Hello Somas,
I’m beginning to weekly blog again where I will share what’s coming up in class, what’s been added to the on-demand library, coupled with my musings, all in hope to inspire and empower you to understand the importance and relevance of this wonderful practice that is Somatics.
The Benefits of Somatics for alleviating Stress & Anxiety
Somatics offers more than alleviating chronic pain and tension, it’s also a simple tool to bring about a more balanced nervous system. One way it does this is because some of the key movements of this practise relates to our innate responses to stress and anxiety. We literally recreate the patterns of stress and anxiety to gain control over them.
We are what we sense - we are a sensory living organisms, which means everything we see, feel, hear and do or do not do, constantly triggers our nervous system. We are sponges to our environment and when triggered enough we become stuck, moulded into unhealthy patterns which are detrimental to our health, culminating in a vicious cycle of experiencing external stressful/fearful situations and finding ourselves stuck there, perpetually, internally re-creating these states of living in constant stress and anxiety. Which then underpins chronically tight muscles.
How do we then “un-mould” ourselves? First we need awareness to recognise how life has shaped us, then we use “pandiculation”, a movement technique of momentarily contracting into the very pattern we are stuck in. This is like a light bulb moment to our nervous system, a wakeup call so to speak, and then we continue the pandiculation by slowly controlling the release out of this contraction, which begins the letting go of what we were unknowingly holding onto and bringing balance back into our nervous system.
This week’s theme for class - Soothing Somatics for Frayed Nerves
A soothing blend (sounds like a herb tea!) of Rhythmic movements and Somatics to free the breath and bring about a state of peace and ease.
On-demand – last week’s class is now in there at the bottom of the page, I had some lovely comments in response, so I hope you enjoy it too. You can access the class here
As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts and insights
See your Soma soon.
Liz 🙏🏻💕x