EP42 – What Is Somatic Therapy

Matthew J. Brownstein hosts Dr. Kelsey Evans-Amalu  in this special episode of Illuminated Mind®. Dr. Kelsey Evans-Amalu is a consultant, researcher, and teacher of somatic practice, contemplative philosophy, and applied mindfulness coaching for all ages- as a practitioner herself, Dr. K stands upon the intersection of trauma-informed and culturally responsive teaching through the use of mindfulness and social emotional learning.

Hello everyone and welcome to the illuminated mind podcast with me Matthew Brownstein founder and lead instructor of the Institute of interpersonal hypnotherapy. I am pleased, very pleased to have with me today Dr. Kelsey Evans, Emmylou, Dr. Kay, who’s going to talk to us a lot about the spiritual path, meditation, trauma and or trauma informed mindfulness course. So let me just turn it over to you to say hello, and then I’ll read your bio, and then we’ll dive right in.
Yeah, thanks, Matthew. I really appreciate you inviting me on today. And just a little bit more about me I prefer to be called Dr. Kay. It’s very affectionate and just a lot easier sometimes to say then my hyphenated last name. And I’m really interested in exploring the intersection of meditation and hypnosis today.
Perfect. Thank you and your bio is in brief, Dr. Kelsey Evans, Emmylou is a consultant researcher and teacher of somatic practice, contemplative philosophy, and applied mindfulness coaching for all ages. As a practitioner herself, Dr. K stands upon the intersection of trauma informed and culturally responsive teaching, through the use of mindfulness and social emotional learning, PhD in education, master’s in education, 500, our E ry T, certified yoga teacher, trainer, kids yoga certified trauma, yoga certified, certified meditation teacher, Reiki certified, certified professional life coach, you’re one of those who just never stops getting education, which is
that’s how I stumbled across your work. Because I want to continue
my nose, we’re collaborating, you’re helping us behind the scenes and probably be going through our training, but mostly, you are going to be presenting at a conference and the topic is redefining facilitation, embracing a path of healing and enlightenment. So I said this the landmine podcast, we want to go deep. And that’s our intention. So when we were talking about what would we talk about? We were talking about this idea of spiritual bypassing, or I heard the term recently and it’s like, oh, yeah, that’s so many people do that this toxic positivity, or not embracing the shadow self, and you’ve learned that people can meditate and meditate, but they’re not dealing with the real issue and hypnotherapy. We acknowledge, okay, yeah, the altered state is great, but we primarily use it to get to the root cause of a person’s problems. When somebody is using yoga meditation to avoid problems. They’re actually causing more problems. Right? So you gotta like, yeah,
so yeah, it’s, it’s been really interesting to observe. And it comes up a lot within my one on one coaching with folks, it’s come up in my research, just understanding the depths of meditation practices, yogic practices, and why folks are even using these practices in the first place. And it’s also even come up with, even in my own exploration of initially entering into somatic practices for myself, and I didn’t realize I was spiritually bypassing myself initially. So it’s definitely a common theme that I’ve seen, even more recently, as somatic practices has largely become more than norm, and people are being introduced to them every single day and practicing more. And they think that it could be a cure all. And they desire this freedom from suffering. But it’s not necessarily a cure all. From eliminating and looking at the shadow self. So it’s been very interesting to see. Literally everywhere in my work,
yes, let’s dive deep into it. For those who don’t know, let’s just talk about the shadow self. So let’s say I’m a meditator, and I’m trying to just bliss out and higher consciousness. I’m trying to get my Kundalini awakened, I’m opening my chopper is focusing on the light. But what about the shadow? So what is this shadow? What is this other side of us that really needs to be embraced?
Yeah, I think a lot about Richard Schwartz work with just internal family systems and how we within our psychology of just within our own minds and expansiveness, there are many different parts of ourselves, which are, I love what he says we’re there’s no bad parts to ourself, meaning that we have our authentic self. We have parts of us that we might be more willing to share with other folks or we’re more willing to accept even of ourselves. But then sometimes there exist, actually not sometimes all the time. There exists parts of ourselves that we might consider the shadow or Something that we might even consider to internal family systems work, we call it the exiled self. So it’s, there’s no bad parts of who we are. But a lot of the times, especially with how we go about our daily experience, we tend to want to shine are the parts of ourselves that are more acceptable, and society, or even acceptable to our own state of being. But the shadow part of who we are is really integral. And coming to terms with our entire holistic understanding of ourself.
You feel, yeah, I’m gonna play I have the answer to these questions. I really want to hear from you. Why would somebody who’s saying, but everything’s an illusion, none of that is real, I just want to go to the light, I just want to be spiritual or things like that the past is over, I don’t need to look at my past, you know, or that’s just all negativity, I’m trying to be positive. It’s a huge trap that people don’t necessarily realize,
yeah, it’s like, if we’re looking at it from the aspect of meditation. And I am consistently sitting with my thoughts, because I, I practice predominantly of upasana practice, a Buddhist practice, that really is an observation of the thoughts that continue to come up. So if I were to sit and practice and not acknowledge the part of myself that continues to arise, in my own mind, where I’m noticing these things of this self talk, these limiting beliefs that continue to arise, every time that I sit on the meditation cushion, that I’m really creating a trap for myself, where I’m not accessing a deeper understanding of like, okay, well, where’s this limiting belief arising? And how can I look at this limiting belief as a gateway or tool to access even? Yes, positivity? Yes, moving towards the light. But if we’re not going through all the different doors of our own mind is really challenging to get to, quote unquote, the light or really starting to see and have a more neutral understanding of our own thoughts and positive or negative or whatever you want to call it.
Yeah, use the term spiritual bypassing, how would you define that? It sounds to me like, you’re saying, Well, I want to get to the light. So the skirting around my heart, avoiding my body and my Yeah, I’m looking at the Cymatics. I’m not looking at the emotional side, I’m just like, is bypassing just skirting around the human to try to find spirit?
Yeah, that’s a great question. So from just a not a theoretical understanding, or like the scientific terminology of it, but for spiritual bypassing, it’s often used within and you can mean, you can apply it really anywhere. But spiritual bypassing, in layman’s terms, would be using a practice or using a religious tradition, a spiritual tradition, to almost move into the state of toxic positivity. Where we are, I have a lot of my background in how I was personally raised, I was raised Southern Baptist. And to kind of give an example of what spiritual bypassing is, oftentimes, my upbringing suggested to just pray away some of the things that I was experiencing. And a lot of these experiences were very much traumatic experiences in my own upbringing. And I thought that I could just pray it away, or using even going to other religious traditions of using a particular practice, to kind of ignore what we were talking about earlier, the shadow side of the self or one part of ourselves that really needs to be addressed. So yes, these practices of that are rooted in spirituality and religion are amazing. But if it’s limiting, understanding our entire aspect of ourselves that would technically be termed spiritual bypassing.
Thank you for the explanation. I think it’s such an important topic and students who go through my training clients I’ve worked with, it’s amazing how the human heart why we know it’s all about the heart. But internally, like you said, Leslie, the scientist, I like what is your own internal subjective experience? If you’re denying and you have a body and an emotional side of you, then meditation really can be in some sense destructive, if you’re, yeah, ignore all of that. So You teach something on trauma informed mindfulness, a trauma informed mindfulness course. Can you elaborate on how what that is? And how the trauma part relates to mindfulness that it sounds like you’re willing to be mindful of your traumas, instead of only trying to be mindful of the light.
Right, exactly. And so a lot of the times, let me define trauma informed mindfulness first, because I want to, I’m like, I can just quickly jump in with many example, after example. But trauma informed mindfulness is actually a pretty recent thing that came about through a guy named David Treleaven, who is also a therapist or wonderful human being. And he calls it more trauma sensitive mindfulness, trauma informed trauma sensitive, relatively the same thing. But what he was looking at in his work as a therapist, when he was using mindfulness based practices, he kept seeing the spiritual bypassing occur. And a lot of the times folks would have adverse reactions to mindfulness based interventions, when it wasn’t being looked at in a trauma informed way. So because so many folks have had traumatic experiences. Right now, I believe the statistic is about 70, to 80% of folks in the United States, have had some form of traumatic experience within some part of their lives. So that’s a pretty high rate. Considering that a lot has happened even just within the past five years, that would be identified as traumatic just as a global context. But trauma informed mindfulness is really necessary to Yes, applying mindfulness based interventions of awareness, compassion, using meditation as a tool for mindfulness based interventions, and other other forms of somatic based practice. But if it’s not looked at through a trauma informed lens, it can be really challenging for not only ourselves as the practitioner of mindfulness, but if I am a teacher of mindfulness based practices, or if I am a therapist, that’s using mindfulness based practices, if we’re not taking that trauma informed approach, it could be detrimental to our clients, to the classes that we’re teaching. And also even to when I personally practice or if you personally practice. So it’s just a different way of considering the intersection of a trauma informed approach and understanding what trauma is. And also looking at, well, what is mindfulness? And how can I apply this to personalize and support myself along the way, and looking still at like the hard stuff, but doing it in a way that I will be retriggered or re traumatized, where I can end up spiraling out and just going backwards. So trauma informed mindfulness is again, just a different way of approaching mindfulness based strategies or practices as a whole. But we have to have an information and understanding to kind of Springboard like what trauma is and springboard off of that to apply to the practices themselves. So it’s, it’s, it’s a pretty niche intersection. But I find it very important. As far as a being a teacher of trauma, somatic practices is concerned, especially working with folks that do have past traumas.
so valuable. It sounds like a maturation and understanding that we’re finally getting in the West is yes, meditation. But then Westerners weren’t so into that. We called it mindfulness. Okay, now we’re into mindfulness right? Now you have to say, okay, but now that you’re getting into meditation. So I always saw mindfulness, like the watered down spirituality, yes, that meditation usually implies. So now we’re saying, Okay, you’re being mindful. But now we’re saying you need to be mindful of this traumatic side of you. With you, the idea of you mentioned this other person, I’m laughing with his name. This person who came up with this idea of trauma informed mindfulness is a therapist or you have your doctorate but it’s an education. So you’re not like a licensed counselor. I know and it’s largely from Chinese medicine, but then I just dedicate my whole life to hypnotherapy. So I am not a licensed psychologist, but you and I both are dabbling in these aspects of the mind. So my dear mentor, Mr. Gil Boyne, he called hypnotherapy a therapy for the people. And we’ve really worked hard over the years to protect this person. issue so that anybody can help anybody. Right? So I wonder if you could speak up when we talk about dealing with trauma, when we’re typically talking about on license people who are not psychotherapist, but who help each other? And Is that so wrong?
Right? So I, I, this has happened actually, within the past couple of weeks, this has come up a couple of times, especially with folks that some of my clients right now, their traumatic experiences are very much fresh. So I always look at my own scope of practice, and looking at okay, well, what is my role in this place? And also, how can I keep the ethics of mindfulness based interventions, and using meditation as a tool to really facilitate this individuals path, but also recognizing, okay, well, is this my role to take is this client, someone that I should be seeing, especially if their trauma is fresh. And generally, when I go through the process of just the intake forms with the clients, I’m always trying to maintain an ethical understanding again, of where my scope of practice is. So for just based off of that, I tend to maintain a scope of practice where if a client is coming in, that has pretty fresh, traumatic experiences, I only take them on as a client, if they are also seeing somebody that is a licensed mental health counselor, or a psychiatrist, someone that is certified within the field of more of their cognitive based processing. And then I’m working with the somatic side of things. And what’s really wonderful, and I really enjoying the fact that a lot of these other practitioners in the field, like other counselors, other psychologists, psychiatrists, they are really willing and want to work with me, where if I have a client, again, that has had a fresh, traumatic experience, or, again, maybe it’s causing, like they were retriggered, or re traumatized, I always get the clients permission to see if I can have a conversation with their therapist, if they’re open to that, because I believe that we are a field of practitioners working together for the holistic understanding of an individual. And that’s where I try to make sure that I create boundaries for myself, because I know that my scope of practice is definitely not clinical. So I try to maintain that ethical understanding, but also still serving the client in a way that gets them on a path towards greater healing and awareness. But doing it again, in a trauma informed and also within my own scope of practice.
Beautiful. Once again, it sounds like a very mature and responsible way to practice. I mean, in our school, we teach scope of practice and assessment. We teach ethics, understanding the law and never working outside of the scope of your credential.
Totally. Yeah, totally. And I see that a lot. I don’t know if you see that a lot in hypnosis practices, or folks that use hypnosis as an intervention tool. But I see that a lot in life coaching, I see it in meditation coaching, it seems to be a thing that has greatly arisen within the past like decade, as coaching has become a lot more popular and accessible. But I’m curious to see if that’s something that you’ve encountered as well.
Yeah, I think like we’re seeing more and more people are getting into caregiving and wanting to help others. And of course, in miracles, there is a question in the teachers manual, it says, is psychotherapy a profession? And it says, strictly speaking, no, because how could something that everyone is involved in be a separate profession, although people go on to make that their profession? So yeah, I see that with coaches, I see that in our field. You see this with meditation instructors, it’s like, how much do you push that? But anyway, we talked about let’s, uh, let’s stay more on that in the internal process itself. So we talked about bottom up or top down, and most people didn’t say both proaches really valid, but I wonder if you can just elaborate from your work and what is it like to start bottom up the somatic side? Or what is it like to start from top down? Just want to hear your thoughts about that?
Yeah, I think it goes back to the example that I just gave and the importance of working with other practitioners, especially for if a person Since already coming in with a therapist, and they’re predominantly operating from the top down being like, working with more of cognitive based therapies, versus what I tend to work with, which would be bottom up approaches of working into the body first. And it does depend on each individual, when I am taking their intake, just seeing again, like where they’re at what they’re looking for where they want to go, it will greatly depend. So if somebody has had, for example, I get a lot of folks that have had years of top bass therapy, and they’re just looking for a different approach, because they’re like, Well, why is my body still responding this way. And that’s where I lead more into the bottom up approach, that they’ve been working with the mind so much. And that they’re just again, looking for something that they haven’t explored before, which is tends to be somatic based approaches of bottom up processing, of looking more at it through the lens of regulation of the central nervous system, rather than predominantly operating with like the mind always wanting to take over and be like, Well, I’m one thing saying this in my mind, but my body’s saying another thing. So I have a lot of folks that do come in with that interest in mind. Other folks desire strictly a lot of meditation coaching, which yes, it can go into the somatic as we are focusing on the breath, we are focusing on awareness of the body. But it also leads into this top down approach, where the mind is definitely going to show up. So there’s, it does depend on the individual and the desire of the client. But as far as the beauty of the two working together, even if I’m going from a bottom up approach first and going predominantly into the body right away, they will begin to notice the mind as they are not separate. So we also have to dress again, well, what are your limiting beliefs saying in this space? And how can we access that in a safe way that will also allow the body to come along with it. So it’s just a very interesting. It’s an ebb and flow so much, where yes, I can enter in initially from a bottom up approach, but then it can, the next session could be like, Okay, well, now we’re going in predominantly into like, well, what is the mindset within this past week since I last saw you. So definitely changes session a session. And I think it’s important to have awareness of both in these spaces. So yes, I can provide different somatic tools. But the mind is always going to be there. And you know, how can we examine both in a supportive and compassionate way?
Beautiful, yeah. Again, mature, responsible approach thing. There’s body, there’s mind and then go from top down and go bottom up. Wondering, we didn’t talk about it before us and I on the spot for a case history, somebody that comes to mind where you’ve done your work? And yeah, just stands out as a really wonderful transformation.
Yeah, oh, my gosh, it’s, I’m continually inspired by the clients that I work with. So I’ll give one specific person. And then I’ll do it another one, because again, one is more somatic. And one is more meditation, which mean, so much overlap in these spaces, but you might be able to see a difference. And I’m happy to re explain if needed. So one client came to me. And she was working with one of my, one of my friends who’s a therapist, and the therapist recommended me as a person that could be a wonderful resource, as this individual was so actively involved in her meditation practice many years ago, but it actually brought up religious trauma, every time that she tried to meditate, especially recently, within the past couple years. So she came to me at the intersection of the desire to meditate and the desire to have a just a deeper understanding of self regulation, tools, and deeper awareness of herself. But the inhibiting factor of her practicing was the religious trauma that you kept experiencing. So what was fascinating in this in the gateway to practice is a lot of the research suggests that other practices that wouldn’t be in alignment with a lot of a lot of what she was triggered by was a lot of prayer or any other formal practice where, you know, we’d sit down and we begin a meditation and and she’d just freeze. So a lot of the research that I was looking at was initially with more of the creative side, and more of the movement side of somatic and contemplative practices. So we entered in from that space, rather than the formal practices, which she often associated with her Christian upbringing of stillness practices, generative practices, where she automatically associated that with the religious trauma and, and the triggers that would just automatically just send her into fight or flight, sometimes freeze responses, we went the other route of creative. So we did a lot of different coloring, we did static dance, we also did yoga as mindful movement based practice. And that’s, and it took a little bit for her to kind of process what was happening in her body first. But one day it clicked, where she was like Kelsey, I’m ready to meditate. I was like, oh, okay, she came to session, she’s like, I really want to try meditation. She’s like I trust you, which is another really big thing in trauma. Informed mindfulness is yes, the scope of practice and what I personally do, but also creating a relationship that feels safe. And I’m sure that you talked about it in your school as well, and creating and cultivating a safe space for the client to come into, where she didn’t feel that I was pushing any practices on her, and moving with curiosity, and curiosity of the body. And she felt really ready to pursue something that still felt that it could potentially be traumatic. But she trusted me to move her through in a way and facilitate the process that still felt agentic to her choice, and her hips, and her human needs. And it took a couple months to get there. But now she’s been she chose she’s choosing to meditate every single day. On her own accord. She’s now bought a couple books that are now pursuing just the depths of like what meditation is. And, of course, I go over that with her, but also giving her agency like, Hey, here’s some resources. If you want to pursue this more deeply, you have that option. And now we’re going into a lot of the shadow side that is coming up, now that she’s moving into this deeper state of meditation that she’s been practicing for the past couple months. So it’s been really beautiful to see this transformation of the first session that we work together, she, we did a coloring based activity that even that felt triggering, even though it was from a mindfulness based understanding, to now moving into in just six months, which that might feel really long for the client. And I totally acknowledge that. But from the grand scheme of things, that’s really a short amount of time to move from like, can even color as a mindfulness based practice, to now sitting in like 20 minutes of Vipassana based practices that allow her to sit with some of her emotional experiences, sit with her body, and sit with the minds. It’s been really beautiful to witness. So that would be definitely a client that I would say, would be more than meditative aspect. But yes, I did more of the top, excuse me, bottom up approach. The other client came to me, I had known her for a bit and she had seen my personal journey with meditation. And she just always had been interested. But she had a traumatic experience where her husband had committed suicide. And ever since then, she had been in this freeze response for the past couple of years that she was like, you know, my therapist, again recommended meditation. I know that you are doing this and again, very similar to the other client that had religious trauma. Uh, this, this individual was very hesitant initially. And again, I think of, like not moving too quickly and too much too fast. Doing tiny practices over the span of time really allowed her to feel familiar again, like, Okay, well meditation is safe. I can be with my thoughts, the thoughts, yes are overwhelming at times. But I always have the freedom to exit. So giving her that idea that, you know, you don’t always have to, like sit in that state of meditation, especially if it’s really traumatizing you in a way, but giving her other tools such as walking meditation, getting yogic practices, she also, we also explored, dance, we explored pole fitness together. So that was, that was an interesting journey, because like considering the embodiment of her Divine Feminine was another way to move into the bottom up approach with that. So I always, anytime that I work with a client that has really anything traumatic experience, and or really any client in general, like the number one thing is to offer choice and practices, and know that there’s not a one size fits all approach. So that individual now the person that had their husband, tragically passed away, she is now again meditating every day, and doing body based practices that feel really fulfilling to her own expression of her of herself. And I see her talk a lot about, she’ll talk a lot about the experiences that she has, where she’s like, you know, Kelsey, couple of months ago, when I first came to you, you know, I would not be able to sit with some of the shadow side or some of these hard feelings that are coming up. But I’m noticing that they are necessary parts of myself to witness in order to have this greater healing of Yes, what’s happened in the past and come to come to terms come to acceptance with that, but also just a greater healing of herself that she never knew before, because of her past upbringing, and then the traumatic experiences that she’s had. So each each client that I’ve worked with has been so beautiful in their own own right their own way. And, again, I would say that the trauma informed part of the approaches that I use with somatic somatic understanding of yourself, or just greater awareness of yourself as a whole, has a lot to do with choice has a lot to do with the relationship that we formed with the clients. And also the process of taking it slow.
So I think a lot about oh, my gosh, my name is blanking me, Dr. Peter Levine, and his somatic experiencing, where he talks a lot about the pendulum swing between something that feels uncomfortable, and going back to something that feels comfortable. And that’s where the beauty of these practices occurs, that we offer them so many different ways to explore who they are, but still finding a way where they can meet themselves and the discomfort and the ease.
Beautiful, thanks for sharing those two stories. I love hearing about people you are getting into meditation one way or another. Yeah, a lot of tools in your bag of tricks. So you can be flexible, like you said, there’s no one size fits all. But as a long term practitioner and teacher of yoga and meditation, it’s always great to find the hear stories. So people are coming on board. Even if Yeah, like recovering Christians or Yeah, yeah, people are dealing with trauma. So yeah, it’s beautiful work you’re doing. If people wanted to get in touch with you to private sessions or courses, how would they do that?
Yeah, they can go to the mindful profit.com. And they’ll be able to book a free inquiry call just to learn more about what somatic experiencing is. Or if they want to learn more about meditation or yoga, again, many different tools to use. But if they could go to my website, that is always the best way to reach me. I’m also on social media, on LinkedIn under Dr. Kelsey Evans Omalu also under the mindful prof LLC, and on Facebook as well under the My Prof I’d be happy to reach out and talk to them. Because again, sometimes this stuff can feel really overwhelming, especially because like you’re mentioning earlier, in a westernized understanding mindfulness has been greatly watered down. And now we just use it in our common language or like, well, what does mindfulness even mean? I’m so confused. So I’m happy to walk them through and facilitate just a deeper understanding, again, of whatever they want to pursue, whether that be meditation, or somatic based understanding of themselves.
You got a full Thank you, I can’t wait to hear you present at our conference and to keep working with you and collaboration. If you had some closing words, anything you would share, this is your chance to have a message to the world what would that be?
Um, I like to think about Dr. John John Kabat Zinn’s quote where he says, we can’t, we can’t stop the waves, but we can learn to surf. And yes, that there will be many different experiences that we have over our lifetime, whether that they range from traumatic to happy. But we have tools that we can access for many different practitioners that we can use to help the surfing be a lot easier. And that we can actually balance on the board of the surfboard, if you will. So again, just thinking about spiritual bypassing, and like the positive navigate negative experiences of life yet, yes, the waves will happen. Yes, we will have some stillness. Yes, we will have a complete deluge of water, but always looking for ways to access her toolbox, just for greater peace and equanimity of ourselves.
It’s beautiful. Thank you. I love that quote. So you can’t stop the waves, but you can learn how to surf. Yeah, learning to surrender to open up to allow emotions to flow not to be suppressing them, but to learn to dance with all of it instead of these walls and divisions that we put up. So thank you. So literally offering a beautiful holistic model and holistic in the sense of working with other practitioners to and honoring everybody has their place. So right on Good job. You keep up the good work.
Air high five to you.
Absolutely. And a wonderful. Stay for thing. Thank you for being my guest here. Of course. It
was a pleasure. Yeah, absolutely.
Great. Thank you so much. And yeah, I look forward to our future work together. Thank you. Thanks.