A note before you read. This is an article about where an urge may come from, not about what to do in a crisis. If you are in danger right now, or you are not sure whether you are, that is a different conversation and it needs a person, not

Introduction If you have read the books, know your patterns by name, can trace the shutdown all the way back to where it started, and you can explain it to a friend so clearly they nod along. And then your partner shuts a door a little too hard, and your

Introduction If you have spent the last few months watching people explain how to rewire your brain, and you have tried the habit stacks and the morning routines and the reframes and something in you is still bracing, you are not doing it wrong. You are working on the right

Introduction If you have looked into somatic therapy and come away with a lot of language about the nervous system and almost no concrete examples of what actually happens in a session, you are not alone. I am Alex Papaconstantinou, a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (SEP), Somatic Educator and Bodyworker and

Introduction If you have done years of therapy and still wake up in a body that has not caught up, this is the page you have been looking for. Somatic Experiencing is an approach to trauma that works with the physiology of your threat responses, the automatic states your body

Introduction Functional freeze is a low, conserving state your body drops into and cannot seem to climb out of, even while the rest of your life keeps running. You get to work. You answer some of the messages. You keep the basic machinery going. Underneath that, your physiology is braced