What Your Mind Knows, But Your Body Is Still Processing: Somatic Chinese Medicine
By Dr. Linh | Doctor of Chinese Medicine & Acupuncture, Licensed Acupuncturist, Somatic Practitioner, Hypnotherapist
There is a moment when I meet with clients — someone says to me: I already know this is over, but for some reason my hip hurts. It is almost like every time they think of the past situation, their pain arises back.
This is a clue that body and mind are connected.
Aristole once said, that “a vivid imagination compels the body to obey it” and that the mind-emotions and our thoughts have an affect to our physical body.
Body based work such as somatic Chinese medicine and Tao of Trauma is rooted in both ancient wisdom and modern neuroscience, begins exactly there, with what the body already knows.
What Is Somatic work?
Somatic work is the practice of working with the body such as its sensations, postures, breath patterns, and nervous system responses, as the primary language of healing. The word somatic comes from the Greek soma, meaning body. Somatic practitioners understand that the body holds energy, emotions, experiences. For example, modern research is finding that traumatic stress is not just a memory stored in the mind. It is a physiological event that often lives in the tissues, the fascia, the gut, the chest, the jaw or wherever the body learned to hold what couldn't be processed in the moment it happened.
This is why processing only through the mind sometimes doesn’t support the healing process of stress. Rather, it must involves the body in connection to the mind.
What Chinese Medicine Understands About Stress
Chinese medicine has held an embodied understanding of human experience for over two thousand years. In this system, emotions are not separate from physiology or lived experiences.
Grief contracts the Lungs. Fear descends to the Kidneys. Unprocessed anger stagnates in the Liver. Chronic worry fragments the Spleen's ability to hold center. This is what practitioners of Chinese medicine understand as Qi stagnation needing movement and balance.
Somatic work informed by Chinese medicine creates the conditions for that intelligence to resume. Acupuncture works with the meridian system to release held patterns and restore the free movement of Qi. Somatic practices that involve the Chinese medicine wisdom as well as intention, consent and touch can support the movement of stuck energy that contributes to psychosomatic conditions.
What This Looks Like in Practice
In my work as a Doctor of Chinese Medicine, licensed acupuncturist, and somatic practitioner, I often see people carrying symptoms such as tension, digestive upset, insomnia, anxiety, or pain that comes from stress and I like to highlight that the body-mind have a clear connection that Chinese medicine has already known.
When we slow down enough to listen to the body and bring a therapeutic intention to the session, the body-mind can allow Qi or body sensations move and express- — supporting the healing process.
Who This Approach Supports
Somatic Chinese medicine may be a fit for you if you are experiencing:
Psychosomatic health conditions or physical symptoms connected to stress or anxiety
Anxiety, chronic stress, or nervous system dysregulation
A sense of emotional stuckness
Burnout, disconnection, or loss of sense of self
Traumatic stress held in the body that you're ready to gently understand
You need only to be curious about what your body has been trying to tell you.
Begin Here
If you're ready to learn more or experience somatic work rooted in Chinese medicine, I'd love to support you. My practice integrates Chinese medicine, somatic principles, and hypnotherapy in a whole-person approach that meets you exactly where you are.
Dr. Linh is a Doctor of Chinese Medicine and Acupuncture, licensed acupuncturist, hypnotherapist, and somatic practitioner. She works with women navigating psychosomatic health conditions, anxiety, burnout, and stress through a nervous system-informed, slow, gentle and nature centered approach.
