Hey there Reader,

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Have you ever heard of the saying, ‘shake it off’?

If you haven’t, it essentially means to ‘get over’ something.

If you’re like me, you probably haven't put much thought into where this saying came from.

But a recent psychedelic experience with one of my closest friends inspired me to do a little digging.

Before I go any further, check out this video​

The impala was quite literally staring death in the eyes with its neck in the grips of the jaguar.

Talk about a traumatic experience!

Unlike us humans, many animals have this ability to quickly release trauma.

For you and I unfortunately, the process of overcoming trauma is often much more difficult and lengthy.

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Most people that come to psychedelics for healing are looking to cure mind-related disorders.

This isn’t really a surprise considering most of the published research around psychedelics.

Take a look at the studies and you’ll see for yourself.

The vast majority of them are related to fixing mental health related disorders like:

• PTSD
• Depression
• Anxiety
• Addictions

This is all well and good…

But it overlooks an important aspect which is that these seemingly mental disorders often have roots in past trauma.

And trauma can manifest in both mental AND physical forms.

Enter the field of ‘somatic therapy’ and the practice of ‘somatic experiencing’.

Somatic experiencing is based on this idea that trauma gets lodged in the body’s nervous system

Trauma then manifests as mental disorders such as anxiety, PTSD, depression, etc.

Somatic experiencing therapists recognize the mind-body connection.

They understand that sometimes merely talking about one’s issues isn’t enough to eliminate them.

One of the best quotes I read when researching this topic comes from the book, ‘The Body Keeps the Score’:

The practices involved in somatic experiencing are things like breathing exercises, sensation awareness, certain forms of targeted physical exercise, massage therapy, grounding exercises, and dance therapy to name a few.

Now, because psychedelics allow us to confront repressed experiences, they can help us identify the source and location where trauma is stored.

Psychedelics can act as amplifiers.

By amplifying the traumatic experience, we get a better understanding of where in the body our focus should be directed to release the lodged trauma.

This is a very deep topic that still requires a lot of research.

If you’re interested in learning more, I suggest checking out this link.

This is a very new area of study for me.

So if you have any experiences or thoughts, I’d love to hear from you!

Feel free to reply to this email.

Until next time!

Riaz W.

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