Part Two: An Open Dialogue between the Conscious and Subconscious parts of the BodyMind.

This week's post is the second in a seven-part series of excerpts from our soon to be released companion video to the book, Awakening Somatic Intelligence: The Art & Practice of Embodied Mindfulness.

Click here to download the audio excerpt.

"The art and practice of Somatic Learning optimally supports the full embodiment of the quality commonly referred to as “mindfulness” in our lives through awakening somatic intelligence.  Somatic Intelligence refers to the way life knows itself in the bubbling, bursting, blooming forth of consciousness in the here and now. This is how we know ourselves at no distance, from the inside out.  In contrast, to how we were conditioned to know ourselves from the outside in.  In other words, assuming that the object we are perceiving at a distance - the way you look to me from a few feet away or I look in a mirror - is the same as what is actually here at no distance. 

Somatic Learning develops an open dialogue between the conscious and subconscious parts of our body-mind. This dialogue allows what we sense in the depths of our silent level of experience to influence and update our way of perceiving ourselves and the world.  Like fine tuning a radio receiver, Somatic Intelligence enhances our ability  to accurately attune with the body’s impulse to thrive. ,As we sense the feedback arising from the body-mind, we learn new ways of functioning that are congruent with non self-limiting beliefs. The old programmed  reactions are gradually erased, and our habitual tensions release into a more enlivened and integrated functioning. 

We learn from utilizing feedback - just as we wouldn’t learn to swim without water - we need the feedback of our feelings and sensations to become more self-organizing.  This changes not only our awareness, but our actual physical structure and physiological functioning.  We learn to bring spaciousness throughout the body-mind, allowing us to move with grace and efficiency, to prevent injuries and reverse the deterioration that often accompanies aging.  We strengthen our immune system, change the stress responses to ones that are more restorative and intelligent, and heal from trauma and stress related illnesses.   

And, Just as our physical movement becomes less dense and mechanical, so does the way we think and feel, become more fluid, creative and resourceful. 

Through the Somatic Meditations we develop a more highly differentiated response-ability.  This enhanced capacity for self-sensing, self-organizing (self-correcting), and self-renewing is the hallmark of the practice of Somatic Learning."

Part One: Journey into Embodied Mindfulness

This week's post is the first in a seven-part series of excerpts from our soon to be released companion video to the book, Awakening Somatic Intelligence: The Art & Practice of Embodied Mindfulness:

"Hello.  I feel so grateful to share this journey into embodied mindfulness with you.

In this video series, you will learn how to engage your innate Somatic Intelligence, feeling and sensing from the inside-out to transform pain stress, trauma and aging.

All living things, even a single celled organism, or a plant, are continually growing, responding, moving - becoming.

They are designed to respond to the environment around them, as well as to their own internal needs.

You too are designed to tune in and learn from your inner sensing system. Most of us lost this capacity as we were socialized. Much of what we learn about ourselves we learn from external sources. We learn that we have only five senses - all for gathering external data. In reality, we have an unlimited capacity to receive from within and to shape our own experience.

This video series is divided into sections.  Some provide a conceptual framework.  Others introduce and demonstrate somatic mediations, while others guide you through experiments that support the integration of somatic intelligence into every aspect of living. I encourage you to watch the practices first, before going back and trying them yourselves.

In volume one you will learn how to breathe with a new awareness --  in such a way that everything inside you move.

You will learn to differentiate the movement of each of your respiratory diaphragms, freeing your bones to float in the sea of soft tissue. I think of this as "gravity surfing."

Using your breath you will be able to elongate your spine and open all your joints, so your bones float freely extending on the waves of your breath.

We practice this process while sitting and lying on the ground in volume two, we extend this practice to sitting on balls and chairs,  while standing and walking, learning to fluidly change plains between these positions.

This practice is a wonderful opportunity to shift the way you approach learning and movement, no pushing to achieve an idea, no strain or struggle with the somatic meditations.   Trust yourself to open and learn at your own pace and tune in to the beauty and wonder of the living system that is you.

As my beloved yoga teacher, Vanda Scaravelli, often said; 'you must start with beauty and no ambition.'

Lets begin joyously."

How do you journey into embodied mindfulness?

Breathing: Drinking in and kissing back, a Somatic Meditation®

Presencing is a way of learning into the infinite as the beloved, just as a cat will sometimes lean into stroking, expressing its enjoyment in purring.

Try this Somatic Meditation in breathing, then ask yourself:

• When you lean into this vast spaciousness, can you sense it more deeply?

• Does kissing back the infinite as intimately as kissing the beloved make this simple moment of breathing even more luscious?

• Do you feel renewed in this mode of breathing?

• Can you sense this drinking in and kissing back with your breath as an expression of gratefulness?