The book
Belly Monster
I started writing the book I could have used to heal in my 20s in the hopes of helping adults of all ages feel seen, validated, understood, and encouraged to learn what approaches could best help them heal from past trauma. You don't need the best therapist; you don't need to spend thousands on retreats. Sometimes, what you need is within or right around you. This book has been in the works for four years, and it's finally at a point of being ready to be seen, felt, and inspiring others to heal.
From the book
Suggestions on how to read this book
If you are drawn to this book, you have likely experienced trauma either at a certain point in your life or throughout it. When trauma occurs, it speeds things up in our minds and bodies and reduces our ability to stay present and focused.
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With enough tough times in our lives, we can develop a pattern of moving faster in our thoughts and where we focus our attention. These symptoms might be considered ADHD, but they can also be the result of trauma scattering our minds.
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Throughout our exploration, the book will offer breaks between stories as a chance to slow down and calm our nervous systems. This structure is meant to mirror the way we need to heal when we process tough things, by taking opportunities to break, notice, and consider how our own emotions are living in our bodies.
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These breaks will be important because we all have had difficult situations and, during many of them, we have put blinders on and scurried through not stopping to validate how hard that really was. Reading about my traumas may bring ghosts of your own past out of the darkness and back into view. The goal, here, isn’t for you to feel all your past traumas without resolution or healing. The goal is for you to connect, feel validated, and then slow down and invite a desire to explore how to heal in ways you may have not been aware of. So, during these breaks, I invite you to slow down, to focus on your breath and orient to the here and the now, so that you know that you are okay despite whatever might be coming up for you as a possible haunting from your past.
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As a trauma therapist who has experienced multiple tough times, mini traumas, and big traumas, I am well versed in body-based trauma therapies and compassionate approaches. Somatic Experiencing Trauma Therapy is my main influence, while Compassionate Inquiry, Somatic Touch therapy, BASE touch therapy, and Art Therapy, are all guides in my hands as I write about my struggles, and my journey through many traumas toward joy.
Also from the book:
Having positive experiences with somatic therapy led me to seek out other opportunities for somatic healing. Eventually, I discovered somatic touch therapy, and some of the trauma that had been trapped in my body was released during just a few touch therapy sessions.
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In one session, as the somatic touch therapist focused on my hip and leg area, he asked me several sensory questions. At one point during the session, I heard a message, and the therapist invited me to share it. I felt a lump in my throat as I pushed out the sentence, “It’s not my fault.”
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As soon as I said that, I began to tremble, shake, and sob uncontrollably. The somatic touch therapist held the therapeutic space for me in a strong, secure way as he stayed with me while my body did what it needed to do. My body let the trauma story move throughout its system until it was released. Then, it stopped shaking. The experience left me feeling as if I’d had an exorcism. I immediately felt more space in my body. I could breathe more easily and fully, and I gained a deepened awareness of how much of my trauma must have been preverbal. Although I had no cognitive memory of the traumas that my body had been holding either before or after the somatic touch therapy, I felt my body shake and sob, and I knew that meant it had let loose some of the painful stories.
