I was once "exorcised" of my anxiety in a darkened room in Lisbon. It didn't work. What did work, years later, was learning there's a difference between wanting relief and wanting exile, and that the addicted, anxious parts of us were never meant to be deported.

There is a moment in every somatic session where something begins to gather inside. It is not a clear thought or an emotion we can easily name, but more like something in between. Something that lives deeper in the body and that asks for attention in a different way. American psychologist and philosopher Eugene Gendlin called this the Felt Sense (Gendlin, 1981).