GENERATIVE SOMATICS
Study Days
July 28, 2012
WHAT IS SOMATICS?
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Somatics is a path,
a methodology, a change theory,
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By which we can embody transformation
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Individually and collectively
EMBODIED TRANSFORMATION IS
FOUNDATIONAL CHANGE
Shows
in our actions,
in our ways of being,
relating and perceiving
SOMATICS WORKS THROUGH THE BODY
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Engaging us in our thinking
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Emotions
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Develops depth and capacity to feel ourselves, each other and
life around us
Commitments
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Supports values and actions being aligned
Builds the ability to act from strategy and empathy, to access
conditions and “what is” clearly, to inform vision and action
Vision and Action
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Is a practice-able theory of change that can move us toward
individual, community and collective liberation.
SOMATICS IS NOT
The “body” add-on to psychotherapy
 Any body-based exercise
 Solely bringing attention to bodily sensations
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SOMATICS IS
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A holistic change theory
that understands
personal and collective transformation
from a radically new paradigm
SOMATICS understands both the individual and
the collective as a combination of biological,
evolutionary, emotional and psychological
aspects, shaped by social and historical norms
and adaptive to a wide array of both resilient and
oppressive forces.
“SHAPES”
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Resilience, survival strategies as well as social and
cultural practices become SHAPES or embodied
worldviews, habits, ways of relating, automatic actions
and non-actions.
What we embody becomes familiar or normal.
It feels right…even when what we embody
does not match our values or vision.
What we embody connects to our identity and how we
see ourselves.
TO TRANSFORM
AND
CREATE SUSTAINABLE CHANGE
1) Feel and perceive our individual and
collective “old shapes”
-increase awareness of the default “shape” we have
embodied.
2) “Open” or deconstruct old “shapes.”
-allow for new ways of acting, feeling, relating and
knowing that align with our values, longings and actions.
-heal and develop embodied skills and more substantial
capacity through the opening which includes:
-centered accountability
-libratory (balancing) use of power
-building deeper trust through conflict
-capacity to be with the unknown
-love more deeply
SOCIAL JUSTICE PERSPECTIVE
PROBLEM: We inadvertently embody societal norm we
do not believe are right for us and do not embody values we
believe are good for us.
SOLUTION: From a politicize or generative somatic view,
we need:
-deep personal transformation
-aligned with libratory (balancing)
community/collective practices
-connected to transformative systemic change
PERSONAL TRANSFORMATION
BALANCING COMMUNITY PRACTICES
TRANSFORMATIVE SYSTEMIC CHANGE
Together these will:
-Generate strong and grounded strategy
-Build compelling alternatives
-Mend the deep impact of oppression and violence
-Build collective power that has wisdom and
-Organize in accordance with libratory (balancing) values.
WHILE SOMATICS HAS MUCH TO OFFER
IN HEALING TRAUMA,
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A somatic approach without a political analysis of
social institutions, unequal distribution of power and
use of violence and force, leave out some of the largest
forces that shape us.
Without a political analysis much of the trauma
that folks withstand is either left unnamed (racism,
gender oppression, homophobia, class oppression) or
are only partially addressed.
A politicized somatics can act as a fundamental
collective practice of building power, deepening
presence and capacity and developing the embodied
skills we need to generate large-scale change.
Without a political analysis, this does not happen.
DEFINITIONS
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SOMATICS comes from the Greek root soma
which means “the living organism in its
wholeness.” Soma is the best English word to
understand human beings as integrated
mind/body/spirit, and as social, relational
beings.
In SOMATICS vocabulary, this embodiment is
“shape” and the collective is known as
“body” or “collective psycho-biology.
SOMATICS WORKS WITH ALL THESE
INTERDEPENDENT ASPECTS OF WHO WE ARE,
AN INTEGRATED WHOLE
Thinking and conceptual
 Emotional
 Biological
 Spiritual
 Relational
 Social
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SOMATICS ALSO UNDERSTANDS THE SELF
 As a compilation of practices
 Embodied into our psychobiology over time
 They are our habits or competencies (some useful and
others not)
WHAT ARE YOU PRACTICING?
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We are always practicing something!
Is what we are practicing aligned with what is most
important to us? (Individually and collectively)
Embodied practices are mostly unconscious to us,
doing them for a long time.
Some we learned purposefully (riding a bike, driving)
 Others we model from others (family, church, society)
 Others were developed to find safety and survive
 Some automatic reactions are responses to loss, hurt,
trauma, need for safety, from very personal to social
experiences.
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SOMATICS
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Integrates the body as an essential place of change,
learning and transformation.
Thinks of the muscles as having memory
and the tissues intelligence.
Looks at the body as a place of evolutionary
intelligence and learning.
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Sees the “self” or who we are as inseparable from the
body. When we reconnect the vast intelligence of the
body with the mind and spirit, powerful change and
healing are available.
GENERATIVE SOMATICS
A transformative change theory and praxis that
uses:
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Somatic Awareness (increase our awareness of the
default “shapes” we have
embodied…Values=Practice?)
Somatic Opening (new ways of
acting, feeling, relating, and knowing)
Somatic Practices (our habits)
inside of a social analysis to forward individual,
community and systemic transformation.
SOMATIC AWARENESS
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Learning to listen to and live inside of our sensations and
aliveness (feelings, movement, body, and sensations, such as
temperature, pressure).
From sensations, emotions are felt and
understood, and then the stories
and interpretations we have of life.
Dissociation, minimizing and numbing
are normal responses to trauma and oppression.
Being connected to sensation brings one back into contact
with the oneself and allows for choices (freedom) and
reintroduces us to what’s in our heart.
SOMATIC OPENING
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Deconstructs the old embodied “shape” allowing for change.
Our deep reactions and ways of being (hyper-vigilance, distrust,
appeasing, aggression) live deeply in our somatic structures and often
cannot be changed by conversation alone.
Need to access the survival reactions, the experiences that have
shaped us, and the emotions or numbing that have become automatic.
Our muscles hold memories and our bodies tell stories.
Somatic bodywork allows us to work directly
with places in the psychobiology that have held
traumatic experiences.
Massage can temporarily relax a muscle, but the “shaping” or
“armoring” in a body will not shift unless the CONCERN that the
contraction is addressing (safety, love, protection, shame) is worked
through. The body is the easiest way into working with those
reactions, emotions and memories controlled by the limbic system and
stress centers in the brain.
SOMATIC PRACTICES
Build new skills and competencies, a new “shape”
aligned with our values and politics, that become
natural actions:
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-having boundaries that take of yourself and others
-mutual contact and intimacy
-moving toward what is important to you
-building trust amidst conflict
-centered accountability
These with somatic awareness and openness
allow for holistic, sustainable transformation!
SOCIAL CONTEXT
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We are always living inside of a social context
that has powerfully influenced and shaped us,
currently and historically. We “embody” it!
Social context in US is based on domination histories
of colonization, slavery, manifest destiny and
institutions and norms that systematically oppress
some groups and the earth and privilege others.
CONTRADICTION exists between the national
narrative of freedom and democracy and the
institutions of war, oppression and corporatization
where profit is the measure of success, not happiness
or the collective well being, not sustainability of life.
SPIRIT AND LANDSCAPE
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Forces that are beyond humans
shape and affect us deeply. These forces
are more lasting than what humans can do or create.
The CONTRADICTION: As we degrade essential
parts of our natural environment and collectively
become less connected to sources of our food and
water, we are completely dependent upon earth for
our existence. Yet, nature is resilient.
Spirit means the larger forces of energy, the vastness
of the cosmos and unknown, and the harmonizing
forces of nature. Spirit is cited as an experience of
resilience.
RESILIENCE: A SOMATIC DEFINITION
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Resilience is the ability to somatically
(holistically) renew ourselves during and after
oppressive or traumatic experiences.
It is the ability to shift ourselves from a
traumatic alert response to a calmed, cohesive
state with a positive imagination for the future.
It allows for both safety and connection to be
reestablished.
Individual and community practices support
resiliency. How can we do this?
TRAUMA: A SOMATIC DEFINITION
Traumatic experiences cause a somatic
contraction and “shaping” that becomes nonresponsive to current time experiences. This
“shaping” impacts identity, relationship,
physiology, emotions, behavior,
thinking/interpretation, place and belonging.
 Trauma breaks safety and betrays relatedness,
on the level of mind, body, and spirit and alters
one’s connection to community.
 Generative Somatics approaches trauma
as both an individual and collective
experience. Both need healing to sustain
transformation.
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GENERATIVE SOMATICS
Through somatics, we are able:
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To learn presence and boundaries,
Re-establish connection with self, others and
community,
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Connect to what makes our life meaningful,
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Garner our resilience and courage to live.
SOMATICS IN THE FIELD
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Much of the field of somatics is focused on
individual treatment of trauma through an
“attention based” process of attending to and
tracking sensations in the body through
conversation and cognition.
Generative Somatics includes the social context
and a political analysis that is intended to reduce
the trauma individually and collectively as it
builds alignment and power for systemic
transformation.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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Http://www.generativesomatics.org/content/whatsomatics pp. 1-5