifying or otherwise – functions vastly differently from the cisgendered male nervous system. As a person born with a uterus, we not only experience a circadian rhythm – your body’s natural 24-hour internal clock – but also an infradian rhythm – a biological cycle in the body that lasts longer than 24 hours (i.e. the menstrual cycle).
Our rhythms are not static, and this variability demands conscious attunement so that we can give our nervous systems the support and regulation that they need. A body in its follicular phase will need something completely different than a body in its luteal phase; a body in perimenopause will need something completely different than a body in the first trimester of pregnancy, and so on.
Tap into the Wisdom of the Soma
The nervous system of those with cyclical bodies is incredibly wise in its complexity: it knows when to visit the underworld; it knows when to initiate neural pruning; it knows when to slow down and when to energize.
When we slowly and intentionally attune to our innate cycles, we give ourselves the opportunity to step into deeper relationship with the physical form we inhabit. We are able to more fully digest and metabolize the contents of our experiences, giving us back life force that has been compressed or lost along the way. We are able to understand our “default modes” of survival through the lens of deep compassion, thereby opening up the opportunity to truly heal and choose something different.
When we consciously work with the cyclical nervous system, we are able to tend to our needs in a way that honors the vessel we came here in, which can only improve the way we experience and move through our lives.
