As a practitioner, Varvara originally trained in psychotherapy and spiritual development. Because of her personal journey, she later found out that our fear of relating doesn’t necessarily come from our brain, but from our body and the lack of safety we experienced as an infant. This is where her passion for somatic teaching comes from.

Varvara joins us in today’s episode to explain how developmental trauma can limit intimacy and connection in adult partnership, how our implicit memories can create conflict in our relationships, and how healing can help us take responsibility for our experience and reach out to our partner for support.

Varvara Erochina is a somatic teacher and coach dedicated to personal and collective healing. She offers a multi-disciplinary approach to healing, informed by trauma resolution, Gestalt psychotherapy, spirituality, and life coaching. Her popular course 'How to Feel' offers practical education and embodied practice for feeling your feelings. She is the creator of Cards for Self-Care and offers 1-1 and group coaching, workshops, retreats, classes, and more.

Check out the transcript to this episode in Dr. Jessica Higgin's website.

In this episode:

04:35 The lived experience of each individual comes from the very first relationships we form with ourselves and our caregivers when we were born. It also goes back to how that relationship is built upon memories that form in the body as we grow.

13:51 Talking about trauma can scare and put so many of us into defense. However, it’s essential to recognize trauma as a chronic experience of not having our needs met as an infant.

15:44 The habits of blaming our partners or shutting ourselves off emotionally are the wise survival mechanisms we unconsciously developed as infants. Reclaiming those habits as such will help us move into greater self-connectedness.

21:03 Implicit memories, which is a formal term for feeling memories, are the thought patterns developed in response to a feeling we couldn't process as an infant.

23:18 Corrective experience happens when a new neural pathway gets created. This neural pathway gets deepened when we’re being honest about how we feel, and when we experience appropriate co-regulation and safe attachment.

27:02 Corrective experience is also one of the best ways to experience a newfound safety, freedom, and possibility in our relationships. In order to access this, we must start by acknowledging our feeling of shame, understanding why it has developed in our younger years, and naming its impact by knowing whether it works in our relational life.

33:20 Whether or not our partner is ready to work with the process, we should always start with ourselves; then we go on and take that as far as we want in our relationship.

37:26 Babies experience chronic stress responses when parents appear frightened or frightening to them. If we have this kind of parenting, our infant implicit memory gets activated when we experience ourselves or our partners being frightened or frightening. Therefore, it's incredibly important to use our sensation and non-verbal clues at that moment to notice and differentiate between our adult selves and that very young response.

42:31 How to get in touch with Varvara

Mentioned

• Be With website

• Varvara Erochina Instagram

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