Overcoming Chronic Digestive Conditions: Release the Visceral Layers of Post-Traumatic Gut Disorder

A holistic approach for healing trauma stored in the gut.

A healthy gut is fundamental to a healthy life. Embedded within our digestive ­system is the enteric nervous system, our “second brain,” which serves to protect us from the external world of adversity, including not only viruses and bacteria, but also traumatic events. As Nikki Kenward, CST-D, MCSS, explains, past challenges and traumas, whether emotional or physical, are held in the enteric nervous system in many ways, including fascial tension, cellular changes, and unhelpful “default settings.”

Exploring in depth what she calls “the Post-Traumatic Gut,” Kenward describes the anatomy and physiology of the enteric nervous system, including the polyvagal system, and the many ways that our emotional history and current emotional state can impact our digestive system. Sharing recent research, she describes the science behind the emotional gut and how to apply it to chronic digestive issues like IBS and Crohn’s disease as well as mental health issues such as anorexia, bulimia, anxiety, and depression. She explains how and why the digestive gut absorbs emotions and what you can do to heal its functions by addressing psychosomatic stressors, rather than just nutrition. Presenting case studies from her 25 years in clinical practice as well as her own healing journey, she reveals the synchronicity between digestive/metabolic functions and psychological/perceptual insight and how allowing the cells to “speak” through bodywork such as CranioSacral Therapy and SomatoEmotional Release Therapy can help renew the microbiome of the second brain, release intergenerational trauma and illness, and restore one’s psychospiritual life.

Sharing visualization exercises and a hands-on process of listening to the gut layer by layer, the author helps readers unwind stagnant cellular patterns, discover the dynamic intelligence in every cell, and transform Post-Traumatic Gut into Post-Traumatic growth.