Somatic Experiencing in Practice
Learn to release accumulated stress and trauma stored in the body using Peter Levine's Somatic Experiencing method. Master hands-on exercises to ground your nervous system, track bodily sensations, and complete the natural cycles of stress discharge.
Like Duolingo, but for Somatic Experiencing in Practice. Tomo turns the whole topic into a game you play five minutes a day, until it actually sticks.
A short one: 12 levels across 2 sections, about 24 minutes end to end, roughly 5 days at five minutes a day. It moves through Establishing Bodily Safety and Releasing and Completing the Stress Cycle. It starts from scratch.
Free forever · No credit card · iPhone & Android
Key ideas in Somatic Experiencing in Practice
- Somatic Experiencing relies on the felt sense of settling rather than positive thinking alone
- A resource is verified by immediate physical shifts (like a spontaneous breath, dropped shoulders, or a softer belly), not just intellectual approval
- Orienting requires allowing the eyes and neck to slowly turn and explore the environment at their own pace
- Letting gaze rest on neutral or pleasant objects signals primal safety directly to the brainstem
- Fixing eyes rigidly mimics the freeze or threat-stare response rather than settling
- Internal resourcing searches for a small island of ease or neutrality (like warm palms, feet on the floor, or soft ears) instead of demanding total body calm
- Trying to force the entire body to relax often increases fight-or-flight frustration
- Even completely neutral, non-distressed sensations serve as anchors
- The nervous system reacts to vivid sensory memories (allies, safe places, animals) with the same physical shifts as physical safety
- Levine emphasizes looking for somatic markers like unprompted sighs, softened jaws, and warmth
- First establish solid contact with a safe resource before contacting stress
- Touch briefly into the edge of the uncomfortable sensation
- Step back to rest in the resource as soon as activation rises to integrate the settling
- In Somatic Experiencing, the felt sense refers specifically to raw physical cues like temperature, weight, tightness, and texture
- Mental stories ('I can't cope') and emotional names ('anger', 'fear') are interpretations layered on top of bodily sensations, not the felt sense itself
- Levine's SIBAM model categorizes experience into Sensation, Image, Behavior, Affect, and Meaning
You've tried the other tabs
Thirty open tabs. Four facts you actually kept.
You watched. You nodded. By Sunday it was gone.
One answer, then back to scrolling.
Eight weeks. You meant to finish. You didn't.
Tomo gives Somatic Experiencing in Practice the Duolingo treatment: levels, streaks, and quick quizzes that test what you just learned. That game loop is what the tabs above never had, so it's the one you actually finish.
Here's what playing it feels like
A real question from this course. Take your best guess.
How do you know an image, memory, or object is acting as a real resource for you?
Get it right to open this lesson and 11 more in the app.
Where Somatic Experiencing in Practice takes you
- 1
Establishing Bodily Safety
- Resourcing: Anchoring in Safety
- Tracking the Felt Sense
- 2
Releasing and Completing the Stress Cycle
- Pendulation and Titration
- Motor Completion and Boundaries
2 sections · 4 units · 12 levels. Built to play, not to enroll.
Tomo is in ChatGPT
Tomo is also a ChatGPT plugin: the same playable courses, built and played inside your chat.
Add Tomo to ChatGPT- What to ask
- “Make me a Tomo course on black holes.” “Turn this chat into a Tomo course.”
- What you get
- Quick questions with instant feedback, hearts and stars, ready to play in about a minute.
- Where it goes
- No sign-up to start. Connect your Tomo account and your streak carries on in the app.
You pick the voice
Somatic Experiencing in Practice is taught in the Bestie style: your friend who just gets it. Want a different feel? In the app you can spin up the same topic in any of Tomo's teaching styles. Same facts, totally different vibe.
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Start Somatic Experiencing in Practice today.
Download Tomo, search Somatic Experiencing in Practice, and play your first lesson in under a minute.