Somatics Case Study: Healing Doer’s Fatigue

If life teaches us to muscle through and effort to effect change, then Somatics acts as a practice of unlearning all of this. 

I meet with a male client regularly—ex baseball pitcher, athlete, herniated disks in L4, L5, S1, double shoulder surgeries. All of his life, he’d use muscle to make things happen. Will it to be through force and tremendous effort. Trouble was, he was living in excruciating pain and it had been chronic for over 25 years. He recently noticed flare-ups once he started playing Pickleball. He came to me with nerve pain shooting down his leg, throbbing soreness in his lower back, and tightness throughout his left hip. 

I understand completely; as a former gymnast, dancer, and cheerleader I knew how to train my body in creating shapes that were made out of sheer muscling. What I later realized was the psychology behind this kind of effort bled into my job and relationships. Type A, ambitious—wonderful traits and detrimental when left unchecked for too long. What I found was how unsustainable over effort and muscling through was to my ability to rest. I needed to perfect the art of resting rather than just allowing my body to release into rest. The aspect of allowance did not know itself in my vocabulary, so when I found Somatics I did what I knew best—I forced.

And then I heard a quote read aloud by a teacher of Somatics—the force that is forced is not the true face, by Lau Tzu. It stayed with me because out of curiosity and self discovery, I wanted to understand what this other force was. If it wasn’t my own force of will then what was it? How could I experience what this Master was speaking?

Back to my male client—he trained dynamic, explosive, big movement patterns which served him very well as an athlete. His sympathetic nervous response was constantly firing and his psychology encouraged him to keep doing. Mentally he couldn’t rest, physically he couldn’t rest. When he first came to me his system responded by falling asleep during session. The mental aspect of Somatics of bringing the mind into the body’s intelligence taxed him and he tapped out. At least he was resting. 

I observed in his initial execution of movement the tendency to grip and grit through even the smallest of movements such as lifting one leg a few inches off the ground. He’d use his fascial muscles, tense through the neck and shoulders, tighten through his gut. All in an attempt to make movement happen through his developed lens. So we trained movement patterns that were small, slow, and soft—which is a guiding principle of Somatics. Do less to change more.

It sounds so counterintuitive when considered through the intellect. How can one achieve more by doing less? For athletes and ambitious go-getters, this concept of do less to effect greater change must be experienced in the body to be known. It must be felt through the sensations of the body.

Moving with the quality of softness as a guiding principle is a very similar experience to sensing the force that is not forced. During a movement pattern I’ll cue the client to soften, maybe implore—see what it could feel like to do less, recruit less muscle engagement. What would it feel like to soften instead of hardening? See if you could get the same result of moving from A to B with less effort.

His gut would tighten moving slow because he trained all of his life to move fast. So we started there, one movement, one area at a time. If he’s used to over taxing his nervous system and staying locked in sympathetic response, then we pay extra attention to noticing when that kicks on and we rest. Do less to effect greater change. His body is learning to trust his mind, his will. During these sessions it is imperative that to move the scales towards parasympathetic/rest response that he doesn’t enter the threshold of fatigue. He communicates to his body through his movement patterns that at the first sign of fatigue, he rests. He doesn’t’ push, doesn’t over extend, doesn’t bypass or neglect. But he meets the ask of the body and forms the foundation that’s sustainable and long lasting. 

Chronic doers fatigue can be a long road of recovery. Fortunately, healing and unlearning has been made possible by the work of Somatics in the field of movement therapy. If you or someone you know is living through chronic fatigue, autoimmune dis-ease, system overstimulation and overextension, then perhaps Somatic Movement Therapy can help.

Schedule a free 20-minute call to discover if Somatic Movement Therapy is right for you.