Emotional States

Maybe nothing is suppressed, and the feelings really are under control. Maybe all it takes is a good mattress and a sleeping pill. Maybe...

But in my practice, these exact words are most often where the work on what’s called blunted affect begins: a blocked capacity to feel fully, vividly, deeply.

A full emotional life isn’t something only the psyche needs. Without it, life isn’t really life but mere existence: flat, monotonous, blank.

But the body needs it too. What blocks feelings is chronic tension. A body that can’t truly relax can’t truly rally either: sleep stops restoring you, every action costs more, and over time your hormones and metabolism are forced to adapt to this tension.

This state doesn’t arise on its own, by accident. But my method isn’t about finding and understanding the causes; it’s about freeing the body from their traces. So the work doesn’t start with talking about your childhood. It starts with finding and releasing the tensions that, among other things, block feelings. They can be found with my hands, and worked on directly.

And then life gradually regains its color: rest becomes real rest, emotions become vivid. For some people this is a return to life. For others, the first discovery of it.

Maybe the cause is a painful experience: in the past, emotions like these signaled aggression or psychological pressure. Maybe you’re highly empathetic and get drawn into other people’s states. A cause for your reactions can always be found. They don’t come out of nowhere. But how does that help you deal with them?

Train for it: deliberately seek out similar situations and learn to hold yourself back? That can help. At the cost of unpleasant experiences and new tension you build into yourself.

Process the causes, relive old traumas all the way through, forgive and let go? That can help. Partly. Because part of the mechanism that triggers your reaction does live in the mind, and working with that part helps.

But have you noticed that the reaction starts instantly, before you have time to think and decide how to respond? That’s because what triggers it isn’t the mind but the body. Which is exactly why understanding and processing the causes only helps partially. Body patterns formed long ago are very stable. They don’t change on their own, and awareness alone doesn’t change them either. Training teaches you to hold back the reaction, but it doesn’t change the pattern.

The good news is that these patterns can be found and worked on directly, with my hands. And then the body stops automatically running old scripts every time some detail, often a minor one, reminds it of past experience. And you gain the ability to consciously choose how to respond to what’s happening right now.

Maybe you just haven’t come across anything that genuinely captivates you. But very often the cause turns out to be something else entirely.

I come across complaints like these very often. And most of the time, losing your joy and interest turns out not to be about joy or interest at all. It’s about resources.

What would you say if someone asked whether you’d like to fly like a bird? Most likely you’d say the question makes no sense. You don’t have wings. It’s not that you don’t want to. You can’t.

Maybe the same thing happens with your true desires. You don’t even consider them, because the resources you’d need to make them happen aren’t available to you. Maybe what you’re missing is wings or a billion dollars — and that’s where somatic therapy can’t help you. But very often you already have everything you need. And you always have. Only it’s being spent on maintaining pointless tension in the body. And it just needs to be freed up.

Habitual chronic tension is hard to notice. That’s why so many people don’t realize how much energy they constantly burn just maintaining it. The body sits motionless, doing no useful work. None at all. And yet a relaxed body in this state is resting, while a tense body is working hard.

I can find the tension in the body with my hands and gradually reduce it. And then there’s more energy, and interest and drive come back. Many people transform even outwardly: they straighten up, come alive, begin to glow. Sometimes for the first time in many years.