Somatic Integration

We live in a culture that places enormous faith in the rational mind.

Thinking, reasoning and analysis are extraordinarily useful capacities. But they are only one dimension of who we are—one slice of a pie, along with many others: the body, emotions, intuition, instinct, energy, heart, soul and Spirit.

And the thinking mind has a peculiar ability: it can tell us things that simply aren’t true.

It can construct explanations, rehearse old stories, anticipate futures that never arrive, defend conclusions it has already reached, and repeat thoughts so often that we begin to experience them as facts.

Meanwhile, other dimensions of ourselves may be communicating something quite different.

A tightening in the belly. A change in the breath. An impulse to move toward or away. An unexpected sadness. A sense of opening or closing. Something we cannot explain but somehow recognize.

Our experiences don’t live only in the stories we tell about them. They are also carried in the body—in sensation and emotion, breath and movement, tension and ease, and in the ways we have learned, consciously or otherwise, to protect ourselves as we move through the world.

Sometimes we know the story very well, and yet something remains.

A holding that doesn’t quite let go. An emotion that keeps returning. A familiar reaction we understand intellectually but cannot seem to change. A sense of disconnection from ourselves. Or simply the awareness that something beneath the words is asking for our attention.

So, Somatic Integration begins by listening

When I speak of listening to the body, I don’t mean that the body should simply replace the mind as our new primary authority.

The deeper invitation is to become more attentive to the whole of ourselves.

My understanding of this has been profoundly shaped by many practices. In the yogic traditions, a human being is understood as far more than a physical body with a thinking mind attached to it. We are physical, mental, emotional, energetic and spiritual beings—different dimensions of one living whole.

The body can provide a doorway into dimensions of ourselves that the rational mind cannot readily reach.

A sensation may convey an emotion. An emotion may be connected to a memory. A familiar tension may accompany a habitual way of meeting the world. A change in the breath may reveal something before we have become conscious of an experience or found words for it. And sometimes there is simply a bodily sense that something is so—even when we cannot yet explain why.

The practice begins with noticing. Listening. Giving it space. And to see and feel what, if anything, it has to tell us.

Long before the word somatic became commonplace in the worlds of personal development and wellness, I was exploring the body through bodywork, yoga, meditation and other forms of embodied practice.

Over the years, my yoga studies in particular have profoundly influenced how I understand the relationship between body, mind, emotion, energy and awareness.

One understanding at the heart of my work is that what we are unable to fully experience and process doesn’t necessarily disappear.

A sudden event, difficult emotion or overwhelming experience may exceed our capacity to meet it in the moment. Rather than completing its natural course, some of that experience can remain held in the body—what is sometimes referred to as “frozen prana,” or energy waiting for an opportunity to move again.

This holding can sometimes be experienced as restriction, contraction, persistent tension or pain, often in deeper structures of the body.

Rather than treating these sensations simply as something to get rid of, we can approach them with curiosity: What might the body still be holding here?

Through awareness, breath, movement, stillness and sometimes sustained, supported postures, we create conditions in which what has been held may begin to soften or “melt.” Sensation may shift. Emotion may emerge. Energy may move.

Something that couldn’t be fully experienced then may finally have enough space and support to be felt, processed and integrated now.

We aren’t forcing the body to let go. We’re giving it an opportunity to complete something it may not have been able to complete before.

This changes the question yoga is asking.

Instead of: How far can I go into this posture? the question becomes: What happens when I am here?

Where do I tighten? Where do I resist? What happens to my breath? What am I feeling? What does my mind begin telling me?

What happens if I stop trying to change the experience and simply become present to it?

A yoga posture can then become something quite different from an exercise.

It becomes a place to meet ourselves.