The Somatic Science® Approach- Part 2
Somatic Science® is a highly effective neurocognitive & nondual wisdom approach. It supports our nervous system to become regulated, relaxed and harmonized with itself & the external environment. This helps us to develop a basic capacity for self-attunement and self-regulation, which are essential for satisfying relationships with our self and others. This approach fills the void left by Science and Spirituality yet embraces both, which ignore the great importance of Nervous System Regulation in our lives.
In the first part of this blog series, I reviewed the basis for this approach. You can read it here if you missed it. I also reviewed the basic biology of the threat response cycle (TRC), and my take on the developmental consequences of childhood adverse experiences (ACEs). Without this basic understanding of our own nervous system, remembering our essential happiness is so hard that it might as well be seen as impossible.
Our approach underscores the critical role of nervous system regulation in achieving emotional clarity and happiness, suggesting a profound interplay between physiological mechanisms, early experiences, and self-perception.
Understanding Our Nervous System as a Continuously Updating Biological Mechanism
Somatic Science® studies how our organism and nervous system function in tandem as a continuously updating biological mechanism that strives to return to homeostasis. For us, that is the baseline level of bodily functioning necessary for basic self-regulation. This happens when our Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) processes experiences that allow us to feel safe, alive, and curious. This parasympathetic state is what allows for resting, healing, and digesting our experiences. That is when we can access our conscious awareness of time, space, bodily condition, and capacity for emotional self-regulation. And it is what enables us to consciously operate in relationships with self or others. All of these beneficial and functional capacities are ONLY possible when we re-gain voluntary and direct interoceptive access to our face. This is where the evolutionary mechanisms for self-regulation via neurocognitive relational dialog can be activated.
Incomplete nervous system responses to past trauma disrupt the completion of the Threat Response Cycle (TRC), resulting in maladaptive patterns like anxiety and chronic stress.
The Barriers to Happiness as Consequences of Incomplete Nervous System Responses
Yet the process of reaching homeostasis and self-regulation is often blocked by past incomplete nervous system impulses that arise when undigested experiences enter the updating cycle and there is not enough containment in safety for them to be fully released. Then they manifest as cognitive & emotional stresses, tightness, or unpleasant sensations in the body. These unresolved ANS cycles can present as patterns of anxiety, depression, apathy, or chronic stress, which are symptoms of the organism’s attempt to complete the Threat Response Cycle (TRC). The TRC is an evolved biological sequence or program that helps all mammals mobilize metabolic energy in response to threats. When this sequence is disrupted by inescapable situations in the form of childhood fear-conditioning or abuse, trauma, or societal pressure, it leads to a dysfunctional cycle that we identify as the mTRC - maladaptive Threat Response Cycle. This mal-adaptive cycle overrides our sense of innate goodness, preventing the ANS from achieving homeostasis and resulting in muscular, cognitive, and behavioral fixations. Early child conditioning through punishment blocks the completion of TRC behaviors, keeping us from recognizing that we are alive, safe, and capable of curiosity and engagement with life. The body’s internal signals indicate attempts by the ANS to complete these responses and reach a state of completion. If allowed, this will naturally lead to self-awareness and emotional clarity. Yet we often struggle for completion or are completely unaware of this possibility in us. The underlying issue is that past experiences of external punishment have been internalized, transforming into a self-imposed attitude of self-punishment. This self-punishment operates in a straightforward manner: by rejecting and denying one's existence as it truly is. This internal rejection creates a deeply entrenched conflict within our nervous system and perpetuates patterns of dysregulated emotional and behavioral cycles, which we refer to as the mTRC. This is the basis for existential trauma - the somatically bound fear to exist.
From a non-dualistic somatic perspective, happiness stems from a regulated nervous system, not external achievements relative to circumstance.
Happiness & Unhappiness: A Measure of Nervous System Regulation
The Somatic Science® perspective is that happiness isn't about achieving external success or pleasure. What we really need are the necessary conditions for basic regulation. Happiness is the absence of suffering and for us, suffering is a chronic experience of moderate to high intensity of the mTRC. Happiness requires homeostasis & self-regulation, where the body feels alive, safe, and the capacity for curiosity is present. In this condition, we're fully present, alive, and curious about the world around us.
Unhappiness is the result of chronic nervous system dysregulation. When the mTRC is constantly activated, we feel on edge, anxious, or depressed—even if there's nothing objectively wrong in our lives. The inability to deactivate this cycle leads to ongoing dissatisfaction, discomfort and even illness.
Existential trauma as the mTRC arise only when childhood fear and parental neglect deny a child’s fundamental and unconditional existence.
Fixations and Binding: Stuck in a Cycle
Somatic Science® offers a way to understand how our nervous system reacts when we don’t have the resources to fully process the TRC over a long time. This leads to a dysfunctional mTRC, which we also call existential trauma. Here, the threatening situation is simply existing and being discovered by others (usually parents) while existing; being fully present & alive. The mTRC forms when a child’s essential existence is not acknowledged by those who naturally should provide love and protection but instead cause harm, often throughout childhood. This harm is usually the denial of the child’s primordial existence on an unconditional basis. On the more severe side, it can involve actively breaking down the child’s self-confidence using physical, emotional, or other types of direct punishment. This forces the ANS to enter a cycle of functioning that evolution designed ONLY for facing life-threatening situations where neither fighting nor escaping is possible. The ANS enters a non-relational cycle that weakens the neural connections between the face, heart, and abdominal organs. Existential trauma is a physical form of dysregulation tied to autonomic dysregulation and often leads to chronic illnesses in adulthood, as shown in the ACE Study. Over two decades of working on my own healing and supporting others, I have seen various digestive, immune, respiratory, hormonal, circulatory, and central nervous system problems that match these findings.
The path out of fear-based conditioning begins by recognizing that unhappiness results from the "body-mind construct" as shaped by the mTRC.
Leaving the Cycle of Fear
Most of our maladaptive nervous system responses stem from early experiences of fear and immobility, when we were punished simply for being ourselves. Our joyful presence was not celebrated but ignored or punished. Parental conditioning (education and punishment) often passes down unresolved fears from them and theirs, setting us up to react to life as though we’re constantly in danger. The reason is that fear conditioning is turned inward, and we learn to punish ourselves. The punishment is simple: I cannot be myself, exactly as I am, because no one will love me. I am ashamed to exist. This keeps the mTRC hyperactive. The danger is to be ignored, unloved for being just as we are. This cycle creates a limited sense of self—one that is rooted in fear and all the fixations of the body-mind we just described. We take the first step to leave this cycle when we recognize that we are unhappy or uncomfortable with ourselves on a consistent basis. Then we have the opportunity to recognize that there might be a part of ourselves behind this, and that we as a whole have been living from this very small part that then forms into a "body-mind construct" with which we identify.
Understanding parts is a creative endeavor, yet we address them quite simply: as a form of nervous system dysregulation. Somatic Science® emphasizes that the "body-mind construct" is not who we truly are, but a product of our fear-conditioning and identification with the mTRC. By learning to self-regulate and release these fixations, we can re-discover our self—the One that is free from fear-based limitations.
We will explore the different aspects of healing the mTRC in the next posting. There is a way out of suffering. Nature does not compel us, but actually supports us towards happiness. The evolutionary gift of curiosity is the key.
Comments