A Somatic Approach to Help Integrate Primary Reflexes

There are several approaches to developing, regulating, and integrating interrupted reflexes:

• Motor — moving as the reflex would
• Sensory — focusing on the associated senses
• Kinesthetic — building gradually toward integrated movement through precise movement patterns

My own focus, building on foundational training with Kimberly, is somatic — making room for the emotional and physical feelings associated with an interrupted reflex, and helping unwind any built-up energy that may be impeding its integration. The result is a shedding of burdens, and a lightening of a load that was often previously unnoticed.

After massage school, my wife Susanna and I together built a Pearl Street wellness clinic in Boulder before we graduated from the Rolf Institute and School of Structural Integration in 1989. During this period, as we established our bodywork practices, we continued our training with Jeff Krock and Pamela Lendzion, the founders of Life Energy Fundamentals — a somatic healing practice and training in heart presence, clear mind, grounding, and ordinary and extra-ordinary perception. In 1998, we were both certified as advanced teachers of this work.

Over the years we've continued our healing education and journey, exploring and learning many techniques and approaches. I more recently immersed myself in the world of ancestral healing, and found I had deep resources in my own multi-generational upbringing, and in the rich vein of historical trauma that underlies Irish culture.

Reflex integration and somatic healing is the integration of these explorations: Rolfing's systematic map of the body's connective tissue, breathwork's emotional and energetic dimensions, Life Energy Fundamentals' direct access to the nervous system, ancestral healing's recognition that we carry our lineage in our tissue, and the consciousness framework that ties it all together.