[From StrozziInstitute]We are always living inside of a social context. We embody our social contexts, just as we are shaped by and embody our family contexts, communities and the land/environments that influence us. When we are looking at transformation, social context is one of the most influential forces, whether we are focused on personal, community or systemic change.
For another great presentation by Staci Haines (on Somatic Transformation), see this video.
Somatic awareness: What are you noticing in your sensations and what do you feel in your body? Developing this awareness allows us to make contact with a store of information and intelligence that we normally have limited access to.
Somatic practices: We are what we practice. We become what we practice. And we’re always practicing. But is what you’re practicing aligned with who you want to be? Somatic practices train our nervous systems as well as provide opportunities for exploring meaning and developing insight. Our entire psychobiology is explored and developed as a form of intelligence.
Somatic opening: Being able to transform from one embodied shape to another that is more congruent and aligned with the things that you most care about. Shape is meant to imply that which is embodied in someone (i.e. people’s history and lived experience; their emotions and emotional range; their thinking and belief systems; the actions people take and don’t take). Learning and change involve a transformation of one’s entire shape. We can shift from a shape that has less choice, freedom and flexibility to one that’s more aligned with our deepest intentions and possibilities.
Embodiment is what makes the change sustainable, Haines explains, as it is that which is most deeply practiced and embodied in us is that will come forward in our daily lives. Thinking will only take us so far. The process of somatic transformation is one in which we deconstruct old patterns and then reshape our selves and our lives through somatic practices, always mindful of the social contexts which are embodied in each of us.
After listening to this fine discussion of somatic transformation, I just happened to stumble across these amazing videos of 86-year-old Johanna Quaas doing gymnastics at the 2012 Cottbus World Cup this past weekend. “I’ll have what she’s having!”
