The Art of Somatic Coaching

Introduction

Distancing ourselves from our bodies causes issues

“Now we can scientifically ground, through technological advances in the emerging field of neuroscience, that distancing ourselves from our body places not only our physical health at risk, but our emotional health as well. Furthermore, being out of touch with our body limits our capacity to learn and evolve, and it dramatically reduces the possibility of meaningful relationships, as well as an authentic spiritual presence—surely all foundations for a fulfilled, satisfying life.” (p. 9)

“The distance we live from our body is the distance we live from our self, from our emotional reality.” (p. 10)

“The primary difference of living in our bodies or at a distance from our bodies lies in the heart’s intent, that is, what we pay attention to, how we pay attention, and in the very purpose of our attending. Most of us live out lives that we’ve unconsciously inherited, and we’re mimicking patterns of living that have been passed on to us by family, school, religion, government, economic institutions, and the media. We have lost touch with the rich, subjective life of being in the human body, upon which our entire experience is based.” (p. 12)

Somatic coaching, defined

“Somatic Coaching posits that a person’s way of being in the world, that is, who they are is the ground of the coaching. Transformation occurs when the being of the person is addressed. By working through the body Somatic Coaching represents the next evolution in the relatively new discourse of coaching.” (p. 30)

“In contemporary speak the soma is often referred to as the living body in its wholeness; somatics, then, is the art and science of the soma.” (p. 32)

“To work somatically with someone is to work with the unity of their being. To do this we first observe how life takes shape in the individual, and how the individual organizes himself toward life, or not. We then introduce practices of attention, conversation, breathing, touch, movement, gestures, and awareness.” (p. 34)

“Unless she has a medical background the Somatic Coach is trained to simply help release the tension that is stored in the body. In this category the Somatic Coach is very clear that if there is an organic cause she will refer this person to a qualified health professional.” (p. 34)

“Through these cultural and natural influences the body will reveal our predispositions to the qualities of awakening, self-collecting, dimming, expanding, recoiling, contracting, guardedness, and warmth. The body will relentlessly disclose our embodied strategies for belonging, for love, safety, and acceptance. The body reflects our joys, our pain, our longing, our commitments, our gifts and talents, our wounds, and our healing.” (p. 37)

“While skills and clear thinking are developed through Somatic Coaching, it’s the individual’s way of Being that is ultimately transformed and enables them to generate life-affirming action. Working through the body allows us to create sustainable, grounded transformation that is purpose driven.” (p. 42)

Core principles

PRIMACY OF RELATIONSHIP: The connection to living beings, the connection to the very fabric of life, is foremost and always leads. A deep acknowledgment, understanding, and embodiment of interdependence and interconnection as central to the fabric of relationships. The acknowledgment that we are a part of the larger fabric of life. (p. 43)

TRANSFORMATION: The recognition that we are evolving beings capable of generating sustainable, actionable change that reflects what we care about. With right intent, right practices, right communities, and right guides we are able to evolve and transform ourselves to a more awakened consciousness. (p. 43)

EMBODIMENT: The centrality of Being the change, Being the transformation, Being the new action or skill. This is a state of authenticity that is distinct from cognitive knowledge, or simply knowing something. (p. 44)

PRACTICE: We transform and evolve through practices. We are what we practice. Our bodies reflect what we practice. Practices are linked to values, ethics, care, and commitments. (p. 44)

SELF-CULTIVATION: The lifelong path of self-cultivation is a cornerstone in developing wisdom, compassion, and skillful action. Self-cultivation ultimately leads to that which is beyond the Self. (p. 44)

CONFLICT AS GENERATIVE: The skillful use of conflict can produce trust, connection, life-affirming possibilities, and intimacy while minimizing violence. (p. 44)

SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL EQUITY: The commitment to freedom, peace, justice, and sustainability for all beings. (p. 44)

Methodology

SOMATIC AWARENESS

“Choice follows awareness. The more aware we are, the more choice we have.” (p. 46)

“The first step in Somatic Awareness is becoming aware of our sensations.” (p. 46)

PRACTICES

1. “Body/Self Awareness—notice sensations, breath, shape, qualities, actions, stories, and moods; scanning the body 

2. “Awareness of and access to emotions and their connection to sensations 

3. “Centering: Learning to balance along the dimensions of length, width, depth, and an organizing principle

4. “Embodied meditation (attention training)

5. “Seeing somatically and not only cognitively: building the skill of observing oneself and others through the life of the body and not only the content of what is being said or thought 

6. “Ongoing practice of bringing attention to life of the body in all activities” (p. 63)

SOMATIC OPENING

“In Somatic Coaching we say this shape is not fixed. We can change, transform, and evolve by shifting the soma. Somatic Opening is a domain in which this change occurs.” (p. 66)

“Somatic Opening is the undoing/disassembling/disorganizing/deconstructing of one’s historically embodied “shape” so that another shape can come to life. Undoing means the opening up and the dissolving of the set of habits, behaviors, ways of being, interpretations of the world, emotional range (or lack of), and literal contractions that we have embodied. Somatic Opening involves a disorganization of our historical muscular organization, organ correspondence, tissue metabolism, and breath patterns that shape our behaviors and how we make sense of the world. It means changing our shape.” (p. 66)

“It’s also important to point out that this isn’t a total makeover. The work in the stage of Somatic Opening only increases choice, and we’re freer to maintain our basic competencies while adding new ways of being that we deem useful and desirable and beautiful.” (p. 68)

PRACTICES

1. “Being with, blending with, and healing the emotional and energetic wounds that are carried in our bodies

2. “Strozzi Bodywork

3. “Spirited commitment to dignity: building the skill to fight for what we care about and to take an embodied stand for our dignity and values

4. “Listening beyond the self: spirit, landscape, interdependence, human history, what wants to come to form beyond the self

5. “Feeling and allowing deep emotions

6. “Emotional/political/professional/spiritual autobiographies: an embodied understanding of the narratives and stories that make up who we are

7. “Becoming aware of and gaining mastery over conditioned tendencies

8. “Accessing authenticity, yearning, and declarations” (p. 73-4)

SOMATIC PRACTICES

“The way we comport ourselves is a direct reflection of what we’ve been practicing.” (p. 75)

“There are three domains in which to think about the primacy of practice. The first is what we call generative practices. Generative practices are those practices that increase our awareness and expand our consciousness.” (p. 77)

“One of the most direct and powerful of generative practices is meditation.” (p. 78)

“The second type of practice is what we call an ontical or specific practice. The results of an ontical, or specific practice, are that it can be employed in a specific context.” (p. 79)

“The third type of practice is the everyday living practice. Simply, this means being present to how we are in every moment and every situation of our life. This builds the sensibility of an ongoing awareness.” (p. 80)

“The fundamental questions we need to ask ourselves in the domain of practice are:

• “What practices are we presently doing to develop ourselves?

• “What practices are we engaged in that we’ve inherited from our family or broader culture that have become habituated and unconscious?

• “Are the practices we’re presently doing congruent with our values? 

• “What are the new practices we need to fulfill on our vision?

• “Who can be a good partner that will encourage you on this journey of self-cultivation and help you stay in your practices?” (pp. 82-3)

PRACTICES

1. “CFEEB: Center—a commitment to become present; Face—a commitment to integrity; Extend—a commitment to listening; Enter—a commitment to courageous action; Blend—a commitment to collaboration 

2. “Embodying the speech acts: Declarations—a commitment to a future possibility; Assessments—a commitment to intimacy and a future action; Assertions—a commitment to an existing reality; Requests—a commitment to a future action; Offers/Promises—a commitment to producing satisfaction

3. “Centering in action

4. “Shifting states of consciousness—Increasing choice and capacity

5. “Embodying competencies we need for our personal declarations and leadership roles” (p. 84-5)

SOCIAL CONTEXT

“When personal-development work is not grounded in an analysis of social conditions, there’s a risk of reinforcing beliefs, norms, practices and systems that are opposite to our commitments and concerns. Practitioners who help support change in an individual’s life sometimes fail to address the many causes of a client’s pain and shaping that are not personal, such as the impact of racism, classism, gender training, homophobia, ageism, immigration, or other socially determined experiences.” (p. 86)

PRACTICES 

1. “Ongoing education, awareness of and accountability for systemic shaping, oppression and privilege, and one’s location in it. How has it shaped you and others? How has it shaped your worldview, options, beliefs, and embodied habits?

2. “Sites of Shaping, past and present: discovering how your individual and collective conditioned tendencies have been shaped by broader historical and social forces 

3. “Sites of Change: recognizing that creating change at different Sites takes different skills and actions

4. “Somatic practices done collectively build resilience and grounded alliances in teams, communities, and organizations.

5. “Centered accountability 

6. “Through somatic practices, conflict becomes a generative force rather than a precipitation into aggression and violence.” (p. 92)

LANDSCAPE/NATURE

PRACTICES

1. “Include metaphorical and literal examples of nature in the discourse

2. “Invite nature to shape us

3. “When practices are done outside include the landscape in the narrative 

4. “Utilize sustainable environmental practices such as shifting from fossil fuels to renewable energy, decreasing consumerism, buying and/or local growing of organic food

5. “Encourage students to get outside and build relationship to the landscape since Nature is a major resilience factor for most people 

6. “Express gratefulness for Nature

7. “Have conversations about how the landscape has shaped you 

8. “Have conversations about the cost of “separating” from Nature” (p. 98)

SPIRIT/THE MYSTERY

“The value of connecting with Spirit through the soma is that it keeps us authentic and aligned around our spiritual aspirations and the issues of our everyday life.” (p. 100)

The Rhythm of Energy

“The Rhythm of Energy has four distinct stages: Awakening, Increasing, Containing, and Completing. Think of the seasons, the tides, the phases of the moon, a complete cycle of breath, the structure of a movie.” (p. 110)

AWAKENING

“Core life energy is continuous, circulatory, and always present. Bringing our attention to the life of the body is the first step in awakening. Life doesn’t disappear; we do. When we move our attention from the feeling self to the thinking self we lose contact with much of life. Sensation, the building block of life, is where we locate our attention to somatically awaken.” (p. 112)

INCREASING

“Increasing is the building of structures that allows our energy to develop and mature. At this stage we’re taught how to listen to the increasing energy and to participate in its expansion.” (p. 117)

CONTAINING

“The stage of containment, much like the ecology of the pond, is marked by maturation into fulfillment and self-knowing.” (p. 125)

“Boundaries describe where we begin and not where we end. In this way we consider the edges of the ever-expanding universe as a boundary, a place to experience the farthermost reaches of the self.” (p. 126)

COMPLETING

“If we’ve been taught that emotions are taboo we can fall into the pattern of not completing in many areas of our life, because emotions are integral to endings. When our emotional life isn’t given full expression in completions it’s more difficult to fully begin something, to start a new relationship, business, or creative opportunity.” (p. 137)

The Somatic Arc of Transformation

HISTORICAL SHAPE

Beginnings and Endings (p. 146)

“This is the moment in which the coachee declares a vision, intent, and commitment to a particular future. This declaration of a future tells the Somatic Coach what the person wants to achieve in their work together. It also requires an inquiry into the practices the person needs to commit to in order to reshape herself to fulfill on this future.” (p. 146)

Conditioned Tendency: The Historical Shape (p. 148)

“We also may balk at this part of the journey because we’re ashamed. Uncovering our deepest conditioning we think we’ll be discovered for who we truly are and then abandoned. This is the result of inherited social images that are static and conform to our stereotyped cultural images of gender, age, race, class, and stages of life.” (p. 151)

“The small ritual of giving thanks to them creates a space in which we can be self-accepting and build toward a new phase of our life.” (p. 153)

Centering through Change (p. 160)

“The somatic practice of being centered is a lifelong practice that is tunneled with exquisite nuances as well as an explosive joining with forces beyond the self. It’s also ordinary and simple, as in simply attending, moment by moment, to the way you move through an established routine. It’s not that we center after brushing our teeth in the morning and then forget about it as we go about our daily routines. Centering is not like turning on a switch that will remain on all day. The practice of center is a moment-by-moment commitment to being present in the here and now.” (p. 161)

UNBOUNDED SHAPE

“We are in a strange new ocean of feelings, perceptions, and conversations that arise out of depths we didn’t know existed. Our usual reference points are gone and in the currents and tides of this open, unbounded space we lack our accustomed forms of validation.” (p. 163)

NEW SHAPE

“In the unbounded stage we opened to what’s next; the questions that we’re in at this point are what skills are necessary for us to learn, who is in our network of support, and what new behaviors we want to embody.” (p. 169)

EMBODIMENT

“As our new shape comes to form we’re coaching how to somatize our vision and commitments through new practices. This is the process of embodiment. Instead of simply relying on a good idea, a startling insight, or hope we see that it’s possible to actually be the change we envision through practice. In this stage, there’s a deepening into our new shape that has an energetic, feeling dimension of interacting with the world.” (p. 173)

“To embody a new way of being or a new life skill takes an extended period of time. This is contrary to the culture’s standard of the quick fix.” (p. 174)