To listen to the world through the body, profoundly affects how we feel - details come into focus, we notice more of what delights, strengthens, or weakens the rhyhmn of our breath and heart (Miranda Tufnell)

Somatic Movement Education

Somatic comes from the Greek word, Soma, meaning the body as perceived from within. Somatic Movement is a non-invasive, exploratory process of awakening and deepening the awareness of an individual towards his or her experience of the body in motion. At certain times in our lives we may experience a sense of unease or conflict in ourselves and a feeling that something is ‘not quite right’. When we feel this loss of connection with ourselves, we often feel a loss of connection with life and we may lose sight of the things that matter to us, the things that inspire and bring us joy. In this sense of discomfort in the body, we may respond to the world with a sense of tightening and closing in. When we can begin to release muscular and mental tension through mindful movement, we can organise ourselves slightly differently in a way that can offer a new way of moving and being in the world. In somatic movement practise, we take time to settle and slow our attention to begin to notice how we perceive our thoughts, emotions and movement responses. We notice the places where we feel well in ourselves and the places where we feel stuck, both in our body and in the wider fabric of our lives. In doing so, we can begin to build resilience to deal with life’s challenges and feel more at home in ourself. Sessions can be experienced as a group class or a series of individual sessions.

I have worked with people experiencing anxiety, depression, stress, pain in the body, and those who want to attend for personal inquiry; to know oneself better. I love to support people find the moments of insight that bring meaning, health and balance to one's life.

SESSIONS

In sessions we may explore how a particular body system works such as the skeletal or the circulatory system, and how we can support it to find a more easeful place of balance within ourselves. At other times, we may enter into a more open movement inquiry that invites conscious awareness of movement patterns - posture, tone, emotional responses, allowing for a creative unfolding to take place.
In sessions I use hands on touch, voice and breath stimulation, movement re-patterning, experiential anatomy, tracking of inner sensation and mark making through drawing, writing, creative play and dialogue. Working with embodied imagination is integral to my practice. I have witnessed many times that when we allow space for the imagination to grow we are given wider access to feeling states and can begin to re-imagine a place of health within us. When we notice what we are sensing as an image unfolds, we can invite a little of that quality into our bodies and into our lives - be it softness, a sense of flow, or joy.

Somatic Movement can ...

* Embody and develop awareness of sensation so that it becomes a supporting presence in the body.

* Develop movement awareness and creativity

* Develop the capacity to self-care, recognising what restores and resources us

* Build resilience in order to adapt and respond to life’s challenges

* Support one in finding more ease and fluidity of movement and release habitual holding patterns

* Support one to re-gain balance, increase vitality and regulate the nervous system

* Widen one capacity to access different parts of the self