Should My Body Be Shaking?

A popular topic of debate in the body-based therapy scene is the question of whether spontaneous bodily shaking is symptomatic of a release taking place, and whether you thus “need” to shake in order for it to work. One school of therapy, known as Trauma Release Exercises (TRE), seems to even insist that shaking needs to happen, otherwise nothing is happening. And some people seem to shake like crazy at the drop of a hat, whilst others say they never shake. Are the latter simply too rigid? What’s going on here?

In my experience, things are a little complex. There unquestionably are people who simply struggle to let go, to allow something spontaneous to take them over, even for a few seconds. Those guys need to work at it until they can relax and allow themselves to go with what’s trying to happen within them.

Yet there are also people for whom spontaneous shaking is actually blocking them from feeling the emotions underneath. Their body and mind have learned to regularly release the surface level of built-up charge to prevent them having to be fully emotionally present.

Sometimes people experience useful shaking for a while and then seem to use it as a crutch in the manner just described.

Still others seem not to need to shake in order to get a release, in order to develop.

So, in my work, I’ve learned not to focus too much on shaking or to try to create a relationship between whether it’s happening and how well the therapy is proceeding. For me, it’s all about whether you can do the posture regularly and whether you can breathe deeply and feel the body as you do so. If you keep going, then change will happen.