The Unwinding Self
on trust, spontaneity, belonging and the role of ego in somatics
This is part IV of a series on somatics. Read the previous parts: Somatics in Simple Terms, Doing the Opposite, and How Does Healing Happen?
In this fourth and final post on somatics, I’d like to dive into the philosophy behind this body of work, and a few key lessons it has taught me. If you’ve been with me this far, thank you—I hope you’re appreciating something in this series. I’ve taken the liberty of adding in some reflection prompts for each section of this post; hopefully they are another useful way to integrate what I’m sharing. As always, feel free to respond in the comments.
radical trust
The first and most basic intention of somatic practice is to foster trust in the self. The kind of trust we cultivate is complete, and unconditional. It includes everything. There is no part of you, or of life, beyond the boundary of what can be trusted and accommodated. In other words, there is wisdom in everything, in all of you.
When we trust ourselves, particularly our bodies but also our minds, the life process is free to unfold without interference and interruption. We let ourselves germinate in the soil of our lives; we track and follow our innate orienting capacities towards the light, and we support organic, natural growth wherever it happens. On the way, we also learn how to trust the darkness, the times of rest and lying fallow, periods when nothing seems to be happening yet we are alchemizing internally. And beyond that, we learn to trust the wisdom in our broken parts: the ‘defective’, disruptive, rebellious, apathetic, anarchic parts inside who don’t follow the rules and aren’t interested in the plan.
Trust begins to repair the broken bond between the parts of self that have fragmented and atrophied from the ways that we comparmentalise, judge, and force ourselves to conform. Unfortunately, this lack of trust and affirmation can sometimes be compounded by the ways in which we approach ourselves (I see this sometimes with therapy and self-improvement projects).
The essence of somatics is cooperative: we receive and accept what we find, and learn ways to work with rather than against. Thus, we move from a hierarchical, controlling approach in which mind tells body what to do (or one part tells another what to do); towards an integrated, bottom-up approach in which body and mind harmonize, or the parts rub along and work together. Along the way, we repeatedly learn (or un-learn) how to trust our own perceptions, to see the core of truth within our emotions, thought patterns and behaviors, and to stop second-guessing and analysing ourselves to death.
→ reflection: What [person, being, quality, part of myself, life experience] am I trusting or leaning on right now? What is harder for me to trust? How does it feel to trust, and to not trust?
spontaneity
The goal of somatic practice is to act spontaneously and naturally, to be so comfortable in your own skin and in the world that there is no gap, no awkward, self-conscious calculation or posturing. You are what you are, in tune with everything that is; and what is needed in any moment flows effortlessly from you into the world, and from the world back into you. It’s like breathing, or dancing.
There is a paradox in this path, because the learning process is not a filling but an emptying. It is discovering how easy it is to be you, when you drop all that is not you. By this I don’t mean to invoke the flavour of detachment, or renunciation—but rather a sense of surrender, of letting go of the heaviness of managing yourself.
On occasion, I find myself (and other people) descending into endless spirals of self-analysis. It is at once irritating and fascinating to get lost in beliefs and stories of why I’m like this and am I actually feeling that? and what is authentically me? At a certain point, I’ll get totally fed up, and then I’ll usually go and lie down, or look at the sky, or move my body—anything to shake me out of those well-worn inner monologues.
Over the years, I’ve begun to understand that for me, the most priceless insights arise spontaneously, when I let my mind clear and my body settle. I can’t get anywhere productive by wearing even more grooves into the same mental paths—they can only take me to where I’ve already gone before. The possibility of change, or freshness, lies in something else, outside the known. That something else is the pulse of creation, the beat of life, calling me into the present and onwards on a new path to a new self.
This is how presence leads to creation, how we let go of who we have been and turn towards who we are becoming. Spontaneity is to know yourself as a part of creation, manifesting, and to allow yourself to be that part fully, just as you are.
→ reflection: When am I most spontaneous, or free to be myself? When do I feel limited, or constrained to be Other than myself? What stops me from being fully or freely who I am?
self-undoing: somatics as ego reconstitution
The deeper meaning behind somatics comes from what it takes the body to be. We have been steeped in dualistic ideas of mind-body separation for so long that the body, to most, is not much more than a meat sack we carry around, a vehicle for our thoughts and mind. Even many wisdom traditions state that the body is to be used as a tool to cultivate the mind, or reach higher states.
In somatics we reverse all this—the body is taken as the ultimate ground of being, the touchpoint of reality, the manifestation of soul and spirit, the container of (sacred) life force. It is our true home, the way that our singular form has chosen to manifest within the field of creation, alongside all other forms of Life. Everything we experience and every way in which we expand and grow, happens in and through the body.1
From a somatic perspective, the living-ness of the body is the only direct way to touch reality and present moment awareness. Out of that contact, life is renewed and transformation occurs. I mentioned in the first post that we begin somatic work by releasing tension and undoing patterns of holding. What we are letting go of is the armor of ego, of limited ways of being, of the small self—and what we find underneath it is the living energy of the greater Self, soul, spirit, Life, the Universe, God, whatever you call it. In this way somatic practice is also spiritual practice.
Over time, we repeat this process of dissolving ego and connecting with something greater, again and again. Along the way, the shape of who we are changes. We become softer, more flexible, tender yet more resilient. We discover a sense of being at home in our skin and in the world, a knowledge that we are where we belong.
The beauty of somatic work is that it opens up a spontaneous flow between individual and cosmic selves, in a way that eventually allows us to become who we are. We do not have to mold ourselves to fit certain ideas, whether self-imposed or inherited from culture or tradition. The gift of trust, spontaneity and allowing yourself to be undone and remade again and again, is that you make room for your individuality. What shines forth out of the alchemical process of somatic practice is the gold of your unique form and self; reflecting endlessly the deeper life energy that animates it.
→ reflection: Have I ever felt connected to the larger body of Life? What was it like? What do I find when I contact my body from the inside?
Note that the body here is not body-as-separate-from-mind, but the felt dimension of body that encompasses the whole self; the living or energy body, if you want to call it that.
Trust in the. Universe is the key to unlock the body, mind to follow simple steps. Think, will, act.
The choices of photos are a wonderful gateway to your somatic words. Thanks for the post and I prefer unwinding my words in the comments.
Thank you! I savor your thoughts and musings. Your words resonate deeply and seem to always arrive just at the right time :)