What Is Somatic Experiencing? Laurie James on Healing Trauma Held in the Body

Everyone is talking about nervous system regulation. But what if the goal isn't to be calm all the time? In Episode 337, Harmony Slater and Russell Case talk with Laurie James, author of Sandwiched: A Memoir of Holding On and Letting Go, host of the Confessions of a Free Bird podcast, and a certified somatic practitioner and coach who works in the Somatic Experiencing approach developed by Peter Levine.

Laurie shares how caring for aging parents while raising four daughters, and the end of a 26-year marriage, led to a season of overwhelm and then to somatic healing. She explains what Somatic Experiencing is, why a healthy nervous system moves between activation and rest many times a day, how to build capacity instead of chasing calm, and why you can heal without retelling your whole story.

• Why the goal of nervous system work is flexibility and resilience, not constant calm
• What Somatic Experiencing is, and how listening to the body differs from directing it from the top down
• How the vagus nerve and neuroception shape your response to safety and threat
• What it means to complete a threat response that never finished
• How yoga, nature and slow movement support regulation
• Why you don't have to revisit your story to release it
• How a memoir, a podcast and one-on-one work grew out of a second-half-of-life reinvention

Laurie James is an author, certified somatic practitioner and coach, and the host of the Confessions of a Free Bird podcast. Her memoir, Sandwiched: A Memoir of Holding On and Letting Go (2021), chronicles a season of raising four daughters, caring for her parents, and the unraveling of a long marriage. She lives in Southern California.

• Laurie's website: https://www.laurieejames.com/
• Laurie on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/laurie.james/
• Sandwiched: A Memoir of Holding On and Letting Go on Amazon and wherever books are sold
• Confessions of a Free Bird podcast, where Harmony was a guest

Peter Levine (Somatic Experiencing), Stephen Porges (polyvagal theory), Gabor Maté, Dr. Nadine Burke Harris (The Deepest Well and the ACE study)

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