What Is Somatic Healing? Of Grief, Celebration, Shame and…TAXIDERMY
By Shannon Elizabeth Marsh | Once Upon a Connection
You've probably heard the word "somatic" floating around lately. Maybe your therapist mentioned it. Maybe you saw it on Instagram between a breathwork reel and someone selling a course. Maybe you were up at midnight googling "why do I hold tension in my shoulders even when nothing is wrong" and the word kept showing up.
So what is it, actually?
Somatic healing is body-based work. The word "somatic" comes from the Greek soma, meaning body. And the premise is simple but profound: your body stores what your mind hasn't finished processing.
That tension in your shoulders? It might not be about your posture. It might be about the way you've been bracing for bad news for so long that your muscles forgot how to stop.
That tightness in your chest when someone raises their voice — even if it's not directed at you? That's not anxiety being dramatic. That's your nervous system remembering something your conscious mind filed away years ago.
Somatic healing works with those responses. Not by analyzing them the way traditional talk therapy does - though therapy is valuable and I always support clients who are working with therapists - but by meeting the body where it is. Through breath. Through gentle movement. Through guided rest. Through sound. Through touch - a warm stone in your palm, a weighted blanket on your chest, the vibration of a drum resonating against your ribs.
The goal isn't to "fix" you. There's nothing broken. The goal is to help your nervous system remember that it's allowed to stand down.
What Does a Somatic Healing Session Actually Look Like?
There's no single answer because there shouldn't be. Every session I facilitate is custom-built for the person in front of me. But I can tell you what it doesn't look like: it doesn't look like a lecture, a checklist, or someone telling you to "just breathe" as if you haven't been breathing your entire life.
It might look like you lying on a warm mat that delivers infrared heat and gentle electromagnetic pulses to your body while I guide you through a rest your nervous system has been begging for. It might look like you holding a crystal in your palm and noticing — maybe for the first time - that your hand is shaking. And that shaking isn't wrong. It's release.
It might look like you sitting across from me and talking for ninety minutes straight because you've never had someone listen without trying to redirect you. And that IS the session. Being witnessed is somatic work. Your body knows the difference between being heard and being managed.
Some sessions include breathwork, QiGong, guided meditation, creative expression, or journaling. Some sessions include all of those. Some include none of them because what you needed that day was to sit in a safe room with a warm cup of tea and let your shoulders drop for the first time in months.
I don't follow scripts. I follow you.
Somatic Healing at Once Upon A Connection
Somatic healing is beautiful for many – I have focused my practice at this time on working with women.
It's for the woman who has done the therapy, read the books, listened to the podcasts, understands her patterns intellectually - and still can't get her body to stop running.
It's for the woman navigating a life transition - a divorce, a diagnosis, an empty nest, a career shift, a new marriage, a new baby, adoption, fostering, a transition to a female body she always knew was hers, a loss she hasn't given herself permission to grieve - who can feel the weight of it in her actual body. Notice I included typically-celebratory items in that list – you are actually allowed to feel joy and celebrate a change at the same time the weight of that transition brings weight in your physical body. The world tends to tell us when we should feel a certain way. I don’t buy that – that thought process allows shame to enter into the room and shame tends to shut us down. And guess what happens when we shut down and pack it away? Unheard, unprocessed? The body keeps the score.
It's for the woman whose nervous system has been in fight-or-flight for so long that she doesn't remember what calm feels like. She might not even trust calm. It might feel dangerous to relax because relaxing means letting her guard down, and the last time she did that, something bad happened.
It's for the woman who keeps saying "I'm fine" and means it - until 10 PM when the house is quiet and her chest tightens and she doesn't know why.
And here's the part I really want you to hear: it's for the woman who is not ready.
You Don't Have to Be Ready. You Just Have to Be Willing to Start.
I need to tell you something about myself. I'm a certified somatic healing practitioner. I help women regulate their nervous systems, process trauma, and reconnect with their bodies. I have trained in nervous system regulation, trauma literacy, meditation facilitation, and QiGong. I hold space for women through some of the most vulnerable moments of their lives.
And I have a full-body phobia of taxidermy.
I'm not being cute. I mean a genuine, somatic, nervous-system-hijacking response. My body does not care that the animal is not alive. My heart races, my skin crawls, I need to leave the room. It's irrational and I know it's irrational, and knowing that changes absolutely nothing about what my body does.
I share this because I think there's a lie we tell ourselves about healing — that we have to be ready for all of it. That doing the work means confronting every hard thing at once. That if you're going to heal, you need to cannonball into the deep end and deal with everything simultaneously.
That's not how nervous systems work. And frankly, it's not how life works either.
What I know as both a practitioner and a human who still can't walk past a mounted deer without her heart rate spiking is this: healing is not about conquering everything. It's about discernment. It's about knowing the difference between avoidance and wisdom. Between "I'm running from this" and "I'm not ready for this yet, and that's okay."
I could force myself into a room of taxidermy. I could white-knuckle through the panic and call it exposure therapy. But would my nervous system learn safety from that? Or would it just learn that I'm willing to override its signals?
In somatic work, we call this titration. You don't flood the system. You approach the edge. You resource - breath, warmth, grounding, a stone in your hand, a voice that tells you you're safe. You build capacity. And then, when your body is ready - not when your brain decides it should be ready, but when your body actually signals safety - you go a little further.
That's what I offer my clients. Not a boiling ocean. A toe in the water.
What I Want You to Know
You don't have to understand somatic healing to benefit from it. You don't have to have a diagnosis or a crisis or a referral. You don't have to know what's wrong — you just have to know something feels stuck.
And you don't have to be ready. You just have to be willing to start.
If any of this resonated, I'd love to hear from you. Complete our confidential client intake form and I'll review your responses personally. From there, we'll talk about what you need and whether we're a good fit to work together.
No pressure. No pitch. Just a toe in the water.
Complete Your Client Intake Form → https://forms.gle/r6LVA9TEWAMXWhry5
You are also welcome to schedule a free 15 minute consult if you prefer to chat (head over to the Book A Class tab)
Shannon Elizabeth Marsh is a Certified Somatic Healing Practitioner, Certified Meditation Facilitator, and founder of Once Upon a Connection in Maryland. She specializes in restorative connection work for women navigating life transitions, trauma, and nervous system dysregulation. Sessions may be eligible for HSA/FSA reimbursement.
