As healers, coaches, and guides, we devote ourselves to the practice of holding space for others. We study frameworks, learn techniques, and deepen our compassion. But have you ever left a long day of sessions, feeling empty, wondering where your center went? Have you ever felt that the wisdom you share with others is a well that you cannot draw from for yourself?
This experience can be a gentle call home an invitation to come back into being versus merely knowing the principles of well-being. This is the essence of somatic practice: a way to grow personally and professionally that is based on what you can not deny is true based on your bodily experience. It is the portal to creating a life and practice that is sustainable, impactful, and deeply fulfilling.
Why Somatic Practices Are the Foundation of Growth
Somatic practices are simply intentional actions that engage sensation, movement, and breath to reach the innate wisdom of the body. In a culture that values intellect and being productive, these practices become a subversive means of returning to ourselves. As somatic practices continue to gain traction within healing professions, they are based on addressing the origin of our resilience, the state of our nervous system.
Through a regulated, present, and aware state of our own somatic landscape we experience:
- Greater Resilience: We can navigate stress and challenge without falling into overwhelm, we regain a state of balance with greater ease.
- Deeper Intuition: By learning to listen to the subtle cues of our body, or ‘felt sense’ we are able to tap into a vessel of deep wisdom that leads us to our choices.
- Authentic Presence: Our ability to be fully present with clients is amplified, creating a powerful field of safety and trust.
Core Somatic Practices for Your Daily Life & Professional Toolkit
You don’t have to sit rehearsing somatic awareness for hours. It simply means incorporating small, conscious minutes of embodiment into the course of your day. Here are some practices to get you started.
1. The 30-Second Arrival: Grounding and Centering
Prior to a session, after a hard conversation, or any time you are feeling unsettled, this simple practice can return you to your center.
How to do it: Take a moment to pause wherever you are. Notice the weight of your feet connecting with the floor. Notice the stability and groundedness of the ground under your feet. Take one slow, conscious breath in, feeling the air enter your body, and take one slow, conscious breath out, feeling the air leave your body. Feel the support of the chair or the space all around you. That is all.
Why this practice works: When you bring awareness to your sensory nerve endings in your body, you literally send a signal to your autonomic nervous system that you are safe and supported in the moment. It literally short-circuits the anxious cycle in your head.
2. Breath as an Anchor: Simple Nervous System Regulation
Your breath is the easiest tool available for changing your physiological state.
How to do it: Lightly place one hand on your belly. As you breathe, the belly should soften and broaden like a balloon on the inhale. As you breathe out, try to make the exhale slightly longer than the inhale, feeling the belly lower slightly. A count of four on an inhale and six on an exhale works nicely. Repeat this five to ten times.
Why this practice works: Lengthening the exhale stimulates the vagus nerve, the primary nerve of the parasympathetic (“rest and digest”) nervous system, which is a biological brake pedal that slows down all systems to help establish an experience of calmness.
3. The Body Scan: Cultivating Somatic Awareness
This involves learning to become fluent in the specific language of your own body.
How to do it: Close your eyes and turn your awareness inward for just a minute or two. Without judging, simply scan your awareness through your body. What do you find? Warmth in your hands? Tension in your shoulders? A sense of openness in your chest? Don’t change anything, just be gentle, curious and notice.
Why this practice works: The body scan develops the neural pathways for interoception, the ability to sense the state of your body. This skill is the basis for emotional intelligence and self-regulation.
4. Mindful Movement: Unlocking Stored Tension
Our bodies contain our stories, our stresses, and our joys. Slow, gentle movement can be utilized to help process and release whatever is stored there.
How to do it: Select a song, play it, and allow yourself to move your body however it calls you to for a couple of minutes. It could simply be a gentle stretch, slow sway, or a strong shake. You must give up what it “should” look like and simply follow your inner impulse.
Why this practice works: Movement helps complete the stress cycle and release energy that has become stuck in the body’s tissues. You will reconnect to that place of aliveness, agency, and perhaps playfulness.
Your Embodiment is Your Greatest Professional Asset
When you engage in your somatic practice, your professional presence shifts. Your ability to empathize expands in that you can sense the echo of clients’ somatic experiences in your own body, whether it be anxiety, grief, joy, or anything else.
In our community, a therapist recounted a challenging experience. She was working with a client who was cognitively working through a past trauma, yet was emotionally disengaged with the experience. As the therapist listened to the client, she began to feel a tightness in her own chest. Rather than pushing that sensation down, she sponsored her own experience and took a self-regulating breath. In this moment of self-tuning, the client paused, took in a deep breath, and for the first time, tears started to roll down his cheeks. Her grounded presence provided unspoken permission for him to feel.
This is the wonder of co-regulation. The nervous system becomes a tuning fork to help our clients find their own note of safety and coherence.
The Meeting of Science and Soul
This work exists at that beautiful overlap between modern science and ancient wisdom. Neuroscience on neuroception and the polyvagal system verifies that which yogis and mystics have been doing for years and centuries; that is, the state of our bodies drives the quality of our thought and emotion. When we pay attention to our physiology so simply, we are quite literally changing our brains and our experience of the world.
Your Invitation to Begin Now
The journey of embodiment is not another thing you need to check off your to-do list. It is a kind of gentle returning, moment by moment. It is the most generous gift you can give to yourself, and by all means, to everyone you serve.
A Practice for Right Now: After reading this, simply pause. Put your hand on your heart. Notice the warmth of your own hand. Take a single breath, simply offering yourself a silent “thank you.”
This is the beginning. If you feel compelled to embark on this path in community with other practitioners, we invite you to explore our offerings at Embodywise. Together, we let the journey of coming home continue.
