What is somatics?
If you’re reading this, I am sure that you have been seeing the word ‘somatics’ all over the place, being thrown around to mean everything and anything associated with the body, and while in some ways yes, this is about the body, in order for somatics to have an impact in the lives of those who are practicing, I think it’s very important to understand what it really is. In this article I want to clarify how I define somatics in my work as a somatic practitioner, why somatics is such a powerful path for healing and transformation, and how it actually works.
Somatics does not simply mean “the body”, it refers to a specific paradigm, way of practicing, and a process for healing and transformation.
Somatics as a Paradigm
As paradigm somatics sees our experience of life as happening inside the body — our soma. This counters the mainstream way of experiencing life as happening out and around us, and instead understands that our lives are created and lived within our sensations.
Somatics as a Practice
Somatics teaches that we embody what we practice. And what we practice was informed by our life experiences and those of our ancestors, making up the bio-psycho-social context in which our “reality” was shaped. This shaping determined our thoughts, perceptions, actions, and choices — or in other words, the values that we are embodying. When we want to live a life that feels aligned with our truth, values and desires, we need to shift our physiology — our somatic shape — so that we can embody (and thus inhabit and experience) a new way of being.
