Eugene Gendlin was a student of Carl Rogers and probably the single most important influence in the development of what we now call “somatic” or body-oriented therapies (Reich of course as well as others but I’m talking about the contemporary form body oriented therapies take). As the trauma discussion gets more and more medical and… Continue Reading →
I channel medicine in my kitchen both via spontaneous meal creation as well as herbal concoctions. Kitchen witch I am.
The healing process is an ever-changing evolution when done right. Adopting other people’s protocols is a violence to the body. One must meet the body here and now with particular attention to the unique context and environment of your life and your dna. …
Over the years now I’ve been interviewed on radio and podcasts a number of times. I’ve had fun every time. This interview with Chris Cole, though, I believe is my favorite so far and that’s because he went straight to what is most important to me at this time in my work. That is the… Continue Reading →
Most of my deep meditations still happen while lying down. This remains necessary because the somatic experience remains far too intense to otherwise tolerate sitting. In order to profoundly allow and experience the healing process (by relaxing deeply into it) the body must be horizontal and completely and progressively more relaxed. This allows the nervous… Continue Reading →
More musing from the past few days. Anyone who has ever been called too sensitive might appreciate some of this. I’ve recently been drawn to the term “somatic mysticism” because I feel everything deeply in my body. I can feel my cells doing their work quite often and I feel all manner of metabolic movement and… Continue Reading →
In the first part of the discussion about developing “Somatic Wisdom”, we used a technique that involved scanning the body for any distress and then using a four part process to describe it and name it. In this post, I will discuss how we can access the body’s innate wisdom to learn ways to transform any stuck energy and release it for better health and emotional well being. Again, the point of this practice is to engage the wisdom of the body to discover areas of distress. Physical distress in the body has an emotional component that often lays dormant without our conscious knowledge. These charged emotional states are essentially messages from our body. When we take the time to tune in and really listen the messages become clearer and more apparent. The simple process of scanning and listening often gives us strong insight into the emotional and spiritual reasons we are feeling uncomfortable. … [click on title for the rest of the post]
The Somatic Wisdom Technique (SWT) is a way of accessing our body’s innate wisdom, to become aware of any deep set negative emotional state and then to develop the tools to loosen and release that emotional state. The first step in utilizing the SWT is to sit or lie down in a comfortable place. Allow yourself to breathe deeply and slowly for 10 long breaths. Allow your body and mind to settle down. If anything is bothering you from the day, allow your mind to see your thoughts and then gently move back to following your breath. Sometimes it is helpful to count between 6- 8 seconds on an in breath and between 8-12 seconds on an outbreath. … [click on title to read and view more]
Healing for me, among other things, involves somatic release and processing 24/7. It requires a complete surrender to something intelligent that moves through me but is not me. I call it life-force. I recognize it in every living thing. It manifests in infinitely diverse ways following it’s own natural law which defies intellectual understanding. I watch in awe. …
Lately I’ve become more aware of how virtually all of my reactivity has an element of traumatic response in it. One definition of trauma is that the nervous system loses its capacity to regulate itself – we’re caught activated and we stay activated. On a smaller scale I see this whenever I am activated. Worry, fear, anxiousness, even just being caught up in stream of thoughts, they all entail a fixation – repetition of thoughts, being stuck in the same vein, awareness narrowing to only include the thoughts and body’s negative reactions to the thoughts.
So bringing in some Somatic Experience practices to work with it has been helpful –
More of my latest meanderings: Egalitarian “hetero” relationships don’t need to look like God/Goddess (or anima/animus) relationships. They’re not distinctively nor necessarily male and female. Both partners may embody both male and female. A man may be more archetypically female . A woman might be more male. Hetero-normative crap is crap. I see women and… Continue Reading →
Everything matters 