Tracing the Wound: A Somatic Approach to Healing Deep Trauma
In my journey as a somatic practitioner, there’s one powerful truth I’ve come to understand: the body remembers everything. Emotional wounds, trauma, stress, and unresolved experiences don’t just fade away. They’re stored in the nervous system, fascia, muscles, and breath. Often, we don’t even realise the profound impact these imprints have on us until something starts to ache, tighten, or shut down.
This is where the process of tracing the wound begins.
What Does It Mean to “Trace the Wound”?
Tracing a wound doesn’t mean reliving the past. It’s not about revisiting old memories or digging into old stories. Rather, it’s about tuning into your body in the present moment, and exploring what it’s holding right now. This is a core principle of somatic therapy, an approach that focuses on nervous system regulation and healing through bodily awareness.
The process invites you to turn your attention to where you feel tension, discomfort, numbness, or emotion in the body, and simply observe it. Instead of asking, “How can I fix this?”, ask yourself, “Can I feel this sensation without needing to change it?”
This gentle inquiry allows your body’s natural intelligence to rise. It creates space for stored trauma and emotions to be processed without needing to verbalise them. It’s a process of unwinding, of releasing what’s been held in the body, often without words.
The Body’s Intelligence: Feeling Without Pressure
Most of us have been conditioned to avoid pain. We push it away, distract ourselves with action, or numb it out. Somatic healing takes a different approach. It invites you to slow down, to feel the pain or discomfort instead of running from it.
This isn’t about fixing or eliminating the pain, it’s about making space for it. It’s about creating awareness and allowing the body to heal in its own time.
That’s the beauty of somatic healing, it reveals what the mind can’t access. It’s through the body that the truth comes to light, allowing what’s buried deep within to surface naturally, when the time is right.
Why Colours Can Help When Words Don’t
One unique tool I often use in somatic sessions is colour. Words can fail to express the depth of our internal experience, but colour provides a way to bypass the mind and tap directly into the somatic layer.
Here’s how it works:
Many people find it easier to describe their internal state using colour rather than words. For instance, a tight chest might feel like the colour red, a heavy pelvis might feel like dark blue, and a buzzing head might feel like yellow.
By visualising or applying these colours to the body, either through touch or just awareness, clients can begin to connect with and trace the sensation, tapping into the body’s somatic language. It’s not about art; it’s about resonance. And surprisingly, it works.
Three Simple Somatic Exercises to Begin Tracing Your Own Wounds
These practices can help you start your own somatic healing journey, build awareness, and gently begin reconnecting with your body:
Colour Mapping
Sit quietly and gently scan your body.
Identify areas that feel tense, heavy, numb, or activated.
Ask yourself, “If this sensation had a colour, what would it be?”
Imagine placing that colour over the area and observe how the body responds. Don’t try to change it, just notice it.
Micro-Movement Inquiry
Find one body part that feels tight or dull.
Move it slowly and gently—just 1%.
Pause and feel the shift. Ask, “What does this area want to do?”
Follow the impulse without forcing it. Let the body lead the movement.
Somatic Sentence Completion
Place one hand on your chest or belly.
Complete the sentence: “The part of me that hurts most right now feels like…”
Let whatever images, words, or sensations arise. You don’t have to analyse it, just let it be.
These exercises aren’t about solving a problem. They are about reconnecting with yourself. Through this connection, your body often reveals what it’s truly holding. When you honour these sensations, you start the process of integration and healing.
Final Thoughts: Letting the Body Speak
Tracing the wound is not about force. It’s about presence. It’s about slowing down enough to hear your body’s story, allowing the emotions and sensations to unfold naturally, without pressure.
The body remembers, it holds the wisdom that the mind can sometimes overlook. And through somatic healing, you can create space for these wounds to surface and be healed, allowing you to move forward with greater awareness, balance, and integration.