The world of sensations is limitless and awe-inspiring.
The human body sends 11 million bits of sensory information per second to the brain for processing, yet only 50 bits of information per second actually get processed by the conscious mind.
This means that a large majority of sensation is unconscious.
If that wasn’t enough, living in our current capitalist society, we are often trained to ignore our body’s signals altogether and self-stimulate through television, social media, video games and junk food as modes of distraction.
Through this, the wisdom of the body (the ‘soma’) often gets overlooked and dismissed outrightly.
The jitteriness in our stomach, the constriction in our throat, the expansiveness in our chest, are all sensations that carry invaluable information about the effects of past experiences, current needs, and psychological states.
As a mentor of mine often says, the sensations in our body are unopened mailbox messages, waiting for our acknowledgement and discernment.
This is exactly what we do in somatic work, a body-centered approach to healing that focuses on nervous system regulation through acknowledgement of sensation. Somatic work is a new method that I’ve added to my toolbox when working with clients.
This approach is deeply insightful, since through the somatic process, clients directly connect to their nervous system state, and in doing so, better understand the impacts of the environment on their system. Moreover, they have the opportunity of receiving ‘the mailbox message’, so to speak, directly from their body sensation, with regard to a need they can better meet in their daily lives. It is truly magical how simply giving attention to a sensation can evolve it within seconds, igniting the withheld wisdom and insight.
Somatic work is an instant block-buster with clients (no pun intended), because when we listen to and trust the body’s wisdom, energy frees up, and clients receive invaluable insights about themselves. Through this, clients develop a unique relationship and language with their body, becoming more finely attuned to their inner world. Ultimately, this allows clients to trust their intuition more in life, and welcome in greater ease and fulfillment.
