Hello and welcome to my podcast, The Wellness Project with Des. On today’s podcast episode, I speak with Suse Silva about the healing power of somatic practices.
I’m Desiree, a Mental Health Therapist and Holistic Wellness Coach, passionate about helping people improve their mental health and live a healthy and fulfilled life. One way I do this is by interviewing experts in the field of mental health and wellness as well as those that share their first hand accounts with their mental health journeys. In this episode, we will hear from Suse about how body based practices and connecting with her body helped to improve her mental health.
Suse Silva was diagnosed with Type I Bipolar Disorder when she experienced several manic episodes while she was completing her degree in fine arts. Suse was hospitalized which was traumatic for her. When she was released from the hospital, Suse was put on medications to manage the manic episode but she wanted to go deeper and find ways to process her experiences and explore why these manic episodes were occurring. Suse discovered she had ancestral trauma also known as generational trauma. Wanting to heal without relying on medications, Suse explored various modalities and began to develop strategies to live a well and balanced life.
Suse’s healing journey and exploration began with yoga tacher training. While studying yoga, she was implementing practices such as breathwork, pranayama, and meditation. Her whole perspective on life began to shift. Suse began to understand how powerful somatic practices are for healing. She learned that body-based practices linked with the breath were incredibly healing for her. Somatic practices helped her to rewire her brain and regulate her nervous system. By engaging in these practices, Suse was also able to clear trauma from her body without knowing exactly what the trauma was and without having to vocalize the trauma which can actually be retraumatizing.
In our conversation, Suse explains why it’s so important to reconnect with our bodies and somatic practices you can easily incorporate to heal mentally, emotionally, and physically. Listen to our conversation to learn more.