Common Misconceptions about the Safe & Sound Protocol (SSP)

The Safe & Sound Protocol is a big piece of my work in the world, and today I was reflecting on the ideas folks have about the SSP before they begin, and what might be more true of their experience.

Read on and I will share a few of the misconceptions as well as my experience as a facilitator, and some reflections from folks I lead through this sound and nervous system healing journey.

😌✖️ You need to be passive, still and settled (like meditation) for the SSP to work.

👟🎨 You don’t need to be still or meditative to listen. You get to move your body, snack, puzzle or make art, stretch, etc. A big focus of the SSP is about being in our present moment experience and following the cues from our body and nervous system. Sometimes people think they need to be still/surrendered/lying down/calm to listen. But you don't! What do my clients do while they listen? Here's a short list of what people feel inspired to do:

1. Hang out with plants, nature, or animal friends

2. Organize, tidy or clean (I always joke they can come over to my place next)

3. Make art (we've had stitching, painting, crocheting, knitting, doodling, drawing and more)

4. Swing in a yoga swing

5. Cozy up on the couch or chair

6. Snack (one of my fave SSP activities - my body got hungry!)

7. Let activated energy move through walking, pacing, shaking and somatic practices

8. Turn to puzzles, fidgets, or other soothing activities

💎✖️ The music is similar to frequency healing or sound baths.

🎷🎼 The music has a special filtration and comes in different playlists and genres, but it often doesn't sound "different" to folks, even though the filtration sets it apart from what you might hear on the radio. It kind of sounds like what you'd hear on the radio, or in a yoga studio.

You can choose from cover songs, kids songs, classical, healing vibes or funky ambient tunes. There are instrumental and vocal playlists. Songs you will know, and songs composed especially for the SSP (this is helpful when we have negative associations with certain songs). You will get to choose what playlist to listen to, you can see the playlists before we begin, and I will help you find the right fit!

😰✖️ The experience will be really intense or overwhelming.

🌸🌖 I often say the SSP is “gently turbulent”. Yes, there are rocky moments, but it’s often the easiest healing modality folks have tried and they’re surprised that a lot changed without overwhelm. You don't need to dig into your trauma experience, although your shares and stories are welcome.

Folks often find me and the SSP after trying modalities that were too intense. The SSP is effective and impactful, but it really is gentle. It’s my job to help you have a gentle enough experience, and it's also my job to offer support when things feel too hard. Plus, many of my clients also see a therapist and having another space to process and receive support is highly recommended.

"Jess did a wonderful job facilitating our group and creating a space where everyone was encouraged to show up as they were. I enjoyed the SSP process and found it helped me relax, find more ease in my day, and rebound faster from stress. I highly recommend it and would do it again." - SSP Participant

1️⃣✖️ Listening on your own is just as effective as with a facilitator.

💞🎧 I know I’m biased, but listening within a group or 1-1 container means you have access to support, co-regulation and tools that might not exist on your own.

I did my SSP journey in a group and it added so much to my experience. On my own, I might have "gone through the motions" or listened really quickly. I might have missed out on being mirrored, hearing my shares reflected back to me, and learning somatic practices. I also might not have finished the SSP or gotten as much out of it. Left to my own devices, I can be very "girl dinner"/whatever. But something about being in a group, even though it's not your job to take care of the group, can help us show up for ourselves, too!

When you experience the SSP virtually, you get to be in your own space, with your own tools and creature comforts! You have the support and co-regulation of me as the facilitator, and your group mates if you choose to join a group. But you also have so much freedom to be out of camera view when being perceived is a lot and to explore your space while listening.

In my SSP group when I was a client, sometimes I wandered around my apartment; sometimes I was right in front of my computer; sometimes I rolled my chair out of camera view; sometimes I curled up on the couch.

“Part of what I loved about the SSP was Jess’s invitation to show up exactly as we were. Just before SSP began, I experienced some trauma in a group setting and felt hesitant about the group dynamic of this process. I was able to show up completely nonverbal and in tears the first day, and felt warmth and welcomed in this experience." - SSP Participant

If you have been feeling drawn to an SSP group or 1-1 experience, you can apply right here and book a connection call to feel out if a 1-1 or group experience would be best for you.

Not ready to apply yet? Click here to read all about how I offer the Safe & Sound Protocol.

5 Ways the SSP is Trauma-Informed

When you do the SSP with me, it’s trauma-informed. And that goes beyond a buzzword into tangible actions and practices. So if you’re wondering how LAND is trauma-informed, that’s so valid, and I want you to know these things before you begin. You deserve the kind of trauma-informed care that meets your needs and honors your nervous system and lived experience. Read on to find out a bit more about my approach.

Listening moves at the pace of your nervous system

We listen 10 minutes at a time, followed by processing & support. This way, the listening isn’t overwhelming. It’s doable and digestible, and there is time built in for integration and self-care, as well as group connection. Also, you can always listen less. I will encourage you to honor your capacity. In LAND, your NO will be celebrated as much as your YES!

Relationships grow at the pace of your nervous system

I know joining a group, and a healing group especially, can be vulnerable and tender. In LAND, we can take our time. We have 12 weeks to get to know one another. I will be nurturing connections and comfort but not rushing or forcing them. Connections can grow on your unique timeline, and that’s okay (and even encouraged!) with me.

There is no forced sharing!

Part of the group magic is witnessing other folks and bringing your experience to be witnessed. In this light, sharing is always invited and even encouraged. But I'm also here to encourage you to honor your boundaries and needs. Sometimes you might share a little, sometimes a lot, sometimes there are no words or they're just for you. That's okay! Also, voice AND chat are open for shares. I strive to be very inclusive and adaptive when it comes to sharing, and this is a place to practice showing up and sharing the right amount for you (not how much or how little you think you should share to be accepted.)

There is space for you to have the experience you need

In the SSP, you’re invited to listen to music for 10 minutes at a time. You can do whatever you'd like, and whatever feels right to you, while you listen. So you have a lot of agency and ownership over your experience. A lot of folks listen while: resting, moving, art-making, doodling, snacking, etc. You can do whatever supports your nervous system! And if you’re not sure what supports your nervous system or experience, this group is a lovely way to find that out and cultivate new tools, rhythms and practices.

The SSP isn't kapow! It's more like gentle waves. We titrate and we integrate.

Sometimes your experience can be intense, and there is space for that. But I also hope to co-cultivate a space where what comes up feels doable, digestible and for the most part be-with-able. This is where lasting change can occur. So how do we ensure the SSP is as gentle as it can be? We meet for 12 weeks, we listen for ten minutes at a time, and there is space to resource, self-soothe, and weave the lessons we're learning into our lives. And there is time for reflecting, processing and digesting our experience. Most people feel like what comes up might be a lot, but also through the SSP their experience of “a lot” can change and when things come up that in the past would have been too much, now it’s less overwhelming.

There are so many ways to be trauma-informed. Important aspects for you (and for me - this is just one blog, after all) might be missing from this list. But I hope this helps you see some of the ways I aspire to hold our group so everyone feels welcomed to show up as they are and has space to feel, grow and transform.

The SSP, Safety-Seeking and Sensing Danger

There are so many ways our nervous system scans for safety and danger. Sound is one of them.

The SSP (Safe & Sound Protocol) uses sound to send the nervous system signals of safety, and as we receive this, big healing can happen.

When our nervous system and vagus nerve are bathed in the sounds of safety and connection, a lot can change. Our relationships, our nervous system, our way of being in the world.

And when we have an extended period of time through the SSP to experience and orient to these sounds of safety, and we are able to take slow sips of safety and connection, our survival patterns can shift. By working slowly and honoring nervous system capacity, these shifts take place without the overwhelm sometimes present in healing.

There is no shame in a nervous system that is more oriented to (and familiar with) danger or disconnection. Survival is the nervous system's goal, and it'll do whatever it takes to get there. Including staying glued to the look-out in case more danger awaits. This can often show up as hypervigilance and repeated scanning for safety or threat in the environment.

When we are offered sounds of safety in small amounts, we get practice being in relationship to safety. To okay-ness. To nothing-is-wrong-right-now-ness. And at first, it might feel strange. Boring. Unfamiliar. To scan and find that nothing-is-actually-wrong-right-now.

But over time, we might settle into it as a sense of safety settles into our nervous system.

And this is part of the magic of the SSP.

Head over to softpathhealing.com/ssp to learn more and fill out an application to work together. I’d love to help you and your nervous system experience more ease.

If being in your body feels hard

We live in our bodies. Our nervous system is housed there. So, of course, when a traumatic thing happens, and after it happens, it can feel hard to inhabit your body, and hard to partner with your body in healing.

It can be challenging to connect with body sensations, and I get why we wouldn’t want to connect with body sensations. They're not always pleasant. So many of us live with chronic pain (always and perhaps especially now as covid continues on).

So many of us are taught not to be with or in our bodies by capitalism and even just our own sheer survival strategies (one of those things is brilliant, the other keeps me up at night, okay they both keep me up at night but you get it lol).

But what happens when we're healing and we're told to be with our body and listen to our body? When we're asked what we feel in our body and where and how we know this and we come up short, fuzzy, blank?

If connecting with your body is a goal that feels impossible to reach, but you know it's a critical key to your healing, I want to offer this:

Yes, it's hard. Yes, it's possible.

There's nothing wrong with you if connecting with your body feels frustrating and fruitless.

There are wise reasons for this. Maybe it's that disconnection is an effective survival strategy. Maybe it's that so many people whisper yell at you to feel your body without offering any baby steps to get there.

If you want to connect with your body and you also know that very topography and inner landscape often feels both tender and tumultuous, I want to offer that there are so many doorways into connection, and often our hand on the knob is acknowledging we want to do it and we don't know how yet.

There are many paths to partnering with your body in healing (without bypassing that sometimes we feel less like pals and more like frenemies). Here are a few from me to you.

I've opened a few Somatic Resourcing Session packages if 1-1 sessions to connect with your body (and all that can come up along that journey) sounds like what you've been craving (and maybe a lil apprehensive about - that's welcomed, too!)

​LAND, the Somatic SSP Experience, is enrolling for 2 new cohorts. One beginning mid-July; the other in September. The SSP (Safe & Sound Protocol) is also a journey of being present with your body and sensations, and music is the doorway. If you're intrigued, you're welcomed to read more and even apply for your spot.

And for my babes and buds with businesses, I'm elated to hold space for the spreadsheety-markety-systems piece of having a business AND the somatic experience, too. Being in biz is a lot, especially these days. I wanna support you! That can happen right here.​

Okay friends. So glad you're here. Sending you and your body some tenderness today.

Jess

P.S. This was written while listening to Joan Shelly radio. Highly recc The Push and Pull and Haven.

When a coach or healer says they are ethical or trauma-informed, it doesn't always mean they are ethical or trauma-informed. So what now?

When a coach or healer says they are ethical or trauma-informed (and soooo many are saying it right now; have you noticed that, too?), it doesn't always mean they are ethical or trauma-informed. As potential clients and customers, it's important to use our discernment. And herein lies the challenge.

As a survivor of trauma, it might be extra challenging to use discernment. Especially when some coaches and healers are practiced at clouding, manipulating and diverting discernment and critique.

We hear it all the time. Clients or customers bring up a concern or critique, and coaches and healers say:

➞ That’s just your block

➞ Well what does this say about you?

➞ That’s not my problem

➞ Find the lesson in this

And while self-reflection is a valid tool for growth and self-awareness, gaslighting is neither ethical nor trauma-informed. And so many healers and coachers take part in this practice.

What’s more, someone who has been through a traumatic experience might notice:

➞ A struggle expressing and holding firm boundaries

➞ Tendencies toward people pleasing

➞ Hesitance to speak up and say no

➞ The tendency to blame the one thing we can control (ourselves)

And listen, coaches and healers know this. (<--- this is the part that fires me up!!)

The actual trauma-informed coaches and healers aren’t using this information to manipulate and clients and customers.

The actual trauma-informed coaches and healers aren’t using this information to prey on folks who might be more vulnerable to mixed messages, gaslighting and “tough love”.

The actual trauma-informed coaches and healers aren’t responding to critique or feedback with lines meant for clients to internalize the issue so that the practitioner doesn’t have to take any accountability.

But some of them are. That sucks, and I’m so sorry. You deserve better. So much better.

You know I’m a softy, but I also don’t mess around with so much of the bullshit our fields do, and as long as it’s happening, I’ll call it in and out. If you're a coach or a healer (or anyone who works with humans) on this list, you already know your clients deserve better (and they're getting better from you!).

If you want to deepen your skillset to meet clients with a more trauma-informed approach, join us in Foundations. The doors are open and it’s both sweet and a little spicy inside. We'll spend 5 weeks forming a trauma-informed approach that honors the needs of our business, our selves and our clients.

Basically, we'll do the opposite of what this letter describes. We'll explore how trauma might impact clients (it might seem like the ways are countless, but we're going to count them anyway), and we'll make a plan to be as supportive to clients as possible. As the word states, trauma will inform the ways we show up. For real.​

Are you in? Hoping so.

Jess

P.S. Eeek, I generalized. I try not to generalize, because people (coaches, healers, and folks who've been through trauma) are unique individuals, aaaaand sometimes there are patterns. My list about folks who have been through trauma might not resonate 100%. Also, often vigilance and hypervigilance (a.k.a. being on alert) means folks who have been through trauma are on the lookout for bullshit. Also, not all healers or coaches suck, there are some AMAZING folks even here on this list! And, finally, folks in healing and coaching can also be folks who have been through trauma.

Are your pricing practices trauma-informed?

If you have a business and you’re struggling to make your pricing trauma-informed, I invite you to keep reading.

We know that pricing practices can be pressure-y, predatory and not at all trauma-informed.

Here are just a few:

• When we inflate prices just to lower them and offer a “sale” . . .

• When we use a deadline timer to count down before doors close on an Evergreen funnel that is actually going all of the time . . .

• When we charge exorbitant fees on payment plans . . .

• When accessibility in pricing is not considered or offered . . .

• When pricing is not listed on our website and service page . . .

These are a few of the ways pricing can give us (and our customers and clients) the “ick”

Of course we as business owners need to support ourselves so that we can be supported in our work, rendering it both sustainable and successful.

Of course our financial needs are important alongside our customers and clients.

We can only do our best to meet our financial needs and offer financial accessibility, and often this is an evolving practice.

Pricing and money can be tricky for us and for clients. It can be loaded nervous system territory. A tender subject. And one that many mainstream business and marketing practices do not respect or honor.

Maybe because some of us are just doing things the way we were taught (and that way is icky).

Maybe because it’s uncomfortable to talk about pricing and money.

Maybe because we don’t know another way.

It can feel challenging to leave behind some of the marketing we learned to offer around pricing. And what’s more, there is lots of nuance to trauma-informed pricing and not all marketing practices are “bad”.

I understand the marketing wisdom of value stacking — letting people know what they might receive and experience before naming the price).

I understand it can be tricky to transparently name a price for an individualized service.

I understand the difficulty of being accessible and offering various price points and sliding scale without causing detriment to our business’ financial wellbeing.

I even understand a small (and I do mean small) fee for payment plans, although this is not my practice.

And all that said, for pricing to be trauma-informed, transparency is key.

Part of our job is to give potential clients enough information so they can make an informed decision about whether or not to work with us, and whether or not the pricing is aligned for them.

When we are moving towards trauma-informed pricing, we can consider:

• Am I being transparent in my pricing? Am I giving enough information about the price and what folks will receive in exchange?

• Is my pricing clear and easily found on my website and sales page/s?

• How are my pricing practices honoring me? How are they honoring my clients?

• Where do I have room to grow in my pricing practices? What am I struggling with?

To more trauma-informed pricing,

Jess