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StrongerNow - We did talk about the somatic work! I actually had something triggering happen on my way there, and walked into her office feeling mildly anxious. We talked through my serious aversion to letting go and letting myself feel any of that anxiety in her office with her there. She said we would work on "building up" to letting go and letting my body feel stuff with her... She said it makes a lot of sense that it is really hard for me, and that it is really common too. She said she tells some clients she won't look at them if she thinks that might help. She described how some clients will take breaks and step out of the room for a few moments. She says I get to say "no" and "slow down" anytime I want, and "in fact, it will be really important for you to do that sometimes. Trauma is inherently an invasion of your boundaries and I really want to make sure I do everything I can to give you space and support to say no to me."
She later said, "Doing this work might stir up some emotions that feel really intense, really horrible. You might feel mad sometimes, and even really mad, at me, and that's ok... I really want to make space for it to be ok to feel mad at me at times and for us to work through that too. It's an important part of healing."
She described it more, and said she really wanted to have the "executive function" part of my brain understand as much as possible about how this kind of relational and somatic therapy works so that when it gets hard, I will be more likely to "hang in through this process."
I do think she has a knack for making space for all kinds of transference to happen, and to not take it personally. She sort of seems to expect it. All of which FREAKS ME OUT! lol.
She offered to so some exercises "to build up to letting go, in tiny amounts." I was thinking was 'oh, well I can do this, this will feel fine..' Ugh. It did not feel fine. I felt triggered fast and she encouraged me to just notice anything I felt in my body, anything I could not feel, and to describe anything I noticed, but only for 10 seconds... literally 10 seconds... She said it was just to "begin to experience in a small tiny way that you can feel really bad in here and I will not hurt you." She also said she didn't expect me to be convinced it was safe to let go anytime soon... which really helped to hear.
I'm so baffled by what we did in session today, but I'm glad we talked about all of it. It's kind of really confusing and hard to describe too...
