How to Reclaim Intimacy in Romantic Relationships Through Somatic Healing

Doing the inner work that comes with body work

Medically reviewed by Ivy Kwong, LMFT

As we grow into a world with a destigmatized view of therapy, our collective understanding of what it means to heal from our childhood trauma continues to expand. More and more, we are understanding there’s only so much we can say about our earliest pains before we have to feel our way through.

There are holistic modalities, such as somatic experiencing, that enable us to embrace integrative approaches to therapy—new ways of processing that underscore the importance of a mind-body connection, the symbiotic relationship between stillness and presence, and how the physical release of trapped emotions can rebalance the nervous system.

Exploring somatic therapy has been healing for my complex PTSD and subsequently, has increased intimacy with my partner, who now knows me for me and not my trauma responses. For years, I would talk until I was blue in the face about my early experiences with hyper-independence. But the needle didn’t move until I finally sat with the sadness of being made into a utility. The grief allowed me to embody my disconnected self–just waiting on the other side of intellectualization.

I went to the radical Embody Lab's Somatic Trauma Healing Immersion to add more skills to my toolkit and interview some of the world’s leading experts on how alternative somatic work can help restore emotional and physical closeness within our relationships. The tips below helped me tremendously. I hope they will help you too.

Related: Guided Meditations

Reclaiming Intimacy in Romantic Relationships

Intimacy is about establishing trust and safety, where our innermost selves can be nurtured and safely held in a relationship.

Somatic healing, which addresses physical tension and trapped bodily sensations, removes the pent-up barriers that block us from receiving that tenderness. By releasing the stressful grips of past traumas, we open up space for emotional regulation and the capacity to show up fully in intimate moments.

Dr. Scott Lyons, holistic psychologist, founder of the Embody Lab, and author of "Addicted to Drama" explains that trauma gets in the way of experiencing an embodied sense of who we are. “When trauma blocks the bi-directional bridge of vulnerability, we lose contact with ourselves and we’re not able to be in contact with anyone else. We can’t touch or be touched.”

Lyons likens this interpersonal experience to a metaphorical drawbridge. In trauma, the drawbridge is either up where no one can get in or the drawbridge is down when there’s no sense of modulation. The result is too little contact or too much contact at the risk of codependency.

Through somatic healing, vulnerability is no longer disrupted and the levers can be intentionally pulled for connection to take place with a sustained sense of self.

Related: What Is Post Traumatic Relationship Syndrome?

Understanding Somatic Healing for Intimacy

Somatic healing takes a body-first approach. There’s a fundamental belief that the body and mind are inextricably influenced by the other, and by paying attention to the perception of the body, that expression allows for the cathartic healing of stress and trauma on a cellular level.

Research reveals this happens through “the completion of thwarted, biologically based, self-protective and defensive responses, and the discharge and regulation of excess autonomic arousal.”

Without awareness, we can bring the stuck energy of flight-or-fight trauma impulses into our romantic relationships to negative effect. The benefits of bringing somatics within an intimate context can be profound to pattern out healthier dynamics.

Takeaway

This therapeutic method employs various techniques—breathwork, mindfulness, and body movements—which can help address common negative relationship patterns. These methods support the optimal functioning of the nervous system, which includes the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems responsible for our ability to relax.

Trauma can provoke dysregulation in the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems, kicking off cascading side effects such as lower heart rate variability, which has been linked to medical problems such as anxiety, depression, diabetes, and escalated cortisol.

Lyons notes somatics can be a tool for couples to come back into connection through the contact of their feelings and sensations, instead of engaging in regressive behaviors which won’t lead to resolution.

For repair to occur, he points out we need to let go of old narratives that support avoiding feelings, a pattern that locks couples in conflict. “When something smells, tastes, or sounds like something from the past, the past floods into the moment and we’re no longer in the present,” Lyons says.

This can obscure what’s happening as the behaviors of unmet childhood needs manifest into the driver’s seat of the relationship. He continues, “We cannot be in an adult relationship if a child is in the driver’s seat. There’s a radical responsibility to witness if our little kid is in the driver’s seat of our behaviors and actions, and how that can act out an unmet need as opposed to being in the feeling of the unmet need and expressing it.”

Exploring the Impact of Relationship Patterns

Physician Gabor Mate and author of Myth of Normal, explains that the negative and positive templates for our relationships are formed by the emotional resonances from our earliest caregivers aka attachment theory.

“If a child is heard, listened to, understood, and validated, they’ll have confidence in themselves. That’s what they’ll expect and look for in a relationship. If they were misunderstood, not seen, or worse, hurt and abused, then they tend to look for love from the kind of people that they first wanted love from,” Mate explains.

"When trauma blocks the bi-directional bridge of vulnerability, we lose contact with ourselves and we’re not able to be in contact with anyone else. We can’t touch or be touched."

Dr. Scott Lyons, holistic psychologist

Additionally, when we are stressed, our prefrontal cortex shuts down which weakens our rational thinking and conscious self-control, causing internal panic and inhibited decision-making within our relationships.

According to Mate, when there’s a relational blow-up of some kind, that’s often the result of trauma. “Look at the word ‘trigger.’ The reason that ‘trigger’ works is because there’s ammunition and an explosive charge,” he explains.

“If we can examine what’s behind the emotional charge, then we don’t have to blame the other person for making us feel this way. If both members of a couple recognize that and they want to work on it, the sky’s the limit.”

Techniques for Reclaiming Intimacy Through Somatic Healing

Below are a few somatic healing techniques to help build resilience, nurture feelings of non-judgmental calmness, and increase awareness so we can have more presence with ourselves and others.

Take a Breath and Ground Yourself

Take several slow, deep breaths, ensuring that your exhalations are longer than your inhalations. This type of breathing can help to calm your nervous system and encourage the physical body to relax. When you are physically feeling more relaxed, you can check in with about yourself, your feelings, and your needs with more presence, awareness, and groundedness.

“When we’re feeling disconnected or sped up, agency and consent can be confusing. Pause to take a breath and ask yourself if this feels right and if it’s wanted in the moment,” says Dr. Arielle Schwartz, clinical psychologist, PhD. “Ask, ‘Am I engaging in activities in this relationship that’s right for me? Or because I think this is who you want me to be?’” This type of grounding can be effective to ensure we don’t lose ourselves in our connection.

Build Out Your Somatic Vocabulary

Being aware of our bodily awareness and how it relates to our well-being can help with emotional management. Lyons recommends building out a somatic vocabulary with interoceptive awareness aka understanding what’s happening internally. “It could be starting to recognize basic things like your breath or fullness in your bladder. Then it gets into more nuance of sensations, feelings, or needs.”

Try "Titration"

Peter Levine, developer of Somatic Experiencing and author of Autobiography of Trauma: A Healing Journey, shares titration as a resourcing practice to slow down and widen our window of tolerance to controllable segments.

From a somatic experiencing perspective, titration is a practice of slowing things down and only working with small and manageable bits of challenging experiences at a time. It can look like pausing, taking time to notice sensations in the body that correspond to what is being spoken about, and allowing the body's sensations to move towards completion of protective responses that may not have been able to be completed in the past.

“We don’t want to do too much too soon. It’s important to just do the smallest amount to make a shift for a chance,” Levine recommends.

Take a Pause, Give Yourself Space

Lyons advises having a redo during a rupture. During a fight, we can take a pause and give ourselves space to walk away and physically shake our body out for regulation. Then reconnect and speak from a place of what we’re feeling and what we weren’t able to acknowledge prior. “We stay out of the dramatic narrative which is ‘he said, she said’ and stay in the reflective, somatic narrative which is what we’re feeling.”

It can take 20 to 30 minutes for your body to calm down from a triggered state so it is recommended individuals take a 20-30 minute break to regulate. During this time, it is important not to think about or rehash the triggering experience and it may be helpful to go on a walk, listen to music, or practicing a breathing technique like 4-7-8 breathing.

Seek Support From a Somatic-Trained Therapist

Schwartz suggests seeking out support from a somatic-trained therapist, somatic experiencing therapist, or sensorimotor psychotherapist who works with couples.

“It’s part of being human, it’s a little scary to drop in and feel. Therapy is a tremendous, compassionate gift because you are hiring a trained listener and a trained observer. A somatic therapist can help you drop in because if neither member of a partnership has that training, there’s no co-regulator,”  says Schwartz.

Navigating Trauma and Healing in Romantic Relationships

When our trauma isn’t transformed, it will be transmitted which causes significant challenges for attachment, trust, and closeness. By learning how to be aware of our mind-body connection and changing our unhealthy behaviors, we can overcome roadblocks to intimacy.

“The mind goes at lightning speed while the body is a much slower communicator,” Schwartz says. “We can’t have intimacy until we can sense ourselves, what we’re feeling, and know what we’re needing so we can bridge the gap between the self and another.”

Levine shares that when we’re able to share ourselves and our sexuality with another, it’s a gift beyond measure. Yet it takes time to harness the powerful energies of emotion to get to that place. “Practice, practice, practice sharing and take turns. Person A says what they’re experiencing and then person B says what they’re experiencing. Sometimes, it’s difficult to recognize when we are in fight, flight, freeze, or shut down. This exploration takes self-compassion.”

Building Emotional Connection, Communication, and Trust

Emotional connection and trust are foundational pillars of intimacy in all relationships. When we acknowledge our emotions and give full weight to them, our bodies calm down knowing it will be listened to and believed. As a result, this felt safety supports honesty and authenticity about who we are with our beloved, washing away people-pleasing and performative tendencies.

Through emotionally corrective experiences, where we’ve been empathetic events that challenge the negative self-beliefs informed by trauma, trust between self and others can thrive.

Here are a few elements needed to cultivate emotional intimacy, trust, and communication somatically:

• Mirroring. Mirroring a partner, such as adjusting body language to match theirs, enhances the feeling of acceptance. Other synchronized movements include mindful touch and breathwork which has been dramatically proven to improve symptoms of anxiety, fear, depression, and trauma

• Creating a safe container.When we are feeling and want to express our emotions, we want to know our partner can hold space without interruption, criticism, avoidance, or judgment. When our partner speaks, we can focus on being present with them and their words and observing their physical body to be aware of how they are feeling. Knowing we have this support and presence can help build and strengthen trust.

• Active listening. Active listening activates the reward system with positive emotional appraisal, making it easier to reflect on personal experiences, recognize and release cognitive biases, ask open-ended questions, foster more empathy, and maintain a settled body. Seeing our partner want to understand improves conversation because we can somatically rest in conversation knowing we will be heard.

• Non-violent communication. By observing the body signals with the self and our partner (movement, touch, gesture, habits, tics) and using non-violent communication’s compassionate approach to express those needs, couples can connect deeper with peaceful conflict resolution.

Related: Why Communication In Relationships Is So Important

Maintaining Intimacy in the Long Term

Intimacy is built up over time but sometimes life, work, kids, and past emotional injuries can get in the way. When we aren’t feeling connected to our partner, it’s hard to state our needs and even harder to feel sensual and have sex. Schwartz notes, “It’s normal to have dry spells in long-term relationships. “To sustain intimacy, we need mutual commitment and the willingness to have some of those open conversations.”

Schwartz says it can start small before jumping into sex. Perhaps it’s an intentional meal together without the kids or foregoing phones in the bedroom for conversation. If there’s been more conflict, it’s vital to attune to any buried conflicts. “If we have a small rupture and we don’t address them, it builds into resentment, distancing, disconnect, and untrustworthiness.”

In tandem, she explains to re-establish sexual intimacy, self-care–which is the relationship with ourselves–is needed so we can connect to our bodies. “If we’ve ignored the body for a long time and knock on the door to come back in after a certain amount of time of not reconnecting, the body may not trust you or want to let you in the room because it’s felt ignored or abandoned. We might need to make amends to the body to reconnect and rebuild trust within ourselves.”

She notes this could look like doing somatic practices for a few minutes every day, placing one hand over the heart and one hand over the belly to breathe and staying with the emotions.

Related: 40 Questions to Build Intimacy in a Relationship

What This Means for You

I’ve learned it’s not about what’s wrong with you but what happened to you. By opening the heart and attending to the mind-body connection, we can experience multifaceted healing.

Our romantic relationships offer a pathway for this level of self-inquiry since our partners often serve as the ultimate mirror. When trauma distorts the reflection, our unconscious wounds and discordant beliefs are brought forward to heal from. But relationships don’t have to feel this way when we learn the proper techniques to move away from reaction to resourcing.

Through somatic healing, we can reclaim intimacy and step into the wholeness we were always meant to experience.

Read the original article on Verywell Mind.