Karlee Holden, a somatic therapy and trauma wellness coach, shares her profound insights on trauma healing. She emphasizes the limitations of NLP and underscores the transformative power of somatic experiencing in releasing trauma from the nervous system. The conversation touches on the intricate links between trauma and conscious parenting, revealing how emotional challenges affect children. Karlee also highlights the importance of boundaries in relationships and reframes anger as a catalyst for healing and compassion.
Carly Holden highlights the limitations of traditional trauma healing methods like NLP, emphasizing the need for somatic therapy to address deep-seated trauma.
The podcast underscores the importance of recognizing bodily sensations in trauma recovery, advocating for healthy boundaries as essential for emotional well-being.
Deep dives
Carly Holden's Journey into Trauma Healing
Carly Holden's journey into trauma healing started in Hollywood, where she observed a disconnect between the apparent happiness of successful individuals and their hidden struggles with mental health. She aimed to understand self-love and self-worth, questioning her happiness in comparison to her wealthy acquaintances who often felt unfulfilled. This exploration led her to realize that many people, including herself, were grappling with unresolved trauma, driving her to study neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) and somatic therapy under esteemed professionals. Ultimately, her personal experiences of trauma and the realization that traditional methods often fell short motivated her to write her book, 'Can You Please Talk to My Trauma', emphasizing the need for deeper healing modalities beyond superficial techniques.
Neuro-Linguistic Programming vs. Somatic Therapy
While Carly appreciates the positive aspects of neuro-linguistic programming (NLP), she highlights its limitations in addressing profound trauma. She observed that NLP, while effective in changing beliefs and states, often fails to resolve deep-seated trauma rooted in the nervous system, leading her to seek alternative methods. In contrast, she emphasizes somatic therapy's focus on bodily sensations and movement, which can help release trapped energy and emotions, facilitating genuine healing. Carly describes her experience with somatic techniques, allowing her to process trauma in a supportive environment, thus underscoring the importance of approaching trauma work with sensitivity and awareness of the body's needs.
The Role of Sensations in Healing Trauma
Carly discusses the significance of recognizing bodily sensations as a critical component in trauma healing, as articulated by Peter Levine's somatic experience techniques. Instead of solely relying on verbal processing, this method encourages individuals to tune into their bodily experiences, identifying sensations such as tightness or energy shifts, which can indicate deeper emotional states. By focusing on these sensations, individuals can begin to release pent-up trauma and engage in bodily movements that facilitate emotional healing. Carly shares transformative examples from her practice, illustrating how clients experience significant relief as they honor and navigate these sensations during their healing journey.
Establishing Healthy Boundaries
Carly emphasizes the importance of establishing healthy boundaries as a crucial aspect of recovery from trauma. Many individuals struggling with trauma have difficulty asserting their boundaries due to familial patterns of dysfunction and abuse learned during childhood. Through somatic therapy, clients can explore and practice setting boundaries in a safe space, ultimately empowering them to carry these skills into their relationships. By reinforcing these healthy interactions, individuals not only protect themselves from re-traumatization but also pave the way for healthier relationships that nurture their emotional well-being.
Trying to get whole after a traumatic experience can feel like a lesson in acronyms – NLP, EMDR, CBT, etc. One method deserves to be better understood. You’ve likely seen videos of powerful physical reactions as people release the trauma their nervous systems have been holding onto. This is somatic experiencing. And Karlee Holden is a dedicated practitioner. She grew up well-versed in NLP and the language of healing. But later in life, it simply wasn’t enough to heal her. So she searched, and she foun
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