A New Innermission: My Journey into Somatics

My previous work on the podcast was about cognitive processing and intellectual reflection during moments of transition. But when I went through my latest life transition, losing my mom, I realized that there were just some journeys that my brain wasn't my best guide. By getting curious about the world of somatics, I found a way to bring my full self--head, heart, and hara (or gut intuition) into my process. Along the way I learned some essential practices, found some long sought after answers, and found truly embodied transformation that led to long-lasting change in my life. Join me in the new season of My Innermission to investigate the power of somatics and somatic practices in our transitions and transformations.

Transcript

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Welcome to My Innermission, a podcast conversation about the transitions and changes we face in life, and the strategies and approaches that support us in taking the next step in our journey. I'm your host Colleen Stanevich. I'm baaaaack. I started this podcast several years ago, really wanting to dig into what makes personal and professional transitions powerful and impactful. Through that journey, I got to interview incredible people who went through their own transitions, caring for aging parents, making professional pivots, coming to terms with grief, stepping into greater social justice work and opening themselves to the power of play, and now those folks help others navigate transitions successfully too. Through those interviews, I learned so much and made such amazing connections and gained some important insights into what patterns supported successful life transitions. Those patterns helped me create the my intermission journals to help people get curious about their own identity, roles, their life's purpose and their plans for moving through transitions to make them truly transformational. But through that work and my own personal work, I felt like there was a missing, unspoken peace about transitions that could truly capture how they can lead to transformation. I took a break from the podcast due to another transitional moment in my own life. My mom experienced dementia for several years and began to deteriorate quickly after covid, I found myself taking more trips out to support her and my sister in the Northwest, and was able to sit with her when my mom passed away. The grief that came after watching her suffer for so many months was different than other losses I had experienced. For anyone who has grieved multiple losses, we know that each loss and the subsequent grief carry its own nuances, emotions, experiences, processes and timeframes. There isn't a set rhyme and reason to grief. The only constant is you have to go through it on its own timeline. This grief carried with it a sense of relief that my mom didn't have to suffer anymore. This grief and the fact that I had seen her death coming meant that the loss of her life was something I had prepared for and was actually welcoming on some level, so that she could be at peace. I mourn the loss of the woman who gave me life, raised me, taught me so many beautiful lessons about love, leadership, connection, and instilled the importance of always having fresh flowers and homemade cinnamon rolls at the ready. The grief that came out of left field in a more unpredictable way was the grief that I felt for myself, the grief of all that I was trying to juggle, trying to work be present for my kids and husband, navigating monthly trips to care for mom and somewhere in there, trying to take care of myself. The toll of juggling all those pieces had been building inside of me, and with my mom's passing and moving through the grief of losing her, the heaviness of what I had carried caught up with me, it was an opportunity for another intermission. This time I got to revisit elements of my identity, who was I without a mother. Who was I when I wasn't a caretaker for my parent or struggling to balance all the missing parts? I revisited my roles. What does it mean to lose a mother and have to Mother yourself? How could I sustain being a mom, wife, consultant and healthy human? And I pause to reconsider my own purpose. Death always gives the clear reminder that we are only on this planet for a finite amount of time, and none of it is promised. Was I doing the work I wanted to do with my one wild and precious life, as Mary Oliver names it. Through therapy, journaling and using some of the practices I had learned through this podcast, I moved through that grief on many levels, but there was something that still lingered. I could name what was next for me, what I wanted to be, but I could feel something holding me back. Spoiler alert, what was holding me back was the place I hadn't looked in a long time, my Soma. You see, when I started my intermission, I relied so much on how our brains make sense of transition and move through transition, through reflection, analysis. And planning for what's next. Given my background in education, this felt like the sweet spot for learning about oneself and taking on new challenges in life. What I hadn't considered was that all that thinking in our brains is connected to the rest of our Somas, or our wholeness of being when we're dealing with change In the last few years, the field of somatics has gotten greater attention, whether it is somatic therapy, somatic experiencing, or somatic coaching. This idea that we are so much more than our brains, but that our full bodies contain cells and tissues of knowing, emoting, supporting and protecting that also guide our paths. I've come to understand that it isn't just about turning off our brains, but instead recalibrating like an old stereo system equalizer, turning down the volume on our brains, which is so often so loud and turning up what the rest of our Somas, our hearts, our intuition, our armoring tissues that protect us, and our overall somatic shape. We have to look at those pieces to get the full picture of how we are being and experiencing the world. So I took an introductory course on somatics and embodied transformation, and I instantly felt like a door had been unlocked for everything I had learned about how the brain takes in information, how synapses form over time, how our cognitive processing and mindset can help us make sense of challenges I had been ignoring. The other ways of knowing that the rest of my body had been holding and had been trying very hard to get my attention Through this four day course, I recognized what it means to be centered in myself, not just grounded, not just present, but fully centered in my dignity, in my connections with others and in my own presence, between my past experiences and my future desires, I uncovered some of my conditioned tendencies that had been developed to help Create a sense of worth by holding and supporting others, but holding others had left me off center in terms of my own sense of inherent dignity. I recognized how much I had tried to keep myself from feeling all my emotions in service of keeping the peace with others and to keep myself from feeling out of control, and I had the opportunity to make an embodied choice to redefine my relationship with alcohol, not due to addiction, but due to the fact that I had a habit of pouring a glass of wine to help countering big emotions on both ends of the spectrum, the biggest celebrations and The biggest stresses would call for a glass of wine, and that was doling me from experiencing all the things and all the richness, the highs and the lows that life contains. So coming off that four day experience, I found myself with new levels of aliveness and awareness that I hadn't known in years, if ever, I ultimately chose to begin a path through the Strozzi Institute, a lineage derived from Aikido principles, that offers approaches, processes and practices to help find our own centered energy, and allows us to meet the energy of others, of our environment around us, of the sites of shaping in our life, experiences that have led us to where we are today. And through this coaching program, I feel like I have more fully come to know myself and recognize how my experiences have created all the ways I show up in the world. I've developed practices that have helped me find my center, return to my center, even in times of great conflict or challenge, and I've developed ways to uphold boundaries that help me keep my commitment to myself first. So this coaching program and the somatics work really had a personal impact, but it also uncovered a bigger connection to the purpose that I had been longing for in all of my periods of intermission. Through this work, I felt how becoming an embodied human and letting my Soma inform who I am in this world is also an essential way to create change in our world, if by staying on center and upholding healthy boundaries, living into my commitment to myself and connecting to the energy of nature and others while seeing my place in the greater whole of the world that leads to real change. I'm rebelling against all of the forces that are destroying our planet, creating division amongst each other, and perpetuating inequitable systems in our society and world. So as a person who has spent decades avoiding conflict, to try and keep the peace with others, no matter what the cost was for my own well being, I have found that I now welcome being a disrupter and leading a quiet rebellion for myself, with my clients, for my kids and for a better world. Pragmatically, what does all this mean? I think there have been a few concrete takeaways that have really shaped my new approach and my coaching work with others. First, transformation requires slowing down our world, our society, our technology, all require us to move quicker, respond rapidly and to get more done in less time. To maximize efficiency, profits, productivity, but transformation, it requires deeper intention,greater awareness, grace, patience and space. I don't run slowly all the time, but I find when I begin to be overly reactive to the stress and complexities around me, my first step is to take a deep breath and slow down even a five minute recentering slows my nervous system and helps me recalibrate. Secondly, our brains are amazing, and they are asked to hold too much in terms of decision making, emotional regulation and guiding transformation. We may think about creating a plan of action to instill change or write out scenarios of how we're going to respond in times of conflict, or to create my favorite a pro con list to help us say yes or no when making decisions. And by asking our brains to hold all of this responsibility, we are exhausting them and ourselves and dismissing all the other ways that we're meant to process concretely. This means that when I feel stuck in decision making or emotionally ramped up, my first approach now is to give my brain permission to take a break, and then I turn up my intuition and listen to the rest of my Soma. What does my heart feel like? What's my body's response when I consider different options in a decision? By doing this, I FEEL my way into decisions and moments instead of analyzing, strategizing and overtaxing my brain. Thirdly, nature has so much to teach us. I think I've always loved to be in nature, and have always felt reverence for its beauty and rhythms. But in this work, I've realized that nature isn't something outside of us. It is us. If this somatic work is about the energy we have and the energy we bring to the world, we also have to acknowledge what energy the world, and especially the natural world, brings to us. Putting my feet in the grass, even just running my fingers on the foliage of an indoor plant, helps me humbly, reconnect and be part of the world around me. When I think about myself and other humans as organisms in this much larger ecosystem, it definitely gives me peace, perspective and presence. So with all this new learning, I'm ready to recommit to the podcast. I've realized that being a storyteller, creating and getting curious with others, are all things that really feed my energy. I'm also committed to bringing more healing, connection and Joy to the world. So this podcast can become an important vehicle to explore somatics with others, to share somatic practices and to help create something that supports others in a journey to experience their own embodied transformation into who they are longing to be. So join me on season three of this podcast. We'll spend the first couple of episodes exploring the why behind somatics and the origins of practices. In the second part of the season, we'll explore the practices themselves, their importance, and how they support us in creating change in our lives. Thanks for listening. A. Along the way, and I look forward to the next phase of the myintermission podcast. Curious to learn more about somatics? Check out myinnermission.com for updates on retreats, additional resources, including reflection, journals, coaching opportunities and to dig into previous episodes of this podcast. Also be sure to follow My Innermission on Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn for upcoming events and offerings.