Attending to rhythms of expansion and contraction in somatic trauma therapy.

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”

— Anaïs Nin

We often hear that healing isn’t linear—and while the phrase may feel overused, it speaks to something profoundly true. Healing rarely happens in a straight line. More often, it’s a spiral—a movement through phases of expansion and contraction. These cycles echo our earliest experiences: in the womb, we expand and contract. We curl in, we unfurl. From our very beginning, we are shaped by rhythm, by tides.

It’s natural to crave the expansive moments—the breakthroughs, the lightness, the growth. We often celebrate these times as signs that we’re “getting better.” But contraction is just as essential. It’s the quiet turning inward, the slowing down, the heaviness that signals integration. Like winter: the world above may seem still or even dead, but beneath the surface, life is reorganizing, preparing to rise again.

So often, we get stuck not because contraction is wrong, but because we resist it. We fear the return of depression, numbness, grief, fatigue. We fight against what feels like regression, when in truth, it’s part of the deep work of healing. A regenerative time. A necessary pause before the next unfolding.

Somatic therapy offers a way to meet these moments differently. It helps you develop an embodied understanding of contraction—not just as something to endure, but as something to listen to. You learn to stay with your resistance, not to force your way through it, but to meet it with curiosity and care. Over time, this creates the conditions for something new to emerge.

When we allow ourselves to honor contraction—not as failure but as part of the dance—we give ourselves the space to root more deeply. We learn to trust that expansion will return, as it always does.

Sam Trivett is a Registered Clinical Counsellor providing therapy in Vancouver and online throughout BC.