Writing & Reflections
Over my decades of experience as an athlete, professional dancer and practitioner of meditation, I have come to realize several key ingredients that deepen the potency and impact of somatic practice. Take a look at these foundational ways of relating to your embodied experience, bring them into practice and begin to feel the full magic of somatic practice unfold for you firsthand.
‘Embody’ is one of those words that is getting a lot of use these days. Like most words that become trendy, it is also getting a lot of WRONG, or at the least vague, use.
It is often being used as a replacement for the words ‘be’ or ‘do’ or ‘succeed’ and while there is truth to that, it isn’t the whole truth.
To truly embody something means that you have a full-body, FELT experience of that thing/state/experience. It means that you don’t just know something as thoughts or mental understanding, but that you also feel it as it occurs within the sensations of your body.
You CANNOT develop your embodiment through thinking. You can think about embodiment and that is very different from actually getting into, experiencing and increasing your felt sense/awareness (also known as somatic awareness) of your body.
Have you ever been frozen by the fear of what others were thinking of you?
As a professional dancer, I went through a lot of my training obsessed with those around me were thinking of me, hanging off of every word that my teachers said to make or break my spirits. It was a brutal and debilitating pattern to be stuck in.
In reaching out for help I needed though, I gradually gained and mastered the mindsets and tools I needed to shift this.
The secret lay in learning how to return again and again to what was happening for me on the INSIDE - staying connected to what I was feeling in my body.
