Excerpt from “The Mind-Body Guide to the Twelve Steps: Finding Joy, Sensuality, and Pleasure in Recovery—Integrative Spiritual and Somatic Practices for Healing from Trauma and Addiction”
By Nina Pick MA
Working the Steps
Twelve Step recovery offers a profound approach for recovery from all types of addictions. The Steps can bring awareness to, and eventually freedom from, our dependency on unhealthy patterns, substances, and behaviors—whether it be drugs, alcohol, or sugar; overeating or undereating or compulsive exercise; compulsive shopping, workaholism, debting, or underearning; technology or sex or gambling or unhealthy relational dynamics—all of the ever-present behaviors that result in the devastation of our bodies, our relationships, and the Earth.
What these various addictions have in common is that they are all symptoms of trauma. While psychology offers diagnostic criteria meant to define and organize traumatic experience, insights into trauma can also be found in the word’s etymology and usage. In ancient Greek, for example, trauma means “wound,” while Native American communities define inter-generational trauma as a “soul wound” or “spiritual injury.” Meanwhile, the metaphors of “wound,” “injury,” and “rupture” remind us that even psychological trauma is in and of the body. Whether from years of genocide memorialized in our DNA or a single incident such as a car crash or surgery, trauma stems from many places and takes many forms: intergenerational trauma; pre- and perinatal trauma; complex posttraumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD) resulting from chronic or repeated exposure to threat; attachment wounds from disrupted bonding with caregivers; developmental trauma from neglect or abuse in early childhood; traumas resulting from violence or sexual violations; unhealed loss of family and friends, both human and animal, or of land, culture, and language; relational injuries from ruptures or betrayals; and traumas stemming from war, climate collapse, systemic oppression, racism, and poverty. Whatever the form of traumatic experience, it is characterized by wounds to the soul, impacts on the brain, and imprints in the body, all of which require tending in order to heal.
Our addictions began as a trauma response, as a necessary survival strategy to shield and protect us from overwhelmingly painful experiences. At one time and in a certain context, our addictions may have kept us alive. This guide offers a way to hold ourselves with gentleness, love, and compassion as we gradually offer ourselves a new, more life-giving set of strategies to replace the ones that were at one time necessary but are no longer serving us. Practiced with this intention, the potential of Twelve Step recovery is not only an easing of symptoms but a healing of the underlying trauma—a recovery of soul.
When we can experience ourselves and the world around us on a holistic, embodied level, rather than only cognitively, the recovery process is often more direct, more profound, and more lasting. A somatic practice encourages us to notice sensations in the body; with this awareness comes a growing capacity to become curious about difficult emotions rather than turn away from them. Instead of trying to escape an uncomfortable feeling as we once did, by running to our addictive behavior, we can learn to stay with our own experience and even, little by little, befriend it. A somatic-oriented practice might also be a better fit for individuals who respond more easily to images or a kinesthetic modality than to the extensive writing and talking typically used in working the Steps. Step work generally takes a linear, cognitive approach that can often occur at the expense of other processes and forms of knowing; adding a somatic emphasis can open up additional dimensions of experience and develop a more holistic sense of recovery. Similarly, by connecting to the Earth, we access a constant and sustaining source of nurturance and guidance. Integrating and deepening the Self–Earth relationship can expand the notion of healing to include the greater whole so that our recovery is not only life-giving to ourselves and our families but also nurturing to and nurtured by the entire interconnected web of being.
Exploring Embodied Experience
This introductory practice involves being with yourself in different ways in order to play with the possibilities for embodiment. As you move through this book, the exercises in each Step will offer various practices for exploring and deepening into these pathways of experience.
Start by looking at your hand. Notice what you see as you look at it. You might notice textures, tones, contours, shapes, etc. Then, shift your awareness to notice the you that is noticing your hand. So instead of focusing on what you see, notice what it feels like to look.
Then, close your eyes, and imagine your hand. Imagine it with as much detail as possible. You might see what it looked like when you saw it with your eyes open. You might also notice other unexpected images emerging, or a sense of what your hand feels like from the inside.
Next, still with your eyes closed, touch something with your hand, and notice what your hand is sensing. For example, if you touch the table next to you, you might notice that your hand is sensing the table’s temperature and texture.
Next, shift your awareness to notice what your hand is sensing from the inside. It might feel like you are focusing less on what you are touching and more on the inner experience of touching. Focus on feeling your hand from the inside out. Invite the cells of your hand to fill with awareness. You might feel an pulsing or energy, or a sense of fullness, nuance, or aliveness.
Next, start to move your hand, noticing the way it interacts with the space around it. You might notice the flow of air on your skin, or a sense of direction or dimension. How does your hand experience movement as related to the space in which it moves?
Then, see what it’s like to notice any resonances or reverberations in other places in your body. For example, what happens to your breathing as you sense your hand? Are there other places that also fill with awareness?
Finally, compare the inner experience of this hand with the other hand or another place in your body. What do you notice as you compare the two experiences? If you wish, you might want to repeat this exercise with the other hand or another place in your body in order to bring a sense of balance and integration. When you have finished, take a moment to feel your body as a whole, offering the light of your awareness to your entire embodied experience.
From The Mind-Body Guide to the Twelve Steps by Nina Pick, published by North Atlantic Books, copyright © 2023 by Nina Pick. Reprinted by permission of North Atlantic Books.
Now available for preorder: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/730767/the-mind-body-guide-to-the-twelve-steps-by-nina-pick/
About Nina Pick
Nina Pick is a somatic healing practitioner who offers a trauma-informed, heart-centered, and attachment-based approach. She offers sessions for individuals and couples, as well as a Somatics of Recovery course based on her book.
Nina received an MA in comparative literature from UC Berkeley, an MA in counseling psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute, and ordination from Kohenet. She has training in a range of modalities, including Integrative Somatic Trauma Therapy, Somatic Attachment Therapy, NeuroAffective Touch, the Safe and Sound Protocol, Waldorf pedagogy, and Reiki. She lives in Massachusetts, where she enjoys hiking, dancing, and spending time with her cat.
Learn more at http://ninapick.com/.
If you’re interested in understanding more about how somatic practices can help you, consider working with a Somatic Therapist or Practitioner. The Embody Lab’s Somatic Therapist and Practitioner Directory can help you find the right practitioner to support your journey towards more self-compassion, connection, and authenticity. Explore our directory and find the support you need.
