Body Wisdom Tools

"I am my body!" (1962, Merelau-Ponty's integrative work on embodied perception, p. 198)

"Our bodies are our sacred instruments that allow us to fully experience life." Teeni Dakini

Our bodies hold wisdoms, knowledge, and capabilities that our minds cannot understand.

One of my teachers in this field was a woman named Esi Wildcat. She is a a spiritworker, devotee, ordained priestess of Isis, somatic practitioner, and former student of Psalm Isadora. This is Esi describing some of her first introducrtions to learning about body wisdom tools through Psalm Isadora:

"We were made to understand that what she was doing was not magic, but a very methodical and somatic/ energetic approach to healing - an approach endowed with essentials as old as time - using one of the most formidable, mysterious, and unique vessels in nature - THE HUMAN BODY."

Somatics is Not about intellectualizing your suffering

Student of Psalm Isadora and tantrika, Miriam Elyse quote:

"Women have been domesticated (yes I used that word) to be out of touch with their bodies, their emotional range and their wild and free expression.

Maybe because it’s not seen as logical, respectable, or “civilized.”

Feeling safe in the body is a LUXURY, because the world can be harsh and many are in survival mode. If you are not in immediate danger, yet you are anxious or feel unsafe, you are most likely in survival mode and it’s nearly impossible to be in that mode while simultaneously being in your embodied power, (which includes pleasure … and having capacity for all sensation.)

I give thanks every day that my life is not in immediate danger so I can relax into my body, but it’s not that easy for many of us.

There may be no obvious threat but we still struggle to feel safe and somatically connected.

I think that more women waking up in their bodies, healing the imprints of trauma and repression, and connecting to their pleasure will empower the feminine to rise up and find the balance that will heal the world.

That sounds like a powerful concept! Tools that recalibrate you to yourself—almost like practices or techniques that help you reconnect with your true essence. In a way, it's about aligning your thoughts, actions, and energy with your deeper purpose or core values."

Conversations on Somatics:

Somatics is a field of bodywork and movement studies that focuses on the body’s perceptions, sensations, and experiences. Bodywork is any personal or therapeutic technique that involves working with the human body. A somatic approach means body-centered. Some specific somatic questions may be: “Where do you feel this emotion in your body? When you touch your hips, chest, throat, etc. what sensations arise?” Somatics is about valuing the connection between the body, mind, and emotions.

In Greek, soma means body, specifically “body in wholeness”. The body is where our felt senses live and is a powerful place of knowledge into who we are and why we behave the way we do. Using somatics in a wellness or therapeutic environment can promote positive change, growth, and transformation as it is based on lived experiences and sensations in the present moment. 

Somatics include yoga, breath work, massage, mind-body stress reduction (MBSR), mindfulness meditation, and energy medicine. In somatics, it is believed that the body holds just as much — if not more — wisdom than the mind. However, this wisdom is communicated differently, in a way that the mind may struggle to understand or interpret. 

Somatic therapy focuses on how emotions and sensations appear within the body. Somatic therapy believes that our bodies hold and express experiences, events, emotions, trauma, and that unresolved emotional issues can become trapped inside the body. This methodology is perfect for kinesthetic learners. 

A simple example of a somatic-mindfulness experience is when experiencing anxiety, imagine growing roots from one’s tailbone and feet connecting you to the core of the Earth. Anxiety, frustration, overwhelm is said to “spiral up” so focusing on the lower body and putting attention on something “below” can give mental relief. 

Another example for anxiety and somatic therapy would be to do the *breath of fire or a physical activity to “release” the anxiety; i.e. the overwhelm, the excess of energy. 

Incorporating somatic knowledge into wellness practices is useful for people who feel that talk therapy does not give desired results. Somatics is about addressing the body first and letting the body slowly decompress. 

“But the body is, of course, also a concretization, or function, of that unknown thing which produces the psyche as well as the body; the difference we make between the psyche and the body is artificial. It is done for the sake of a better understanding. In reality, there is nothing but a living body. That is the fact; and psyche is as much a living body as body is living psyche; it is just the same.” - C.G Jung, Jung’s Seminar on Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, p. 114

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gn_AbUXx3I

Breathwork @ 3:00 & 10:30

Bodywork demos @ 20:00

*This is specifically for pregnancy and doula work, but learning to be in touch with your womb space and relax your pelvis are incredibly powerful body wisdom tools applicable to any situation.

Deeper work: Psalm Isadora

Tatiana Dellepiane

Esi Wildcat/ Wildholyhuman

Teeni Dakini

Amy Jindra