Doing the Opposite

Guiding principles of the somatic way

Following on from my previous post, in which I spoke a little about how somatic practice works and what you might experience when you practice somatically, I thought I’d share some guiding principles of this wonderful body of work. Somatics is so different from other forms of self-work and healing that it often doesn’t make sense in the beginning. We usually need a lot of re-contextualising and re-conditioning to understand what we’re doing and, most importantly, how to do it.

Much of somatic work could be summarised as doing the opposite of what we know and believe; because we have strayed so far from a natural, instinctive and integrated way of being that, despite it being our birthright, it somehow feels contrary to us. I’ve therefore chosen to present the following principles in this back-and-forth manner, so we can really see how different the somatic approach is.

• In bold is the principle itself, ie. what to do.

• In italics underneath it is what not to do, or what we normally do, ie. the opposite.

They are also loosely ordered according to how they usually unfold through a single practice, or a long-term practice arc. I begin, in this post, with two principles that I consider pre-requisites, or starting points for any somatic work; in the next post, I will take us through the general pattern of how the practice unfolds. Finally, because somatics is the way of both the personal body and the body of nature, I’ve taken the liberty of including various images and metaphors from the natural world as supports for this understanding.

I lay no claim to these principles: they are fairly universal across somatic disciplines. What I am offering here is my own distillation of them from nearly a decade of personal somatic practice, training and now coaching. Through my own explorations, I’ve been lucky enough to experience numerous somatic methods and modalities—while each has its own flavor and application, this is a synthesis of what I have found to be a common thread running through them.

If you are a somatic or body-oriented practitioner, I wonder whether you see facets of your practice and work reflected in these principles. And I also wonder whether, in these principles, you may find new ways to unlock places you may have been getting stuck, or to reorient you where you were going astray. We could all use many, many reminders of this kind—so please take them in that spirit, and let me know what strikes a chord.

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the flow of water, always towards ease and balance | Philippa Lowe

pre-requisites, or starting points

1 ▪️ find the easiest path

vs. pushing, doing more, amplifying, “no pain no gain”

The culture and world we live in encourage striving, efforting, trying, doing more, in the name of progress and growth. It’s not considered possible to achieve things without pushing for them. Or, even if we can achieve something by doing less, the advice is to do more so that it will grow more. The assumption is that expansion happens through pushing, and not through surrender.

Most of us wouldn’t agree with the idea that we seek out difficulty. But it’s only when we experience the opposite—how ease actually feels and expands us from the inside out—that we realise how much of our time and energy is taken up in struggle. This energy manifests physically as binding or tension. This is why many somatic disciplines emphasise relaxation as the first step. When we relax, we literally and somatically un-do the patterns of holding that are keeping us locked into struggle, bracing and hardness, stuck in an adversarial relationship with ourselves and the world.

Somatics is revolutionary in that it shows us that we will grow and evolve spontaneously, when we find the easiest and most natural way to be. Instead of forcing progress, if we can cooperate with how we instrincally are, we activate our growth instinct. And it really is an instinct, ie. it’s built-in to the way humans are, not something extra we have to adopt.

To some degree, there is and always will be struggle in life, and in nature. But we don’t necessarily need to amplify that struggle, or to add on more ways to struggle to a system that is already overtaxed and overburdened by the stresses of life. Doing less and being easy with yourself is not only recovery, it is a way of learning and growing into a different side of your self.

In case anyone misunderstands, I am not saying there is no value in doing difficult things in life. Rather, within the world of somatics, we consciously prioritise ease as an entry point into an alternative way of being. Where difficulty arises and accompanies us—and it always does—we turn towards it with a sense of ease, and hold it with tenderness. Sometimes this principle is also called nonviolence, or gentleness. In other words, we are not aggressive towards ourselves, in any way or on any level. From this kind of presence, safety emerges; which is the necessary first step for transformation.

growing gently around whatever stops us (even invisible obstacles) | Matt Palmer

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2 ▪️ seek out and deepen pleasure and enjoyment

vs. relegating enjoyment to an afterthought, dismissing or shaming the instinct for pleasure, seeking out difficulty

The next step, which I also consider a pre-requisite to transformation, is to build capacity or resources. From the body’s point of view, capacity is built in the presence of pleasure and enjoyment. When we feel good, our whole self dilates and relaxes—and we start to unwind out of the patterns of bracing and tension I mentioned earlier. Over time we get familiar and comfortable in that felt sense of ease and delight, until it becomes a resource that we carry within us. It then begins to act as a buffer, or a safety zone, for the deeper healing and metamorphosis of the self that occur through deeper somatic work.

Many people (and even practitioners) skip this step, or simply do not devote enough time and space to deepening their sense of pleasure in practice. I was like this, in the first 5 years or so of my practice—I assumed I had enough resources already and dove straight in, very deeply. This led me into a period of profound internal transformation that I sometimes wonder if I was really ready for. It left a huge impact that I am still processing to some degree, and also touched my life in ways I frankly struggled to navigate. I became very introverted, even more so than I am by nature, simply to manage and accompany myself through this process; I also went through many layers of detoxification that triggered physical symptoms or intensified conditions I already had.

Because somatics is so profoundly transformational and healing, we can sometimes get stuck in these deep-down tectonic shifts and the intense emotional work they trigger. There is a labour cost involved in healing, one that we are not always prepared to pay, or that life circumstances may not allow us to make space for. I often see this with clients who do therapy; there is a heaviness to their energy, because they have been practising orienting towards their pain (in the very natural desire to heal it), more than pleasure.

The body heals when given time and space to be with what it loves. In other words, by re-establishing an appropriate rhythm between work and play. It’s therefore always healthy, and wise, to follow the body’s urges for lightness, play, rest, relaxation, pleasure and ease. These become a spontaneous and organic way to titrate the intensity of our practice, so that we are constantly engaged in a balance between replenishing our inner resources, and exploring new terrain inside ourselves.

Taking the time to create your own relationship with goodness, pleasure, play, curiosity and desire sets up a solid and reliable foundation for further practice you engage in—somatic or not. Each of these parts of the self are like a compass that orient you properly in the world, that remind you of your worth and of the value of being alive. Every time you allow yourself to feel delight and wonder, you remember that you are part of this majestic creation, deserving of its abundance. There is an intrinsic generosity to this principle, and to life itself, when you reconnect with what nourishes you.

Each person has their own gateways into pleasure—and because the seeking of enjoyment is an instinct, it’s usually very easy to figure out what yours might be. What do you turn towards intuitively, that brings you joy? Some of the classics are: music, movement, good food, nature, loving company, laughter, friendship, travel, movies, books, dancing, adventure… The hard part comes in truly allowing yourself to enjoy, because we have so many patterns of shame and constriction around such experiences. This in itself can be a healing process for many, to undo the ways in which we deny or dismiss our needs and desires.

Remembering that pleasure is part of our organic intelligence—a tropism, or an involuntary, instinctive movement—helps. As does recognizing that following the path of your desire and curiosity is what frees up and releases your life energy. We first stop constricting ourselves through tension and struggle; and then we find what brings us joy and expansion. Once we have familiarized ourselves with this pattern of pulsation, closing and opening, we’re ready for the next phase of the work.

To be continued in subsequent posts…

reaching towards what we love, the way that flowers grow towards the sun | Sina Malek

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