Understanding the soma is not a typical journey; it may not be on anyone’s radar. It tends to come into play after some exploration into meditation.
Most of us live our lives from the neck upwards. Somatic descent is how it sounds, taking the journey of understanding the body with mental awareness.
It sounds easy, yet doing this requires you to trust intuition fully. Getting out of your way. Move awareness into the body without expectation and wait there for a signal. Feel the traumas of the past and how energy stagnates around blocks in the body. Seek the solutions to the next step forward.
I’ve been taking several courses around somatics: The Somatic Descent, Power of Somatic Intelligence, Coaches Rising — The Neuroscience of Change, Inner Parenting, and the meditation I do in Reiki.
Like anything else, a new field of understanding requires a support network, a visualisation of who I might grow into as a person if I expand in this way — conceptual, emotional, physical and spiritual awareness.
The energy body is much more present for me now I have delved into this area. There are days where I sit with the tension that I feel; in my gut, a weight across my chest, clenching my teeth, a pressure under my jaw in the lymph nodes.
There are times when I unlock those tensions and energy pulses in my solar plexus, gut, or heart centre. My throat unlocks and relaxes, the pressure in my shoulders releases.
As I do this somatic work, I find it’s increasingly important to have a physical practice. I started doing qigong — an energy practice that originated in Taoism, in China, which in itself is sometimes called ‘Tao Yin’ — Taoist yoga — helping me to understand how the energy moves in my body, how the blocks feel.
It gives me a toolkit to understand how the body’s energy works in specific ways. It aligns to Taoism’s idea that the body is a microcosm of the universe or Tao. The Tao Te Ching, a book by Lao Zi, lays out an understanding of the Tao:
The Tao Te Ching begins with the idea that the Tao is nameless and that it is ineffable, as language is not capable of describing it. Nonetheless, Tao has created the universe. It is this tension or contradiction that is at the root of Taoism; the way seems like nothing, but is everything. It is “shadowy and indistinct,” but it existed even before the universe.
It has a practical understanding as well — the elements of Chinese medicine: wood, earth, water, fire and metal.
These are symbolisms for you to understand your body, taken from ‘Qigong and the Tai Chi Axis: Nourishing Practices for Body, Mind and Spirit’ by Mimi Kuo-Deemer:
Wood
In addition to supporting a balance of stability and suppleness in the body, the Wood element also teaches us that trees can be good role models for our mental and emotional states.
Wood’s season is spring.
Fire
If spring’s growth sends forth blossoms, then summer’s fire matures this growth. Summer relates to ripening, fulfilment and the maximum of yang energy.
Earth
After the pinnacle of summer’s heat and before autumn’s cooler weather arrives, there is a period when Mother Nature hangs in balance. This is known as the Earth season in Chinese medicine and qigong — a period that follows the heat of summer and precedes the coolness of autumn.
Metal
Also related to autumn, metal is about cultivating the harvesting the abundance of summer, and cutting back from that maximum yang energy.
In the creative cycle of the Chinese Five Elements, Metal is formed from the earth’s fiery core. The planet’s core heat pushes stones and rocks up towards the earth’s surface, shaping into plateaus, hills and mountains. Metal is also minerals, such as calcium, magnesium or iron, silver and gold. Precious gemstones mined from the earth, such as rubies, diamonds and sapphires, are some of metal’s more valued and rare manifestations. Earth therefore feeds metal, nourishing it when deficient. As a yin element and phase, metal is solid, dense and structured — like a steel sword. This gives Metal qualities of power, strength and sharpness. Its sharpness gives it the ability to cut through wood and curb unproductive or excess growth.
Water
In Chinese medicine and qigong, winter is when Mother Nature lies fallow. It is a time of year when energy is conserved rather than expended. In the winter, many animals become less active or even dormant, and most plants store up resources through their root systems to see them through the next growth cycle.
Each organ of the body is related to an element and physical moves to harness the flow of qi through those areas. The understanding is that you can be over-active or under-active in each aspect which correlates to a particular organ in your body.
This nicely aligns with the martial art practice I have had for over 15 years in Karate. I can now see how the techniques in Karate allow for the movement of Qi in my body. As I near achieving my first black belt grade in Karate, I can understand the nuance of the martial art, how it becomes more fluid; the movements become circular and the lateral. Your encouraged, through the development of ‘kime’ [kee-may] — it can mean ‘power’ and/or ‘focus,’ a breathing technique that aligns the end of the technique with the breath, to release all the energy in your body through the finish of that technique.
As a lower grade, I would hold all the energy in my body and feel so accomplished because it felt so strong; I was doing a lot of exercise, carrying all that energy in my arms, after the sessions I was exhausted.
The more I progress in Karate, the more I can achieve effortless movement, with a clear and defined purpose, and techniques that align my movement and breath. That’s a spiritual practice if I ever I saw one!
This next level of understanding of my somatics is sometimes challenging; COVID lockdowns have meant that I can’t go to the dojo, and not congregating in class makes karate challenging; also the space needed to practice. The tension starts to build in my body if I’m not able to practice.
I have experienced a significant amount of trauma in my life, which I am healing, yet, still lives in my body in many ways. Sitting with that has been the most significant challenge; allowing it to be; to impart its lessons to me. Not trying to fix it. That is a fast road to ‘I can’t deal with this.’
This gives me an even better opportunity to know myself; an extra level of understanding of life that’s not taught in western culture. Recent popularity around more somatic techniques shows us that westerners were desperately seeking a deeper understanding of their soma.
Being cut off at the neck leads to the kind of explosive rage, depression, apathy, numbing, compulsive distraction and resentment that is all too common in our social interactions.
The unexamined life is not worth living. ~ Socrates ~
The more you know about yourself, the calm and more responsive you can be to another that is going through their trials and triumphs.
You can only hold what you have understood within yourself. Anything you haven’t, you will reject in some form.
I have started this journey in earnest, and I don’t plan to stop, well, more honestly now I have started it I can’t close the door and pretend that it’s not there, and that’s fine with me.
It’s a rich and wealthy understanding of my body, and it allows me to hold space for others in the next level of understanding.
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Previously Published on Medium
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