Mindset vs. Somatic Healing: You Don’t Have to Choose

The other day I noticed my tire going flat as I was about to head to the local coffee shop to do some work.

My knee jerk reaction was "damnit, this sucks" before taking a deep breath and thinking through it. I realized I could dwell on the suck - or I could make a different meaning of this moment.

Meaning-making is the root of "mindset" work.

We don't often have a choice of what our first impression is of the moment. We do have a choice of the meaning we decide to commit to, though.

Life gives us the material. But we're the decision-makers on how we tell the story.

The meaning I decided to commit to in that moment was "I'm glad I caught it before it was completely flat. This could've been worse" and - feeling a little luckier - I headed to the gas station to put air in my tire, where an even bigger challenge was around the corner...

As I pulled into the gas station I saw a cop car parked in front of the air pump. With no actual cop in sight, I got the sense that they parked there to be out of the way while hanging out inside.

I've had a lot of anxiety around interacting with cops the past few years.

For obvious reasons, the meaning I've made of potential cop interactions has been a big red flashing "DANGER" sign that resonates through my entire system, spiking immediate anxiety and onset of panic.

I've also made the meaning of me being helpless in those interactions. So naturally, my usual way of coping has been to generally avoid any and all contact with them.

This has been going on for years, but it hasn't always been this way for me.

I've spent most of my life feeling confident enough in my own deescalation abilities to not worry too much about cops or let it send me into a panic to have to speak to one.

My communication chops have gotten me out of a lot of potentially violent situations with cops and otherwise. I learned how to use words to soothe tension at a young age. This has made me a good and flexible mediator, knowing when to be warm and when to be firm instinctively.

Add pretty + lightskinned privilege on top of this and I've honestly had a generally easy time getting through potentially dangerous cop confrontations. Even in interactions where I'm clearly being racially profiled or bullied, I've generally walked away from those situations alive, safe, and happy with how I handled it - understanding that my own response to their behavior played a huge role in everyone making it home safe after that interaction.

Not because I made a positive meaning of cops. But because I made positive and confident meaning of myself, and my own skills and resources when interacting with them.

Considering this as I sat there behind the cop car I realized that, again, I had a choice in how I looked at this moment.

Am I going to leave and find another air pump (risking my tire going completely flat before I get there) or am I going to channel that old confidence, ease, and frankly - authority - that I carried around cops before.

Keep in mind I currently reside in Bible Belt America where racism is very alive and very well and this is a high ask for me, from me.

I chose not to escape. I chose to rise to it. I chose to remember that I was capable. I got out of the car and walked inside to ask the cop to move their car.

The interaction was refreshingly simple, easy, and even lowkey flirty/jokey from her end, which I chuckled about and thanked the universe for going easy on me. And for the affirmation that I was right for accepting this challenge.

She apologized, moved her car, was very respectful and lighthearted and all was well.

From there I needed to go get my tire plugged and went about my day, the rest of which was not just "okay" but a generally happy, easy day.

I look back on this textbook "bad" morning and - to me - I see it as a good, affirming morning.

It's easy for me to make this meaning of that morning, because my inner work and subsequent actions proved it to me.

I look back on it happily because I challenged myself to make meaning of the morning that was not just "positive", but productive for creating the kind of day I wanted to create for myself.

A day where I got to focus on work without all the added tension and anxiety. I had a perfectly relaxing work time at the coffee shop when I finally made it there. The past was in the past, exactly where I left it.

And a day where I got to feel satisfied for how I took care of myself, and proud of how I regulated and challenged myself.

I tell this story for a reason.

One of the gripes I've had with trauma informed influencers and general marketing around the topic of healing for a long time now has been how so many will denounce anything about mindset or cognitive work being helpful.

They claim that it's all about the Soma (which they define as the physical body) and feeling your feelings.

They instruct people to stop doing mindset work or that it's not real.

They shit on CBT and cognitive modalities - many of which got popular for a reason to begin with - because they have helped a lot of people to the extent that they are capable.

And I want to reiterate, I define mindset and any cognitive work as the practice of making productive, useful, healthy meaning of the events and circumstances in your life.

The work of exercising that choice to commit to the meaning that feels the best for you at the time, instead of feeling helpless and stuck in the knee-jerk reactions that don't always serve you.

If mindset work is real and does help, why are so many people hating on it?

If you've been following me closely for a while you know I was in marketing for over a decade before doing this work.

Marketers and business owners are routinely taught to point their audiences towards a "common enemy" to get people on their side, much like cult leaders and politicians.

The enemy we're taught to choose is the competition.

The competition is our enemy, so we make the competition the audience's enemy as well, to align them with us.

What I see happening in the industry is somatic-based therapists start hating on CBT or cognitive approaches and steering their audience to "not focus on mindset, just focus on your breathing and doing these hip-opening exercises" or whatever.

They teach their audience to abandon the mind for the body which isn't only misguided, but potentially harmful.

This isn't to say they're all out here manipulating people on purpose. There are a million+ ways this can innocently happen that I won't spell out here. But I will say many of them are regurgitating information that was already lined up this way, without considering for themselves if it's true or helpful.

A lot of it is group think in action. Not meant to be predatory or harmful.

But it's still harmful so it's important for people to be aware of the whole truth, which I'll get into now:

I want to be clear that I love body-based work and my approach is also Soma-informed. Like many of us, I've come to completely transform my relationship with my body as a result of doing this work.

I'm much more connected to it, my gut instinct and intuition. I'm much more expressive through it. Through somatic work I've opened up a line of communication with my body that I wouldn't trade for anything, but I want to make something clear about the Soma:

Somatic work includes mindset work.

As in: work around mindset and beliefs is not separate or in contradiction to Somatic work. It's a part of it.

The idea isn't to be against cognitive approaches to favor Somatic approaches. The idea is to expand and include the body and mind in your approach to healing.

You don't have to take my word for this. Staci Haines is one of the leading, pioneering educators behind the scenes teaching therapists and coaches about this work. In her book The Politics of Trauma she says:

"Somatics is a holistic way to transform. It engages our thinking, feeling, sensing, and actions. Transformation, from a Somatic view, means that the way we are, relate, and act becomes aligns with our visions and values - even under pressure."

Thinking, relating, visions, values - these are all constructs of the mind.

True holistic educators remind us often that the brain is a part of the body. It's not meant to be left out.

We also find it in the modalities themselves. For example:

In EMDR, a somatic based trauma healing modality that's risen in popularity, you're routinely asked to identify a core belief that's linked to the physical sensations and feelings that come up for you around a traumatic event.

The marker for progress isn't just Somatic regulation, it's also the successful "installation" of a preferred new belief.

Even when we learn more about the difference between emotions and feelings, we find a leading distinction is that emotions are the physical sensations, the feeling is the meaning we apply to the sensation.

Contrary to popular belief, Somatic healing recognizes the brain and the thoughts + beliefs that come from it as a part of the body. They are not separate. They are not enemies. They are friends.

It's not about abandoning traditional CBT practices for the sake of engaging the body.

And many people who do abandon work around mindset, beliefs, and thought patterns to feel their feelings find themselves quickly drowning in the old mindsets, beliefs, and thought patterns those old feelings bring back to the table.

Drowning, I should add, without any reassurance that the mindset work that was helping them before can actually help them now.

I'm here to tell you, it can. Keep doing it. Keep working on your mindset as you do the the rest of this work.

The meaning we make of things is arguably one of the most important factors in how we experience life.

When we look back on life, we're going to see a spectrum of experiences. A full gamut of pains and joys and inbetweens.

And when deciding whether we believe we've lived a good or bad life, what will matter is the meaning we make from those experiences. Not the experiences themselves.

Did that hardship come with a lesson? Did we find opportunity during hard times? Did we find the silver lining during painful moments?

Is it "rejection" or "redirection"?

Did that thing that happened somehow protect us from something worse?

Did the doors that closed before us finally give us a chance to see other doors open that could give us something even better?

How can we hold space for the pain of it without bypassing the beauty?

Life is life. A lot of it being a shit show is a part of the package. We don't get a choice in that and I'm not telling you to ignore it.

But how we assess it, how we think about it, the story we make from it - that is up to us.

We have a choice here. And it doesn't have to be all bad. It can be balanced. Acknowledging the pain, the joys, and the opportunities to move toward the lives we want to live, is all up to the way we choose to think about our lives.

But we do have to exercise that choice. A healthy mindset is something that happens on purpose. It's something we create and nurture and practice.

So remember this:

The mind and the body are both important.

The mind and the body are both keys to your healing and your wholeness.

The mind and the body were not made to be enemies - they exist to work together in partnership.

Mindset work is just as important as the physical work we do with the body.

The idea isn't to fight one in favor of the other. The idea is to get them on the same page.

I took many deep breaths that morning, soothing my nervous system. And, I did mindset work in the moment - to choose the meaning I'd make of what was happening in my life.

A meaning that was productive.

A meaning that was healthy.

A meaning that allowed me to move forward into ease and hope and happiness instead of succumbing to the trauma-based meanings that keep us stuck in misery and anxiety.

Get curious about your mindset today. Do some work around it.

If it's helped you before, it could help you again. No matter what's trending right now.

Tori