Inner Nature, Healing Trauma - The Interview

Nana Lambrecht is bringing her beautiful energy to a supportive and integrative deep workshop from 15- 19th November 2018.  She has given us a chance to enquire deeper into the process of Somatic work and how you can personally benefit by taking a part in this workshop. Read on to discover her reasons for working with this profound process by Peter Levine, and how she brings her life experience and deep understanding together to create a transformative space...

Can you describe what is Somatic Trauma Release?
The technique is complicated in a way. The technique comprises a more intellectual part, and a more body-oriented part. I have been letting go of the intellectual part quite a lot. All of the complicated explanations about it. I have taken what I feel fits with the work I was doing before, and I was already working with Primal, with Breath, with Emotional Release, and with meditation.
Somatic Experiencing in a way is bridging those two, it’s bridging therapeutic bodywork with meditation and awareness, and they support each other in this work, and that’s what I fell in love with in a way, that it’s linking meditation and therapy.

Are you taking aspects of Primal, and aspects of meditation?
It’s more spontaneous, in the moment. I feel easy with emotions coming in the Somatic work, because of my experience with Primal. I know how to release it without going deeply into the old experience, but instead having a focus on what the body is feeling right now.
When we look at the tension in the moment, even if it was created in an old experience of fear or something, then here and now it gives a possibility to just watch it and watch the body.
“What does fear feel like in the body, actually?” From that aspect, the body can start releasing, and more awareness comes in, more inner space starts growing, and suddenly that happening long ago, is not so dangerous, because the here and now space is so much bigger. So that’s what I feel is very beautiful in that work. We are finding the physical sensation of an emotion.
Emotion goes together very much with all the fear and whatever comes in the mind. So, to have the emotion a little bit at a distance and checking what is there right now, when we don’t follow the emotion, is very important.

Can you describe a few of the techniques that you use to get to that point?
There is a technique called Pendulation, and that means talking a lot to the body, and to the nervous system, and giving the person a physical experience of what is resourcing in the moment. It is a very individual experience. It can be resourcing to feel relaxed, or to feel my back has a good support right now. And going into feeling that can give a kind of ‘ahh’, I can be here. I can be aware. And then it’s very easy to move towards the opposite, to where the tension is, and watch it without falling into it.
And then the process starts working in a beautiful way, where it’s happening by itself, and that’s because the body already has like a blueprint of health. So the body wants to move towards health, when we can give the space for it. We don’t need to do the work, the body is doing the work, if we give it the space. Safety is needed, and for me, it’s natural to work from the heart, and from my hands, so that’s spontaneous, but love comes in a lot, and acceptance.

How would I feel at the end of a weekend workshop with you?
Hopefully you would feel resourced and excited about going out in the world, and able to test if your resources are working. When something has released, we need to move on in life, before the next layer wants to go. It’s best to release in small steps, and when you have released a little, you need to go out and feel if your resources are still functioning, if you still feel grounded or at home in yourself, or easy with meeting the world, and then test it.
You’ll go and meet something you used to be afraid of, and you see ‘aha, I’m less afraid today’, or my body is not reacting when I want to go to a party, or whatever it can be. You simply have to go and try it out in daily life, and then you can take one more step again. So that’s how it is in the nervous system. It needs to be small steps, and when they’re integrated, you take the next step. So, we don’t just try to take a whole car accident trauma out in one go, because the body will retraumatize when you meet a fear that reminds you of it, if you’re not resourced enough.

Why would you recommend people to take part in this workshop?
I’d recommend this work because it gives you more grounding, it gives you more trust in yourself, it gives you deeper meditation.

Is there a particular group of people who would fit best in this work?
Yes, it’s especially good for people who are sensitive to big groups, and noise, and chaos, because it’s usually caring for the individual, and there’s space to be very different. There’s not a lot of group exercises where everybody passes through exercises. It’s happening little by little, and it’s important that the individual has the space that feels safe. You can be in your own unique way, and you can have pain, and be with it in the group, and have a feeling of it being respected. So you don’t have to push anything away in order to function in the group.

How do you feel you personally respond in this workshop in order to hold the space for people?
I think mainly for me it is about being available, being at home in myself, and being natural. That’s more important than any technique. To be there as a human being. We are all in the same boat. We all got traumatized more or less. We are all on our journey’s still. Me, I got a few steps ahead of the participants, but that’s all.

Is there anything else that you’d like to share?
I can just say that I love the work because its also about finding one’s own nature, and self-love. And when I see people in the group, and what comes out of it, then I love it. After the group I feel, ‘my God, this is the best I could ever do in my life’. It’s very rewarding to see people in the end, yeah.

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