Why Somatics for Changemakers?
the first of a 5 part series
Ever feel ‘it’ in your bones? Or smelt something ‘fishy’ going on?
Are you a Supersensor, with a huge radar dish for signals, vibes, and messages both said and unsaid, that can take you over with overwhelm?
Or are parts of you numb? Are you only ever on Go Do, with your body only an appendage to your will?
As a leader or change maker or neurodivergent or creative, do you feel you isolated?
Or are you exhausted by giving all your social creation energy to the world, but are unable to receive and re-source yourself?
Somatics could be very helpful.
Somatics are the physiology of your awareness and connection. Its the practice of conscious engagement with our sensory, felt and expressing bodily abilities, so that we can hone, discern, choose, connect, and learn to work with our senses, our intuition, that bridge us to the world.
Constant sensory overload, and suppressing our sensory bodies, exhausts people. It can become depression and cause disassociation and mental illness. I know it does for me. I’ve heard many change maker leaders speaking of their polar swinging these days from hyper sensing to numbing out to survive and keep going. Keep going, keep running. Running from, and to, what?
Somatic Tip of the Week:
Consider your sensory intaking as having a volume control.
Start easy. Pick a sense that’s strong with you,
for instance, smell, or attraction to a certain colour.
Start with: What’s your relationship with that sense?
What are *your* sensations of it? How does it show up in your body?
Now try playing with gently turning your volume up with that sense to bring more information in,
and then down, to limit how much you’re bringing in.
Hint: its got to do with your nerve systems’ physiology,
and how the information shows up for you. It takes practice!
Deep relationship with the world around us is our birthright… contrary to what isolating colonized consumer culture would have us believe. We are all sensory beings connecting in the wide webs of life through sensory signals. The world constantly communicates amongst its many beings. Do we, too?
I’ve trained in somatic awareness and conscious anatomy for 25 years, learning to work with both my super sensing abilities and my trauma, so that I could walk in my neurodivergent and orphan world without being emotionally, spiritually and physically wrung out, and alone. In turn, it enables me to do the work I love better, and be in great relationships. Without it, I really don’t know where I would be.
Our Physiology of Connection
We have light receptors – simple eyes – all over our skin. Same with smell receptors, all over our skin… and those continue on our internal tissues. Yes, our skin sees and our entire bodies smell what’s happening all around and in us. Our bones resonate sound. Our spines build their own magnetic fields. Body language announces our egos, identities, beliefs and emotions. Fascia communicates faster than light, even between bodies. We send out emotion and intention vibrations, hormones, microorganisms and signs of about what we’re about, constantly.
We can do it consciously, or unconsciously. We can temper the volume, and focus on where we want and need to pay attention. We can toss out what we don’t need to carry. We can filter. It takes work and practice.
Learning to work with our sensory capacities is like learning to work with our hands. Our physically manifested senses of awareness are beautifully capable when we focus with direction, curiosity, and intention.
Consciously getting into the anatomy, as I do in my Coaching Circles, brings us into relationship with our intricate sensing capacities, so we can work with ourselves and each other, better, more attuned, and more visionary.
In this 5 part series on Awakening Somatics, I’ll introduce the gifts of Somatics engagement, Conscious Anatomy, and Mythosomatics, exploring our vastly relational physiology and how it relates to leadership, collaboration, change making, collective evolution and creating our paths for social transformation.
Because if we’re going to build better systems, I’m pretty sure we need all of our full selves, to all be there.
Sign up for my Somatics Tip of the Week and updates on my new offerings such as my Coaching Circles for Awakening Somatics, Replenishing Leadership, and the Art of Facilitation starting in January 2024.