Somatic Therapy for Trauma: A Gentle, Body-Based Path to Healing
You’ve spent time trying to understand and heal from what’s shaped you. Therapy, mindfulness, journaling, reading — maybe all of it helped you gain insight and awareness. But there are still moments when your body reacts before your mind can catch up. You tense, shut down, or pull away, and later wonder why it felt so big for something so small.
Then comes the self-blame. The guilt after saying something you didn’t mean, or the embarrassment when an old reaction surfaces out of nowhere. The confusion of knowing you’re safe but not feeling that way inside. These patterns aren’t personal flaws. They’re learned responses, your body’s way of protecting you from experiences that were once too much.
If traditional approaches haven’t brought the change you hoped for, it may be because talking and understanding alone can’t fully reach what’s stored in the body. Somatic therapy for trauma helps bridge that gap. It works with both mind and body to release old survival patterns and create more capacity for calm, connection, and genuine relief.
Your Nervous System Isn't Broken, It's Stuck
When something overwhelming happens, your body has brilliant ways of protecting you. You might gear up to fight back, get ready to run (flight), or if neither option works, you might freeze, which is actually a combination of both fight and flight energy getting trapped at the same time. Sometimes your system goes into shutdown, pulling away to conserve energy when things feel too much.
These responses, fight, flight, freeze, and shutdown, are designed to keep you alive. But here's what happens: if that protective energy doesn't get to complete its job, it stays trapped in your body. Years later, you're sitting in a meeting and your heart races like you're in actual danger. Or someone makes an innocent comment and you feel that familiar tightness in your chest, the heat rising, and before you know it, you've snapped at them.
The guilt and shame that follow these reactions can be devastating. You might think, "What's wrong with me? Why can't I just stay calm?" But nothing's wrong with you. Your nervous system is doing exactly what it learned to do to keep you safe. It just hasn't gotten the message that the danger has passed.
Why Talking Alone Isn't Always Enough
I'm Amy Hagerstrom, and I provide somatic therapy for trauma to people in Florida and Illinois who are exhausted from trying to think their way out of feeling stuck. Working online with clients throughout Florida, including Fort Lauderdale, Boca Raton, Delray Beach, and West Palm Beach, as well as Chicago and throughout Illinois, my approach is different because I believe your body holds wisdom that your mind alone can't access.
You might understand perfectly why you shouldn't feel anxious in certain situations. You might have processed your experiences in talk therapy and gained valuable insights. But if your body is still holding those fight, flight, freeze, or shutdown responses, understanding alone won't shift them. That trapped energy needs a different kind of attention.
Think about it, when you're about to have an emotional outburst, does stopping to analyze why you feel that way actually help in the moment? Usually not. That's because these responses happen faster than thought. They're wired into your nervous system at a level that words can't always reach.
Somatic Experiencing: Guided Support for Trauma Healing
When people think about trauma therapy, they often imagine talking about what happened or learning techniques to calm down. Somatic Experiencing works differently. It helps your body process what talking alone can’t. In sessions, we pay attention to what’s happening in the moment, including sensations, emotions, or even images that come up, and use those as a guide. Sometimes we follow what your body is naturally trying to do. Other times we slow down and focus on helping you stay with sensations that feel uncomfortable without becoming overwhelmed.
This process helps your nervous system learn flexibility. We move gently between what feels intense and what feels easier, allowing your body to build trust in its ability to handle more over time. For some people, this means working with what got stuck in the body during a traumatic event or a period of overwhelming stress. For others, it’s about building awareness, connection, or a sense of choice in how they respond.
Somatic Experiencing is both an art and a science. It’s not a set of techniques you do on your own. It’s a guided, collaborative process. I’m there with you, attuned to what’s happening and helping you stay connected as your body learns that it’s safe to feel again. Over time, this creates more space inside, space to rest, to feel, and to move through life with a sense of stability and confidence.
When Sound Becomes Medicine: The Safe and Sound Protocol
After trauma, the body can have a hard time recognizing safety. Even when life seems calm, your nervous system might stay on alert, scanning for what could go wrong. The Safe and Sound Protocol (SSP) helps your system relearn what safety feels like through specially filtered music that uses frequencies similar to the human voice — tones your nervous system naturally responds to as safe and soothing.
SSP can be especially helpful if you notice:
Feeling tense, on edge, or easily startled
Sensory overwhelm (lights, sounds, or busy environments feeling too intense)
Discomfort or unease in social settings
Difficulty feeling connected or safe with others
Fatigue or withdrawal after being around people or groups
Listening happens gradually and in small amounts, tailored to how your body responds. Some people start with just a few minutes at a time, while others can comfortably listen longer. We spread the process out so your nervous system can integrate the experience at its own pace. As regulation builds, social situations often feel safer, sensory input less overwhelming, and connection more natural.
The Rest and Restore Protocol: When You've Been Running on Empty
After trauma or long periods of stress, the body can forget how to truly rest. You may sleep but never feel restored, or find it hard to slow down without discomfort. The Rest and Restore Protocol helps your nervous system remember what ease feels like by supporting the natural shift from protection into genuine restoration.
The protocol uses gentle, structured sound to support your body’s natural rhythms. When your system has been on alert for too long, this process helps it begin to settle, making space for calm, safety, and reconnection. Many people describe feeling more grounded and able to access rest in a way that hasn’t been possible for a long time.
We integrate this into our somatic therapy for trauma work together, not as a quick fix, but as part of helping your whole system — mind and body — relearn what it means to rest and recover.
Integrative Support for Mind and Body
Trauma can take a toll not only on your emotions but also on your daily rhythms. Sleep gets disrupted, movement feels harder to start, and nourishing your body may fall to the bottom of the list. Over time, these patterns can make it even more difficult for your nervous system to find balance.
As a certified integrative mental health provider, I can also support you in exploring gentle lifestyle shifts that help your body and mind work together in healing. This might mean adjusting sleep routines, finding ways to move that feel good, or slowly adding more nourishing foods. Everything happens at your pace, always your choice. These small, steady changes can strengthen your capacity for resilience and help your body remember what it feels like to rest and restore.
What Healing Actually Looks Like
Through somatic therapy for trauma in Florida and Illinois, healing isn’t about never being triggered again or avoiding strong emotions. It’s about your body and mind beginning to feel safer, so triggers happen less often and carry less intensity. And when they do arise, you have more capacity to stay with what you feel without being overwhelmed.
You might notice you don’t snap as quickly. When you do have a strong reaction, you recover faster, and the shame doesn’t linger as long. The emotional charge that once took over becomes something you can move through more easily. What used to feel like total shutdown becomes a few minutes of needing space before you can re-engage.
Your Window of Tolerance Gets Bigger
Everyone has a range where they can handle stress and stay connected — that’s what we call the window of tolerance. When you’re inside it, you can think, feel, and respond without becoming overwhelmed. But when that window is narrow, even small stressors can send you into fight-or-flight or make you shut down.
Through our work together, that window expands. You build more capacity to stay present even when things feel uncomfortable. This means you can feel anger without immediately lashing out, sadness without falling into despair, and joy without the anxious sense that it might not last. The emotions are still there, but you’re not consumed by them anymore.
Our Work Together: What to Expect
Through my somatic therapy for trauma practice in Florida and Illinois, our work focuses on the connection between your mind and body. While we make space for your thoughts and emotions, we also pay close attention to what’s happening in your body and nervous system. Emotional processing happens right alongside the somatic work, not as something separate.
When it’s helpful, we can also explore how your daily habits support your healing. Things like sleep, movement, nourishment, and time outdoors can all influence how your nervous system feels and functions. Any shifts we make are small and intentional, always at your pace, and designed to support both your emotional and physical well-being. I may also offer practices between sessions to help your body continue integrating what we do together.
I offer online sessions throughout Florida, including Fort Lauderdale, Boca Raton, Delray Beach, and West Palm Beach, as well as in Illinois, including Chicago. We’ll begin with a brief consultation, about ten minutes, to see if working together feels like a good fit. It’s simply a chance to connect and get a sense of what this approach might offer you.
What Ongoing Work Looks Like
Most people seeking somatic therapy for trauma work with me weekly. This consistency helps your nervous system feel supported and allows the work to deepen over time. Between sessions, I may offer gentle practices to explore — noticing sensations, supporting your body in moments of stress, or experimenting with small shifts in daily habits. These are always your choice, and sometimes simple changes in sleep, sunlight, or movement can make a meaningful difference in trauma recovery.
I work with adults who are stable enough for this kind of body-based, integrative work. I don’t provide crisis services or work with active addiction, suicidality, or situations that require a higher level of care. Some clients also work with another therapist or provider for additional support, and that can fit well within this process.
Who This Work Is Really For
This approach to somatic therapy for trauma is often the next step for people who’ve already done a lot to understand themselves. You may have spent years in talk therapy, gained insight, and can explain your patterns clearly, yet your body still reacts as if the past hasn’t fully ended. The tension, exhaustion, or shutdown you feel aren’t signs of failure; they’re signs your body is still trying to protect you.
You might appear mostly capable and composed. You’ve built a strong career, manage responsibilities, and others see you as reliable and put-together. But underneath, you’re tired from holding it all together. You might notice moments where your patience disappears, you withdraw, or you feel flat and disconnected. These reactions often trace back to experiences that overwhelmed your system, times when you had to stay strong instead of reach for support or keep going when your body needed rest.
If you’re ready for healing that includes your body in the process, this work can help you reconnect with yourself in a deeper way, not just to understand your reactions, but to feel genuinely different inside.
Taking the First Step
Your nervous system learned to protect you, and it's been doing that job faithfully, even when it's exhausting. The patterns that once kept you safe don't have to run your life forever. With the right support, someone who understands both the mind and body aspects of healing, you can find your way back to feeling genuinely like yourself.
The path forward isn't about fixing what's broken (because you're not broken). It's about helping your system update its programming, learning that the danger has passed and it's safe to rest, to feel, to be present.
I offer somatic therapy for trauma in Florida and Illinois that works with where trauma actually lives, in your nervous system, in those automatic responses, in the wisdom of your body. Through Somatic Experiencing, sound protocols, and an integrated mind-body approach, we work together to help you shift from survival mode to actually living.
You don't have to keep pushing through. You don't have to accept feeling on edge as your new normal. And you definitely don't have to carry the shame of your emotional responses alone.
Ready to explore what's possible? Visit my website to schedule your 10-minute consultation. Let's see if working together feels right for your system. Your body has been trying to tell you something, maybe it's time to listen.