This is not officially part of my somatic series, but they’re related like cousins. I wanted to quickly talk about some “side effects” of healing somatically that I’ve noticed in my clinical work with clients and in my own personal journey. Here’s a link to the video. I couldn’t make a video without making sure the information also found its way to my blog so below is the transcription of the video: [Heading: “”Side Effects” of Healing – 3 mins 39 secs] [00:00] Pierre: “Hey I’m a Pierre, a licensed somatic therapist, and I wanna quickly talk about the “side effects” that can come from getting more connected with your body and intuition as you start healing” [00:10] Pierre: “Alright, so let me tell you what I noticed while working with clients and in my own somatic work [Heading: “Side Effect #1: Changes in how you experience emotions”] [00:14] Pierre: “As you learn your nervous system and start to understand your body, it becomes much easier to feel ALL of your emotions. So that all said, you start to see the physical sensations in your body and your emotions as communication from your body. And you start to learn how to use that information] [Heading: “Side Effect #2: Changes in how you see yourself and everything around you”] [00:35] Pierre: “Like I’ve said before, the part of your autonomic nervous system that’s engaged at a given point influences how you see yourself and everything else around you.” [00:45] Pierre: “I noticed a drop in tolerance for interpersonal and systemic bs. It’s like once you start to get more clarity, you start to see things and notice things that you didn’t quite notice before. And once you see it, you kind of can’t unsee it” [01:04] Pierre: “I’ve noticed changes in decision making ’cause once you start getting some of that clarity, you don’t want to go back to thinking in survival  mode all the time. Not that your survival brain is bad or wrong, that’s never what I’m trying to say, but like, we’re not meant to be in a crisis state all the time. And we, deep down, we know that. And it feels better to live in a non-survival state so I’ve noticed that people within their power might make changes to their environment, might do more to help in their community, might do more to respect and honor the boundaries they have set for themselves because ultimately they’re creating an environment for themselves and for other people so that they and WE do not have to live in a survival state all the time.” [02:01] Pierre: “Something else I noticed about this somatic work is that you’re even more appreciative of the people, things, and experiences that make you safe, happy, amazed, etc. Like, it’s not all like shadow work and stuff. There’s so much joy in this!” [02:21] Pierre: “I’ve also noticed being, you know, less productive because your priorities have changed.” [Heading: “Side Effect #3: Some guilt/shame/anger towards your past self”] [02:26] Pierre: “With more awareness and clarity can also come anger and shame at the decisions you made while in a survival mode” [02:35] Pierre: “Part of what’s so important about learning your nervous system is understanding what happened neurobiologically and what your body and your past self needed at that time, but wasn’t receiving.” [02:48] Pierre: “Also building a summer home in your shame is not exactly how change happens [2 min pause] soooo” [Heading: “Check out my somatic video and blog series!!!”] [02:57] Pierre: “The next video will cover the next part of the series where I’m showing people how to connect with their bodies and intuitions using somatic theories” [03:06] Pierre: “I’ll be talking more about a way our nervous systems do their part to protect us against danger and trauma – our dorsal vagal shutdown” [Heading: “MHC4OC: Free Therapy for Black People”] [03:13] Pierre: “If you learned anything or appreciate what you heard, please consider helping me see more Black people for free at my private practice” [03:23] Pierre: “Please consider joining my private practice’s $3 Patreon. It’s in the linktree in my bio [LINK HERE] and please boost me whenever you see me on any of the social media platforms. Thank you.”  Like I said in the video, the next part of the somatic series will be going into more detail on the parasympathetic nervous system, specifically, our dorsal vagus’s shutdown/”low power mode” state.