What is “somatic embodiment?”
This is a great question, and one that almost everyone asks.
You may have heard this explained as “somatic experiencing” or “nervous system regulation.”
In my definition, soma refers to the body, but also the mind and the spirit.
We work with the soma.
We touch in with the soma by learning how to follow the felt sense.
The felt sense is an aura of information that our body-minds are carrying all of the time.
This includes sensations, emotions, impulses, images, and memories.
What do we do with what we find as we explore the soma?
We get curious.
Because my methodology is based in tantric spiritual philosophy, every piece of the body-mind has consciousness.
We are all one with the divine, we are all expressions of divine consciousness itself.
So.. everything we experience or feel is also an expression of that same consciousness.
When we find a piece of the body-mind, when we follow our felt sense to discover a piece of ourselves that we may not have had awareness of before… we actually start addressing the consciousness of that piece.
For example: if we are talking about our inability to connect deeply in relationship, and we tune into the sensations of the body, maybe we find tension in the chest when we imagine ourselves in a deeply satisfying relationship.
This is a signal.
We can get clarity on that piece and give it a voice.
Giving a voice to a piece of the body-mind is actually trying to connect to the consciousness of that piece of the body-mind.
Through that connection with that consciousness, we can start to understand what that piece needs in order for it to achieve integration.
Maybe the tension in the chest shares that it has been keeping us safe by keeping us distant from those around us, out of fear of being hurt in the same way we were hurt as a child by our caregivers.
The frameworks and tools that I use in my sessions with clients are all different pathways or strategies that we can apply so that we, bit by bit, titrate integration of the pieces that are arising that are standing in the way of my clients achieving their goals.
We can also explain this in the terms of the nervous system instead of “energy” and “consciousness.”
We are working on nervous system regulation.
We are discharging the stored or stuck energy and emotions in the nervous system.
We are creating a safe space within which to complete stress cycles.