Somatic Judaism |
Somatic Judaism, rehabilitation, and the work of feeling safe again
I went to a sound bath expecting stillness. What I noticed instead was movement.
Not external movement. I was lying still, covered, quiet, surrounded by other people doing the same. But inside, something was shifting: breath slowing, muscles negotiating with tension, the body deciding whether it was safe enough to soften.
It struck me afterwards that this is something we do not talk about enough in rehabilitation.
We ask people to change their behavior. We ask them to tell better stories about themselves. We ask them to desist, comply, attend, reflect, rebuild.
But we do not always ask whether their bodies have come with them.
A person can leave prison and still carry prison in their shoulders. A person can be welcomed into community and still sit as if waiting to be removed. A person can say they are safe and still breathe as if danger is in the room.
Rehabilitation, if it is to mean anything deep, must include the body.
In criminology, we often talk about identity, risk, behavior, desistance, and reintegration. These are necessary concepts. They help us understand how people move away from offending and toward more stable, meaningful lives.
But they can also sound strangely disembodied.
As if change happens only in the mind. As if a person can reason their way into safety. As if trust, shame, fear, and belonging are simply ideas.
They are not. They are physical.
Shame has a posture. Fear has a breath pattern. Exclusion has a temperature. Belonging has a nervous system.
Someone trying to rebuild their life may have to learn far more than new routines or new........