Body Wisdom

In somatics, "body” refers to the inner systems that guide our physical, cognitive, psychological, emotional, relational, and other processes. These processes keep us alive, support our activity and performance, promote restoration, health, well-being, and enjoyment in life, and provide inner guidance. This guidance often registers before, and sometimes separately from, what our thinking mind can even make sense of.

 

Our inner guidance can appear in many forms: through our physiology (such as breath, heart rate, and signals of hunger, fatigue, safety, or danger), as well as through our gut instincts, intuition, impulses, emotions, “felt senses” (like feeling confident), and bodily sensations; the metaphors, creative internal images, and memories that arise within us; and the automatic gestures and movements anywhere in our bodies that just start happening. These are all bodily signals, yet we can often overlook or even feel afraid of them.

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When we strengthen our awareness of these bodily signals and the inner wisdom they convey, we are better able to recognize the valuable information our body is communicating. This helps us recognize our deeper truths, needs, boundaries, desires, and values — and can even lead us toward some of our most creative, effective, and fulfilling ideas, decisions, and actions in our lives. Ultimately, becoming more attuned to our body is a way of becoming more at home within and more connected to ourselves.  And from this place, we can even unearth a very deep form of self-love.