Everything IFS Blog

Free Somatic Experiencing course covering Peter Levine's approach to trauma, nervous system regulation, grounding, resourcing, and healing.

A free IFS Academy course on the life and discoveries of Dr. Peter Levine, the founder of Somatic Experiencing (SE): his background in medical biophysics and psychology, his work as a NASA stress consultant, the wild-animal observation behind his book Waking the Tiger, and his central conclusion that animals discharge survival energy and complete the response while humans tend to override it. Every lesson ends with a Somatic Experiencing practice so you can begin applying the

A free IFS Academy course on titration in Somatic Experiencing (SE): how the term is borrowed from chemistry, where it means adding one drop at a time, what it means to contact only a small amount of difficult activation at once, why overwhelm is too much, too fast, too soon, what flooding is and why it backfires, touching the edge of a sensation rather than its center, and the principle that less is more and slower is better.

A free IFS Academy course on pendulation in Somatic Experiencing (SE): the nervous system's natural swing between activation and settling, how activation rises and recedes like a wave, the trauma vortex as the pull of difficult sensation and the counter-vortex of resource and steadiness it swings against, and how moving between charge and calm shows the system it can recover.

A free IFS Academy course on discharge and completion in Somatic Experiencing (SE): how bound survival energy releases through trembling, warmth, a deeper breath, and subtle movement, what biological completion means, how the body finishes the fight or flight it could not finish, the return of active defenses and a felt sense of agency, and why SE renegotiates a response in the present rather than reliving the event.

A free IFS Academy course on the SIBAM model in Somatic Experiencing (SE): the five channels of any experience, Sensation, Image, Behavior, Affect, and Meaning, how they flow together in a whole experience, how overwhelm fragments them so one channel carries the charge while others go blank, the over-coupling and under-coupling of channels, and how to use SIBAM as a lens for puzzling reactions.

A free IFS Academy course on using Somatic Experiencing (SE) in everyday life: how the skills layer into one connected practice, from perceiving the body to building safety, reading the window, pacing with titration and pendulation, and allowing release; how to read a charged moment and choose the skill that fits; SE as an ongoing relationship with the nervous system; and where everyday practice ends and professional support begins.

A free IFS Academy course on the window of tolerance in Somatic Experiencing (SE): the zone of arousal where a person can stay present and think clearly, hyperarousal as the keyed-up state above the window, hypoarousal as the shut-down or numb state below it, how to recognize which zone the body is in through the felt sense, and how the window widens over time.

A free IFS Academy course on the settling tools of Somatic Experiencing (SE): grounding, which anchors attention in the weight and support of the body; orienting and the orienting response, which let the senses take in the surroundings and confirm safety; and the Voo breath, a long, low toned exhale that stimulates the vagus nerve and eases the body toward its calming, parasympathetic side.

A free IFS Academy course on resourcing in Somatic Experiencing (SE): what makes something a resource, why small and ordinary sources of steadiness count, the difference between internal resources like inner strengths and memories and external resources like people, places, and pets, how a resource only works once it registers in the body as a felt sense, and why resourcing is built before any of the harder skills.

A free IFS Academy course on the felt sense and tracking sensations in Somatic Experiencing (SE): interoception and the body's inner way of knowing, how the felt sense differs from thought and from emotion, what the bottom-up approach means and why SE enters through the body, the plain vocabulary of sensation from temperature and pressure to tingling and movement, and the skill of tracking a sensation as it shifts.

A free IFS Academy course on the survival responses in Somatic Experiencing (SE): the autonomic nervous system and its sympathetic gas pedal and parasympathetic brake, the three threat responses of fight, flight, and freeze, why freeze is the least understood of the three, how a thwarted or incomplete response leaves survival energy stuck in the body, and why humans stay stuck when animals do not. Every lesson ends with a Somatic Experiencing practice so you can begin applyin

A free IFS Academy course on what Somatic Experiencing (SE) is: a body-based approach to stress and trauma developed by Dr. Peter Levine, the central idea that trauma lives in the nervous system rather than in the event, the observation of animals in the wild that first sparked the method, what the bottom-up approach means, who studies SE and the research behind it, and a map of every skill the course will teach. Every lesson ends with a Somatic Experiencing practice so you c