A Somatic reflection of You.

Picture credit: Lakshmi Ambady

I’ve succumbed to his wild ways,

Yielded to his charming gaze.

There’s scarcely anything left of me.

When His scent tarries around...

Unpossessable is He.

So, I let Him go, that vagabond

Because He belongs to the wild.

Yoda, the little green Jedi who makes his first appearance in the movie- “The Empire Strikes Back” tells Luke Skywalker – “Size matters not. Look at me. Judge me by my size, do you?” Yoda is 800 years old and yet he’s swift, agile, sharp- minded, extremely perceptive and intuitive and wise. His skills are not staggered by his physicality. He has evolved himself to go beyond his tiny body and uses his somatic reflexes and mindfulness to fight for the good and for truth. As compared to the other Jedi Knights, he’s very small. But in the line of the evolution of the Jedi masters he is the One. If he had limited himself to his size and kept on grasping to the stature his tiny body, he would have probably never evolved to be the greatest Jedi Master. So, what did he do different? Did he choose to consciously evolve? To rise above the need to cling and fearlessly abandon his entire being to the wildness and sanctity of the Force? After all he did live like a vagabond hermit on the swamps of Dagobah. No jedi council, no Jedi temple- just a sheer, unwavering, natural and powerful connection to the Force- his own mirror till his death and even beyond…

Most often we do this to ourselves don’t we? We try to remain glued... To our limitations. To our fears. To our sadness and to our despondent thoughts. Clinging is the nervous system’s way of saying- “But this kept me safe once. I want to go there again.” We like familiarity. The brain likes to pick out memories so that you respond to the present in the same way as you did before. It’s a survival strategy because the brain does not want you to die. It wants you to go on surviving no matter what. Because if the body is alive, the brain is alive. Yes! the brain is extremely selfish, but it is also neuroplastic and malleable. It responds if given direction. It relaxes if given the time and space. This is where Somatic Experiencing® enters. As an evolution. A re-patterning. A demand that we safely and gently loosen our grip on our traumas, our fears, our sadness and our anxieties. To keep a distance from our old familiar self- the one built from past survival strategies, struggles, stories and identities.

To do this, you do not destroy the old self. You thank it. You feel it. You observe it through sensation. You let its shapes dissolve. You invite a shift in the chassis. You let the body loosen the grip from the mind so that your cells somatically choose a new arrangement. This is conscious change with the help of Somatic Experiencing®. This change is you becoming less attached to the body’s museum of survival. If you keep clinging to who you are, evolution stagnates. Not just yours. But that of your forthcoming generation. Of your children and their children. You be the ancestor that decided to heal his trauma, his panic, his anger, his worry and his fears. In a Somatic Experiencing® session, we let the body speak. We let the armour murmur itself. We allow ourselves to meet our old self. Safely and gently. In rhythm and in presence. In felt sense and simple bodily sensation. It is like walking into an old home. Touching the walls, feeling the floor creak, seeing the cobwebs and taking a step back to thank it for protecting you and then simply letting it stand empty for new life to walk in.

In Somatic Experiencing®, the body does not release because the mind orders it to. It releases only when it will be safe without the old patterns. The old trauma. So, by bringing attention to your body, you are the one giving permission to your cells to re-orient themselves for the life you are now ready to live. Without fear. Without depression. Without anger and hostility. With freedom. And when this happens, your body knows instinctively that it can belong to the present only.

Evolution is not a leap in Somatic Experiencing®. It is a million tiny loosenings, practiced until they become your new shape. And only when you embrace it with care and curiosity you stop to cling. And your body learns to succumb to its natural free unburdened rhythm and to walk with life effortlessly because you cannot evolve if you are clinging to the past.

Somatic Experiencing® is simply a medium to see a somatic reflection of who you are. Of what you can be. If you allow yourself. Slowly, gently and safely. Would you want to let go? Just let go. Try it. And be wild? Be you.

“Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose.”- Yoda to Anakin Skywalker in Revenge of the Sith.