Nazbah Tom

Somatic bodywork uses conversation, touch, breath, gesture, and practice to move the mind/body/spirit from a historically conditioned "shape" to one that is aligned with the person's visions and goals. This includes the body they were born into, the memories, the wounds, hopes and dreams that the body holds. History of one's community. These elements have literally physically shaped, moulded the person's identity, relationship to others and how they negotiate the world that they live in. To give you an example (these are not actual case examples):

Greg is a First Nations man who has lived most of his life in urban Vancouver. Although he has a well paying job as a social worker, he is riddled with fear that he is living paycheque to paycheque and is too scared to use his funds for pleasurable things like travel or take time off work for self care. Greg comes to Somatics with complaints of the inability to sustain a relationship, feeling too tired to workout, and not sleeping well. Mary is a white woman who lives a financially comfortable life thanks to an inheritance given to her after the death of her father. While she enjoys the privilege of owning a home, she is consistently unhappy knowing the source of her comfortable lifestyle. Mary comes to Somatics with symptoms of anxiety, inability to sleep, explosive anger, which she directs at her partner. During the course of her work with Somatics, it is revealed that her inheritance is from a sexually abusive parent. People generally know what is working and not working about their historical shape, and it's the ways in which it is not working in their relationship to self, others, and the world that they want to change and shift.