You don’t have to be a guru to do somatic work. At its core, somatic work is simply being aware of your body, and you don’t need to do anything fancy to experience its benefits. It only takes a few seconds to drop into your body, feel whatever your body is feeling, note the sensations, and then carry on with your day. Simply spending a few moments with your body’s felt experience brings you closer to your embodied self.
What does somatic mean?
The term somatic itself can be distancing because it is used mostly in academic settings and not in everyday life. The word somatic essentially means relating to the body. So, you’re doing somatic work any time you notice your body’s sensations. It’s that simple.
What is an embodied self?
An embodied self is the experience of being fundamentally connected to your physical body. The experience of an embodied self encompasses awareness of sensations, movements, and perceptions. In other words, and embodied self is a way of understanding yourself as never being separate from your physical form but rather integrated within it. The embodied YOU holds a deep sense of being present in your body and actively interacts with the world through these sensations.
Why are somatics helpful?
Somatic exercises are tools to bridge mind and body. By linking mind and body, somatics are the means toward emotional regulation, stress reduction, pain management, and general well-being. When we feel that our mind and body are working together, not fighting each other, we feel better! Somatics help us integrate our physicality and cognition, our feeling and our thinking. We can feel more dynamically whole and embodied by practicing somatics.
What somatic work can I do on my own?
Just by noticing your feet on the ground when you sit or stand is somatic work. Taking a moment to notice the rise and fall of your chest when you breath is somatic work. Feeling tightness in your neck and then rolling your shoulders around is somatic work. It really doesn’t need to be anything too complicated.
Try this somatic therapy practice
Take a minute to close your eyes or turn your focus inward. Scan the internal and external landscapes of your body. Feel the air on your skin, the clothes on you back, the way your body is in contact with the couch you’re sitting on or the floor your standing on. Send attention to any part of your body that seeks your attention. Scan your body for sensations (aches, pangs, tickles; pain, pleasure, emotion, warmth, fatigue, anything!) Notice what comes up. Acknowledge your sensations and thank them.
How can I use somatics to better know myself?
Somatics are a wonderful way to connect deeply with stored tension, pain, or destabilization that is stored in your body from past traumatic experiences or dysfunctional coping mechanisms. Working with a somatic psychotherapist can help relieve physical pain and stress, improve emotional awareness and release of trauma. In somatic psychotherapy you become more attuned to your body’s signals, develop a deeper understanding of your needs and how to respond to them with compassion.
