Episode 22 | Yoga V.s. Somatic Embodiment Practices: What’s The Difference?

Welcome To The Womanhood Podcast.

In this weeks’ episode, we’re discussing the similarities and differences between: Somatic Embodiment Practices and Yoga. Where they meet, and where do they separate. The REAL QUESTION being explored in this episode: Where is the line between Somatic Practices & other body-based practices? We’re chatting all about this today!

I end with X1 Mini Somatic Practice and X3 Somatic Cues, so you can embody this Womanhood Wisdom and integrate it into your life for lasting effect.

RESOURCES:

📚 The Body Talk & The Somatic Rewiring Mini Guidebooks (Link To Access): https://www.somaticbody.com.au/shop

🧘🏼‍♀️ Beginner Breath-work Practice (Start Here): https://youtu.be/5vOedYwt1g4

🌸 Feminine Harmony Starter Course (Info Link): https://www.somaticbody.com.au/feminine-harmony 

🩵 Book An Online Session With Me (Info Link): https://www.somaticbody.com.au/one-on-one-consults 

🔻 Book A Womb Hara Session With Me (Info Link): https://www.somaticbody.com.au/womb-hara/

Connect With Me:

Book an Embodiment Session 🔮📞 A free chat with me: https://www.somaticbody.com.au/book 

IG 📲 https://www.instagram.com/somatic.body/

Website 🌐 https://www.somaticbody.com.au

💸 Support the channel & get a shout-out in an upcoming episode: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2568636/support 

With Love, Shannon

🔻 Somatic & Energetic Integration Specialist for Women,

🔻 Creatress of the Feminine Harmony™ Program and the SomaCycle™ Method.

🔻 Feminine Systems Educator | Reclamation Guide | Ritual Facilitator

🔻 Foundress of Somatic Body™ - a space devoted to helping women reconnect to their feminine bodies.

00:50 Introduction: What This Episode Is Covering

02:43 Where My Wisdom Stems From

03:51 What Is ‘Somatic Embodiment’ Exactly?

05:54 Becoming Body-Led: Being Present With The Body

07:47 There’s Structure: Other Body-Based Practices

10:55 Examples: Body-Based Practices With Minimal Structure

12:31 It’s Not Really About The Movement, It’s About The Relationship

14:24 Yoga, Meditation, Dance - Are They A ‘Somatic’ Practice?

16:58 The 4 Key Components That Make Something A ‘Somatic’ Practice

21:38 The Element Of Depth Somatic Embodiment Provides

23:56 Inviting Deeper Healing & Processing Via Somatic Embodiment

25:18 Where Do I Start & Which Movement Practice Do I Pick?

27:06 The Golden-Nugget Question I Recommend You Ask Yourself

28:07 What Somatic Practices Look & Feel Like When Integrated

29:03 The Mini Somatic Practice + X3 Somatic Cue’s

31:11 Finalising The Episode & Whats Next On The Womanhood Podcast

Disclaimer: The information shared here is educational and does not replace medical advice or the care of a registered health practitioner. It draws on my training in Somatic Embodiment Coaching, Reiki (Usui L1–2), Womb Hara Therapy, Myotherapy, and my Health Science (Chiropractic) studies — offered as somatic and energetic education, within my scope of practice.

Transcript

0:01

Welcome to the Womanhood Podcast. I'm your host, Shannon, Somatic and Energetic Integration Specialist for Women, founder of Somatic Body and creatrice of the Soma Cycle Method and the Feminine Harmony Program. And I'm here to inspire you to reclaim your rhythms, remember your wisdom, and root into your womanhood. Each week I'll be discussing topics centered around our womanhood from a multifaceted, somatic, and energetic viewpoint, weaving together both science with spirituality and masculinity with femininity. We'll be talking cyclical natures and rhythms, intuition, instincts, ancient womb wisdom, and grounded embodiment strategies. Find yourself a cozy space and let's get started. Yoga changed my life. Meditation changed my life. A personal development course that I did changed my life. Movement and exercise changed my life. When I incorporated those into my life, I integrated them. But none of those things taught me what somatic embodiment taught me, which was how to actually listen to my body, at least not on that deeper level with what somatic embodiment has allowed me to receive and to experience. And so the purpose of this episode today is to explore what somatic embodiment is from the perspective of what I've been taught, you know, through my certification, to differentiate what somatic practices are from basic movement practices. And when I say basic, I mean your traditional practices as they are and how they differentiate from somatic practices because they can intertwine. And we're going to explore how yoga, dance, meditation can become somatic, which is what I was talking about with that intertwining. I guess the real question here when it comes to this episode, the real question that we're going to be exploring and discussing is where is the line between somatic practices and other body-based practices like yoga? So we're not just talking about yoga today. Yoga, I put in, you know, the theme, the main theme, is because it does become very interwoven. And I'm seeing more and more yoga instructors, yoga teachers incorporating somatic components to these practices as they go along and as yoga evolves in more of a modern sense, not so much the traditional philosophies and the traditional approaches. But in more modern times, somatic practices are starting to be incorporated into yogic practices. And so today we're going to start to question that where is the line between somatic practices and other body-based practices like yoga? And so, what I will start with saying, the first point I want to make, is that everything I talk about in this episode, as with every other episode I recorded for this womanhood podcast, I can only give you my perspective, everything I've come to experience, to learn, to see and witness in this world, both professionally and personally. And so when I come through to this next topic, which we're going to start delving into what somatic embodiment is, it's coming from my somatic energetic lens, what I've come to learn. When it comes to body-based movement practices like yoga, while I've been practicing yoga almost daily throughout all of my 20s, from I would say 22 up until 28, I practiced almost daily. Since about 28, I've practiced at least three times a week. And I still continue to practice two, three times a week now. So I am an avid yogi. I love yoga. I'm not a yoga instructor though. So the perspective I'm giving you today is coming from that somatic embodiment coaching lens and everything else I've come to learn through Maya therapy, chiropractic, Reiki, energetics, and the Womhara facilitator training, the practitioner training that I'd learnt as well. Now that we've covered that, what is somatic embodiment? And to begin with a simple definition, somatic, we can break down that word, soma meaning body. And when we look at soma through the chakra system, and this is where like yoga can be very aligned with this, when we look at soma through the chakra system, there is the minor chakra called soma. And not only does it mean body, but it means the bridge between the mind and the body. So what connects our consciousness and our awareness to our body, how we are consciously aware and able to tap into our body and become body-led. And then when we look at the whole word somatic, this then really bridges that word soma with the word somatic, because somatic means the lived experience of the body, really fully living in the body. And that's what embodiment is. Somatic embodiment is. It's having that full lived experience inside your body, bringing your consciousness, your awareness, the mind, and the minor chakra of the soma is here, bringing that awareness into the body and living from that place in your day-to-day. And so when we talk about what somatic practices and somatic embodiment is, yes, it stems from psychology and the alternative philosophies within psychology, but what the word itself relates to when we break it down, soma and somatic, is relating to that lived experience in the body, which is why I did somatic embodiment coaching. And so, really, somatic embodiment is the awareness of the internal sensations within our body, the nervous system attunement, you know, learning the language of your body and of your nervous system states, of your stress states, of your bodily functions and responses, tuning into all those sensations of your body and also being able to discern what the sensations are and where they're coming from. With somatic embodiment, we start to tune in and query: is this a feeling-based sensation like an emotion, or is this a bodily sensation, or is there a thought that comes along with it? Is there a vision that comes along with it, a visual mapping of what we're experiencing within that sensation? But really, it's just about becoming present with the sensations in your body, what's happening inside of you. And how often can we say we do that in our day-to-day without being cued to? Do you know what I mean? Like you think back to the Neanderthal days, Neanderthal, Neanderthal, different ways of, you know, pronouncing it. But you think back to the Caveman days. And even tribes today would be so much more body-led. They're instinctual, they're on the hunt for food, they're literally hunters and gatherers. And when we think about that, it would have been so easy for them to be body-led. Yet today we are technology-led. We are in our minds a lot more, conceptualizing a lot more. We have a language that is far more utilized in our day-to-day. And so it only makes sense that in order to bridge that gap between a technology-based society and a body-led society where it was instinctual and necessary for survival for us to start hunting and gathering. The only way to bridge that gap, that thing we're now missing in today's society, just as much as they were missing, you know, what we have now today in technology and language, is to use our mind, our consciousness, and drop the awareness from our conscious state of mind into the semi and sub and unconscious states, which means tuning into our body-led sensations. And not making sense of them to the point where we have to make meaning out of every little sensation, but just making sense of them enough to witness them. Enough for our mind to recognize that, hey, this is a sensation. Hey, this is something I'm experiencing in my body right now. Hey, I wonder what that is. But witnessing it, not going deep into the meaning of it or trying to create meaning, just witnessing being with it and letting the body lead. Becoming present with what's happening inside of you does not mean you have to then utilize it straight away. We want to go softly and create safety with it. That's how we create depth with our experience when it comes to somatic embodiment too. And that's kind of going into where I'm going next. When we have that slowness and that gentleness and that lack of structure, it enables us to open up even more and go even deeper into being body-led. Whereas when we have something structured like going on a run, doing a choreographed dance, doing a literally choreographed yoga class, because we have an instructor usually telling us what poses to go in, then we have the limitations of those structures confining us. It's not actually a somatic practice. They can give you a pose in yoga, for example. They can give you a pose to work with, and they often will say, you know, do this in your own space and time. If you feel like you need to come out of it, then come out of it. But usually it's like if you do come out of it, do child's pose. Or if you do come out of it, take a drink. There's still that structure within the practice. Whereas with somatic embodiment, you're following the body. You're not following someone outside of your own body. Yes, there is a coach such as myself on the other end just cueing you, but I'm cueing you with questions. I'm not cueing you with things to do, as in, I'm not giving you a set of instructions of what to do next. I'm letting you lead the way, and you're in turn letting your body lead the way. And that's really what somatic embodiment is. And that's how we can define it from body-led movement practices that have structure. Things that feel good in our body and we can tune into our body still, but we can't go as deep because there is somewhat of a structure and there's logistics to think about. We can take the example of a run. We're out on a run. We are being more body-led and somatic based. We're querying into how our body feels as we're running. But there's all these logistics to think about. There might be cars on the side of the road there. We might need to cross a road. There might be other people on the footpath we need to dodge. There's a little bit more logistics to think about, and that disables us from going deep within our body-led experience. Same with dancing. If we are doing it in a group situation on a stage, we have all these other logistics to think about. Don't fall off the stage. What are people thinking of me? Am I following the choreograph steps correctly? What is the next move in this dance? Whereas if we have a somatic type of dancing, often it is not, again, instructed. There is a far less structured thing. There will be cues, like follow your body. What does it want to do next? Again, the cues are questions. Somatic cues are usually questions or some kind of statement that triggers you to explore and go and do what you want to do next. And so that really is the difference between what somatic practices are versus body-based movements that are really traditional, like yoga, like Pilates, like running, like choreographed dancing. And I intentionally say choreographed, because some dances are free movement and they can be. But often when it comes to the performative type of dance, there is a structure still that's needed to be followed. Same with the arts and, you know, musical arts, performing with an instrument or with voice. Often there will be lyrics to follow or a certain tune to follow. There will be with instruments, certain chords that you have to play in order to bring out the melody. That's structure. When it comes to somatic embodiment, if you were to apply that to music, you're not following a structure. You're just following the way your body wants to express. For example, in practices, particularly Wimhara at the end. I will do a form of vocal tuning. This is a vibrational tuning, usually to do with humming or like sounding a certain tone that will come out, or a few different tones with sometimes a melody, but it's not planned. There's no structure. I don't pre-plan this. It just comes out of me. Sometimes the like it's tone-deaf. Sometimes the tones that come out are not perfect and they're not meant to be, but they are what I believe to be healing, what's needed in the moment, what's coming up in the moment. And so I honor that. That is what somatic voicing is. And to be honest, even when I'm following what my body wants to tune out when I'm doing vocal tuning, I find that the less I'm in my head with it and trying to find structure and create meaning, the more beautiful the tuning is. Whereas when I'm in my head a little bit and maybe getting a little self-conscious and wondering, oh, is this next tune gonna sound right? Do I have the capacity in my vocal cords to go as high as what I feel is about to come out? Then it often comes out with hesitation and my voice might break or crack a little or go in and out of tune. And so this is where somatic practices, again, we're coming back to that lack of structure. We're following the body and trusting that when we follow the body, it's all as it's meant to be. And so that's that key distinction. With other body-based movement practices, we have that performative kind of movement, that perfecting of posture, that following of instructions or structure. Whereas with somatic embodiment, there's none of that. We're noticing the movements, we're sensing, we're feeling, we're responding to what our body is wanting to communicate with us. It's not really about doing something with your body when it comes to somatic embodiment. It's about being in relationship with your body, listening to your body and responding with it in accordance. That's the relationship that you're building with your body the more and more you do these practices. Which is why what I said at the start, when it came to somatic embodiment, like that taught me something none of the other stuff had taught me. And to be honest, now that I'm thinking about it now, I feel like that's why I don't do yoga every single day anymore, like I used to in my 20s. And it was actually my late 20s when I stopped doing yoga every single day. I made space for more somatic practices because to me, that just that allowed me to reconnect with my body on the deepest level, on a level that was so deep and not conscious, because again, we're not following structure, we're not consciously thinking about logistics. I was able to drop deeper. And for me, that depth is what I wanted and it's what I seeked. And I know for a lot of people, we're all on different timelines, but I know for a lot of people there will come a time and a chapter in their life, maybe multiple chapters, where they are seeking that same depth, that same depth of reconnection with their body. And that's why I'm here doing what I'm doing, why I offer the feminine harmony program, that 12-month in-depth program that has somatic and energetic practices for women, cyclical living and ties it all together. It's why I offer one-on-one sessions, the somatic womb sessions, the energy sessions. The womhara sessions, they are just divine. And they are not something of my own creation. The wombara sessions are the creation of Nat from the Institute of Feminine Arts, and they are just such beautiful sessions. But you know, my expression of the Wom Hara sessions is still beautiful. I have my vocal tuning, my sound bowls, my tuning forks, you know, all these beautiful things that I incorporate and put my essence into at the end of those sessions. It's all there on offer for people to somatically go to that depth and experience that reconnection with their body, no matter which session they choose. I'll always incorporate a little bit of somatic cueing, no matter what. Now, when we look at yoga and meditation and dance, now that we've gone through, you know, somatic embodiment, what it is, and we can differentiate now what they are from yoga, dance, and meditation, let's have a little bit of a closer look at yoga and dance and meditation themselves. Are they somatic? Is the question, which is why we're looking into them. The answer to that is yes, they can be somatic. And no, they're not always somatic. So it's kind of yes and no. It's it's contextual. Yoga traditionally is a spiritual and philosophical practice that stems from multiple cultures, but originating from what my understanding is from India. And there are a lot of different practices now. It's very, very much evolved and has many different branches now. But I believe the true core original stem of yoga was from India. And the meaning of yoga is to yoke the essence of life, to merge body and soul, body and awareness. And isn't that a somatic practice in its own, right? Which is why we're looking at the differences. But traditionally, yoga was more of a spiritual and philosophical practice. And traditionally, it was often taught through structured poses and postures, which is where it does differentiate from somatic practices. With dance, that's traditionally movement and expression, but still within the realms of a structure. Meditation, traditionally to do with attention and awareness, but it's still a training in its own. Now, these practices aren't inherently somatic on their own when we look at them like that. But they can often become somatic when we shift towards an inward focus, the internal sensations of the body, body awareness, nervous system state, the awareness of our nervous system responses, emotional awareness, embodied practices, like sprinkled within, you know, dance yoga meditation. You know, we can think about a time if we are yogis, a time in the middle of a yoga class when the instructor has given you a position to work with and it's exercise-based, it's fitness-based, it's performance-based. Okay, cool. That's your traditional structure of a yoga position in modern times. But you can also have a particular posture that you start in, like child's position. I have a somatic practice on that, or a deep squat, also another somatic practice I have on that, where we're not giving you structure. We're just giving you, hey, start here and see how it evolves. That's when the yogic practice or the yoga poses become somatic. And it does depend on how it's facilitated as well. Because when we start to bring in somatic key practices and cues, that's how we can facilitate an actual somatic component to these practices. We start to bring in introsphen, and introsption means the awareness of internal sensations. We can start to bring awareness to the heartbeat, the breath, muscle tension in the body, you know, an area of sensation and tension in the body. We can bring awareness to the temperature of our body, awareness to a feeling or emotion in the body. I can't tell you the amount of times I've been laying in shivasana in my 20s, because I did it almost every day, and had a physical sensation in the body come up of tension, or I had an emotion come up and cried in the middle of shivasana or smiled or had a vision come through. That's a somatic experience in itself. I didn't know that at the time. I didn't have the facilitation of that at the time. But as I started to learn somatic embodiment training, I did start to for myself incorporate it into my yogic practices. And then my yoga practice itself evolved into a somatic yogic practice. And it is more so that nowadays than what it was in my 20s. It also involves, if we're going to start to make something more of a somatic practice, that nervous system awareness, like I said. So asking, do I feel safe right now? What is my body communicating to me right now? What response is present right now in terms of nervous system state? Do I feel overstimulated or understimulated? Do I feel like I'm in sympathetic or parasympathetic state right now? Do I need upregulating or downregulating right now in order to feel safe? And so that's really what nervous system awareness is. It's coming back to what state of stress is my body in right now? Do I feel regulated? Do I feel content and calm? Or do I feel slightly overstimulated and I want to downregulate a little bit? Then we also have the component of choice and agency when it comes to making something a somatic practice. So instead of following me, here's a set of instructions, here's the structure. It becomes this invitation of what feels supportive for your body right now. Where does your body want to go right now? That's where that statement becomes a question. And so that's where we start to invite choice and agency and sovereignty into the practice, which is why I also bang on about sovereignty so much. And it's why I love it so much. It gives us so much room to explore for ourselves what's happening inside our body versus depending on learning about ourselves through someone else. And then the last component I would say that's important to bring into any movement-based practice in order to make it somatic is embodiment, right? So this is where I was taught somatic embodiment training. The embodiment component is referring to when we move from thinking about the body to experiencing the body. So our mind shifts from consciously thinking about what we're feeling in the body, which is how every practice will start, somatic practices, but it's that moment where we start to shift from consciousness and thinking about the sensations that we're feeling in the body into experiencing them inside of the body. That's what embodiment is. It's that shift during the middle of a somatic session. That's why I left that component last. And so to summarize those components again, if you kind of got lost off the track, in order to bring a somatic practice or a somatic-led experience into any movement practice, we need intrusion. So that awareness of going inwards, our bodily sensations, we need nervous system awareness. So learning what feels safe in the body, how our nervous system and our body responds to safety, what's going to allow us to fully drop in and relax and allow our mind to take the backseat, that conscious mind to switch off in order for us to embody. And then the third component, there has to be an aspect of agency and choice, sovereignty. So rather than a set of instructions and follow me and depend on me, it's let's query what it is that you need. What does your body need right now? What feels most supportive right now, which is going that next step deeper than what feels safe in my body. It's like, okay, if that's what your body needs right now, let's do it, which is where we start to embody it. We start to experience the body and live the body rather than thinking about the body as something separate from our mind. We start to connect it all and enmesh all four bodies. I've talked about all four bodies in a lot of different episodes and a lot of my teachings, but we have the four bodies, if you're new here, we have the physical body, the mental body, the emotional body, and the energetic, the soul body. And it's that enmeshment of all four bodies where we really start to experience them all together rather than thinking of them separately. And so they're the four components, I would say, to really bring, you know, any kind of movement-based practice into and shift it into more of a somatic practice. And at the start, I mentioned that somatic embodiment taught me something that not any of the other practices taught me, like meditation and yoga and dance, and even my personal development course. Somatic embodiment taught me how to feel and connect to myself on a really deep level. And that's why it hit home differently for me. And so this is where somatic embodiment, I believe, for anyone who's careering on bringing that deeper element of connecting. To their body, that deeper element of healing can be really beneficial. If you're feeling ready to bring in that next level, like that next depth of healing, then this is also where somatic embodiment can really be beneficial. When we are going through somatic embodiment, we are again shifting out of the mind and not thinking of it as something separate. We're merging the mind and the awareness into the body-led sensations. We're becoming body-led. And when we do this, what happens is we go from knowing why we feel the way we do and like picking up on the sensations and consciously becoming aware. We shift from that to then experiencing that and living that out and feeling how our body wants to respond and move through it. And so it doesn't just have to be, you know, I know why this happened. This is my trauma responses. I know why I feel stuck, but why can't I shift it? It goes from that to, I know why it's happened, I know why I feel the way I do, I know I feel stuck, but let's explore that and witness that and let's fully live it so that we can fully process through it. Because healing doesn't actually happen through insight. It doesn't happen just through knowing your trauma or knowing your discomforts in your body. It happens through experience, through living it, through experiencing what is happening. You know, they say the best re the best way to move through things and to get things done is to just do it rather than sitting back and thinking about it and not making any action. It's like there's no such thing as trying, right? That was something I learned in one of my personal development courses. Avoid using the word try. You're either doing it or you're not. And this is what happens with somatic embodiment too, is like we're not just thinking about it, we're living it, we're experiencing it, we're embodying it. And that's why somatic embodiment and somatic practices can really offer that next level depth to processing through our crap, our stagnation in our body, our trauma, whatever you want to label it, whatever it is that we're wanting to move through, and we can intuitively feel on a deeper level, we know it's there, we can feel it on a deeper level. It's time to move through it. Because the body does. It stores tension, it stores stress, it's it stores emotional reactivity and emotional responses from past experiences. All these protective mechanisms can come out, all these protective patterns. You know, sometimes it feels like we're living in a recurring cycle, a recurring pattern. When our body's holding all that and we start to notice all of that, we can then go that next step deeper and start to feel that, to embody it through somatic practices. We can start to process through them. We can start to then integrate them and integrate a new way of being because we're exploring how it feels in the body and how it feels to no longer have it in the body, to invite that letting go while living in the body. How does our body feel when we no longer feel attached to that certain memory on such an emotional level? How does it feel if we invite the letting go of that emotion attached to that memory or that trauma experience? You know, we can start to integrate that. And when we start to feel our body in a different way than we had ever before, we start to realize that more and more is possible, that we're not stuck. And so while awareness is so, so important, awareness is important. I bang on about awareness. Awareness without embodiment, without the integration of somatic experiencing, will often leave women stuck in understanding rather than completely healing or tending to their wounds or their stagnation, whatever's showing up in the body. And so now you might be listening and thinking, okay, I understand that we can make anything a somatic practice if we have those integral parts, those components laid out through there. You know, we have the agency, the somatic cueing, we have the tuning into the body, the lack of structure, we have the embodiment where we're letting our mind take a backseat and allowing ourselves to witness and feel into the body and process through the body, allowing our body to respond. We bring all those components in. We can do that with anything. But you might start to then query like, where do I even begin? Which approach is right for me right now? And this isn't about choosing one practice. You know, it's about understanding what it is that you need and exploring what it is that you might need. You may need yoga right now. You may need movement and flexibility and grounding. So that might be yoga for you. You might need expression and creativity and joy right now. So your body might be calling for more of a dance-based practice. You might need stillness or focus or mindfulness, and so meditation might come in for you right now or breath work. But whatever this might be, know that you can bring in a somatic component to it. Once you listen to this podcast, you'll know that now. And so the question isn't which practice is better. You know, is yoga better? Is a full-on just traditional somatic practice better? Is traditional Pilates better? Is going for a run better for me? Is meditation better? It's not about asking which practice is best suited for you. The question is, what is your body asking for right now? Because your body's not going to feel the same as it did yesterday or a year ago or 10 years ago. We evolve, we grow, we change, we go from maiden to mother to maga to crown throughout our whole lifetime as women. We go through different phases and eras in our life. And so the question isn't which practice is better for me. It's what does my body need right now? And honoring that and following that. And that in itself is a somatic cue that's that's going that next step deeper than the rigidity of I have to do yoga every single day. And don't get me wrong, there are things that I do routinely, but it's not my whole day. My whole day isn't routine and structure. It used to be in my 20s, a lot of it was routine and structure. And that led me to a host of stagnant energy and built-up trauma and the over-hustler and overdoer, and I burnt out. And here I am now, thanks to living that way. I have learned to bring in more of a balanced element. And I don't mean like balanced 50-50 and it has to be this way all the time. I just mean there's that element of somatic practices and tuning into my body and feeling into what it is that I need. There's an element of that in my day every day. Not all the time, every day, but there's an element of it. And I feel like it's such a beautiful, simple way we can honor ourselves. And it it's so flexible in the sense that no matter what your lifestyle is, you can spare 30 seconds of your day. And for some people, an hour and 30 minutes of your day to have an experience that's somatic, that's body-led, that's tuning into your body and listening. You could start with 30 seconds at the very start of your day, as soon as you wake up, to just close your eyes, do some hand placement and ask my body, how do I want my day to play out right now? What does my body need right now? How does my body feel right now? Just ask your body what it needs, in whichever way that question comes through every day. It's that simple. Just go with where your body wants to go and trust. Because the more and more you do that, the more you build trust with your body, the more easier it gets. It's like training a muscle. And it kind of becomes fun because each day's different when you are being body-led. Not every day is the same and there's not that structure that's, you know, predictable, reliable in a sense. It's it's a little bit exciting because you don't know what you're gonna get from your body. It's the unconscious aspect of you. And so now we're gonna do a little mini practice with a few somatic cues. So just close down your eyes or soften the eyes, whatever feels good for you. Again, tuning into what it is you need, softening the gaze, maybe looking at an object around in the room or the space you're in, or closing down the eyes, dropping your awareness into the breath. We're not changing anything, we're just witnessing our body and our breath. And just notice your body and your breath for a moment. And as you're tuning into your body and your breath, help your body and your breath respond to the following three questions. How often do I listen to my body while I move in my day-to-day? How often do I listen to my body while I move throughout my day-to-day? Just feeling that in your body, noticing it in your breath as you take in that question. And if there's thoughts that come along, let them come along, let them flow through you, you know, move past as they come and go. But just coming back to the breath, coming back to the bodily sensations as these questions land for you. And then question number two Do I tend to perform my movements throughout my day, or do I experience them and fully live them? So do I tend to perform the movements throughout my day-to-day, or do I truly experience them? You know, embody them. And again, just noticing how your body responds and your breath responds to that question. And then number three, what would change in my day-to-day if my body became my teacher? Not my mentors, not the people I look up to, but me. What would change in my day-to-day if my body became my primary teacher? Because that's your agency and your sovereignty right there. So just see how that lands in your body and your breath. What would change in my day-to-day if my body became my primary teacher? And I think that's everything that I wanted to touch on today, you know, is what somatic embodiment is, how it's defined, how it differentiates from what I've come to learn yoga is and body-based movements that are more traditional, like dance, like the musical arts, like meditation. If you're a yoga instructor, a mindfulness like meditation teacher, breathwork instructor, if you are in the arts or dance and you have a similar experience or a different experience and you want to share that, feel free to comment below and we'll get chatting, open up the discussion a little more. But I think for now I'm gonna leave it here and I will see you in the next episode. As we finish this week's episode, remember that you are your own rhythm keeper. So just keep listening for that rhythm and keep coming home to you. Until next time, with love, Shannon at Somatic Body.