Somatic Coaching.
What is somatic coaching?
The Greek word Soma refers to the unity of the cognitive, physical, emotional, sensational and spiritual aspects of who we are. Despite living in a world that divides the cognitive mind from the body, we know that this does not serve us. We are much more than a brain on a stick.
Everything we do happens through the body - whether we are thinking, speaking, moving. We interpret the world through the body, not just the mind. Without a body we do not get to show up in the world. A somatic coach works with the body as a foundational place of learning and skill. Any action that we take competently with skill (think driving for example) is embodied. And so, to learn, grow and develop ‘automatic’ skills we have to consciously engage the body.
Meet Julie. She suffers with stress and anxiety and experiences regular headaches. Julie’s headaches appear every month a few days before the scheduled board meeting. She begins tensing her body but as yet, she hasn’t spotted this pattern. Working on her body may help relieve the tension in her neck but it’s unlikely that there will be any assessment of an organic cause.
Working with and through her body she discovers the hidden beliefs, narratives, missing conversations and actions that seem to relate to the tension headaches. She and her coach begin a programme of work to address what has not been taken care of by learning about how and where she withdraws, where she engages, what she misses in her professional life and what she yearns for. She learns about what matters most to her and how to work with and through her body to create a different future by establishing a renewed relationship with herself as a board member and a senior leader in her organisation.
This is different to traditional coaching by asking deeper questions about the nature of our being and who we are, by employing conversation, movement, gestures, breath, visualisation, touch, sound. It takes us beyond cognitive knowing to acting from the deeper life force of energy, letting go of the old, becoming ready and able to welcome in the new.
What is somatic bodywork?
Our body takes its form not only through nature and genetics but by virtue of our experience. Imagine the tight locked jaw clamping down on words never said, or shoulders up around the ears, unable to drop because of permanently held tension, or the concave chest pulled in as protection from ridicule. The body holds our history of what has been attended to and what hasn’t.
Somatic Bodywork is a powerful methodology that addresses long-held deep muscular contractions and armouring, developed for reasons of safety and connection. When you lay down on a table, fully clothed, you come into a deeper state of relaxation. Breath moves, organs relax, tension settles, and with the support of a somatic coach through touch, sound, breath, narrative, and movement, the body brings to the surface what has long been held far from conscious awareness. Often surprising, the body brings a deeper sense that pure cognitive knowing cannot.
Somatic stories and incredible bodies.
Digging deep can be an emotional journey that may even make you cry.
Meet Paul whose Mum left when he was 13. Paul enjoys the fruits of his well-paid career yet feels unfulfilled and joyless. He can’t name the void. Somatic work revealed that he held unresolved grief pulling him towards a constant search for confirmation of his value.
Meet Claudia whose family situation changed drastically in her late teens. Instead of choosing the path she’d laid out she became the emotional caregiver in her family. She could never truly be herself, and it showed up as a lack of confidence, a lack of authority and a difficult relationship with conflict. Bodywork helped her reveal the root of her challenges and made room for change.
Meet Steve working in finance. His business was undergoing change with impacts on culture and behaviour. Steve, angry and overwhelmed became cantankerous and resentful, a default behaviour pattern encoded into his body for dealing with pressure. Coaching with and through his body revealed this as a pattern in the face of change. New practices helped him learn how to soften physically and emotionally, how to create new perspective and be a more effective leader.
