Somatic Coaching – Developing Self Care

What Is Somatic Coaching?

The term somatic comes from the Greek word soma, which means “body.” Somatic healing falls within the spectrum of mind–body therapies. And can also be nicely aligned to wellbeing coaching, life-balance and personal development coaching.

Somatic coaching is a fairly new field as it relates to the wider world of mind – body connection. Many people have heard of it, but they don’t know that much about it. In today’s world we are only just beginning to appreciate the benefits of more self-awareness and being able to better connect with our own body to enable better physical, mental and emotional wellbeing.

Simply put, the word ‘somatic’ means that a person is fully aware of themselves. Somatic approaches are used to engage the relationship between mind, body, intuition, brain, and behaviour. The field of somatic coaching greatly contributes to learning more about ourselves physically and physiologically and reinforces that by accessing all our senses more completely [ie those beyond our primary 5 senses] in a meaningful and useful way we create a powerful resource for ourselves.

Somatics is a form of sensory intuitive thinking

“Sensory thinking is the raw experience of physical sensations and feelings. Our senses are our ’windows’ through which we perceive the external world. This level of thinking stems from our bodies. When we imagine or remember an experience, we can also recreate associated physical sensations, without any external stimulus”.

Tomkins and Lawley (2000)

Let’s explore an example…

I’d like you to recall a time of personal sadness for yourself (this is just an example, so not too deeply as to unsettle or dysregulate yourself). Make it a clear picture in your mind. When you have that, what do you see, hear and feel? What smell might you recall, or a taste associated with that moment? Take a moment to notice all the sensations and additionally connect with what you are experiencing within your body as you recall that time. Perhaps you can feel you’re holding back tears, your chest is tight, your hands tense, fists clench. You may have a lump in your throat or your voice breaks as you speak.

These are your embodied connections to that event and are those emotions generated within your body in response to a remembered thought and the experience you had. This is part of your Somatic sensing mechanism. Our body responds constantly to all external and internal impulses we experience even before our brains are aware of it.

The body literally talks to your brain. You may experience a stiffness in your shoulders? It could be that you feel too much responsibility in your life. You are juggling too many things currently and that stress and tension sits within your body in your shoulders. A stomach tightness or tenderness may signal anguish or fear about an upcoming event. Or perhaps a stiffness in your back might relate to feeling stuck and not feeling able to move forwards to advance on the path you want to take.

Somatic awareness consists of bringing these [physiological elements] to consciousness and is what the sub conscious brain does automatically all the time without your consciously being aware of it.

Why is somatic awareness so important? To be able to recognise automatic behavioural responses and to do something about them actively is a gift and offers you greater awareness and control over your life to make change for yourself, further your success, achieve personal goals, fulfilling potential and achieving more happiness

The brain is a social and emotional sense organ. Your brain cannot function independently of the body because you take information in through your senses using sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste. So, in order for your brain to communicate it must communicate through your body not instead of it.

Somatic coaching helps people shift from thinking with the brain to feeling with their body and something we call ‘felt sense’. You discover what your quieter senses are telling you when you access this ‘felt sense‘ without noise from your rational brain making up stories, building beliefs, making assumptions and filling information gaps. It is used a lot in meditation and mindfulness.

Our rational brain is purposeful and is there to help you make sense of the world and that is a critical function. However, we have a tendency to accept what our brain says as fact without question, regardless of what bits it has attended to, focused on, deemed relevant or of worth to us. This is useful in part, because of the sheer volume of information streaming into our consciousness every second of our life. In fact, scientists have measured the amount of data that enters the brain and found that an average person living today processes as much as 74 GB of information a day¹. So the brain must have mechanisms and strategies to filter, sort and store information without overloading it.

However, we should not ‘think in isolation’ because we also need to listen to the quieter voice of the ‘sensing’ body that also takes in and stores information, to give insights the logical brain cannot access. Our ‘felt sense’ has been a part of our evolution and kept the human race safe from its very beginnings. It is just we have forgotten how to listen to the information of that inner sense or ‘voice’ since the human brain developed higher functionality.

For example,

You are walking home and about to enter a creepy, dimly lit alley that you see is empty, so the brain is saying it’s ok to walk there at 3am. Your brain says there is no one there and you can just about see. Your gut, however, is churning and the hairs on the back of your neck are standing up. Your body is saying there is something to be wary of, your biological fight/flight system is engaging and pumping cortisol into your body, so you are feeling physical sensations of anxiety and stress. Have you ever felt like this? Which part of you did you listen to?

Biologically we are predisposed and culturally socialised to pay attention to our ‘brain thinking’. And people often get lost [in their heads] because of all the thoughts they have. They often disconnect from the ‘body signalling sensations’ that are present. These are quieter lower level yet often offer additional and useful information.

The reality is you need both sources of information. And so, you need to be able to focus on them, actively listen to them and hear them both.

What I am going to share with you now is that we really do have more than 5 senses! Although we have others, two more of these other senses include Interoception and Proprioception.

Interoception is where the internal sensations of the body are signalling, and we need to interpret them. These can be our physical sensations or can translate into our language and how we speak and form sentences.

For example, you may feel a tightness in your body. As a mind-body coach, I want to hear where that is? What that tension is in your body and learn more about it and how it needs to be listened to to enable you to make a shift of some sort. And ultimately what would happen if I asked you to consciously release it or move it? How does that affect your thoughts, feelings and physical sensations?

What physical part sof your body are you are aware of when you are stressed, frightened, happy etc. Exploring these aspects of your ‘felt sense’ and using coaching to guide you enables you to become more mindful and self-aware and to develop a better wellbeing. As a somatic coach I help you explore your embodied experience.

Proprioception is another one of your senses concerned with how the body is positioned in space. I use my own N:O:Q model for focusing and exploring this part of your body language and behaviour. Deeply questioning how you sit, stand, move your body etc. creates signposting and acts as indicators for your thoughts, feelings, and emotions.

The nervous system is a ‘whole body’ system. We are only accessing a fraction of the body’s wisdom by only listening to the brain. Mind-body techniques use healing interventions that work with mind and the body to access and change feelings, thoughts, and behaviours and make positive changes.

Felt experience can support self-regulation, awareness, increased emotional intelligence and can support self-healing of negative experiences.

Connecting, listening, and observing with you in our coaching sessions means as a sensory coach, I can be more present with you throughout and better attuned to both your felt sense as well as my own. We move forward together using mindfulness and encouragement. This is important when working with you to be able to better empathise and connect with you in one-to-one work to get the best outcomes. Somatic work is rewarding and transformational enabling you to get in touch with those parts of you that you barely notice in order to appreciate their true power.

We can approach many aspects of mindset and limiting beliefs through somatics and it can be highly enlightening and effective if you are more a ‘thinker’ by nature. This work is definitely not only for those that are more comfortable with their ‘felt sense’. It may be a little more alien to connect to your body for answers but we all sense through our body and some of the most powerful insights are gleaned when people connect to another sense of themselves they hadn’t registered before.

If you would like to experience somatic coaching from an accredited coach and experience the benefits of coaching for yourself or within your organisation or ask a question you can drop me a line on 07929 264499 or send me a message and I’ll get right back to you.

I am based just outside of the beautiful city of Hereford in the UK. Hereford is easily accessible and near to Ledbury, Worcester, Cheltenham, Gloucester, and mid Wales. I offer home visits, online support, and chats, meeting at a mutually convenient venue or you can always come and see me if you wish.

Be well

Caroline

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