Thomas Hanna, a philosopher and movement educator, was the first to use the term somatics, which is now used as an umbrella concept for mind-body approaches that emphasize embodied awareness, self-sensing, movement, expression, and self-regulation. He also developed Hanna Somatic Education […]
Central to Hanna’s work is the concept of Sensory-Motor Amnesia (SMA), which describes a diminished ability to consciously sense and control certain muscles and movement patterns. Chronic stress, injury, trauma, and repetitive habits can lead to persistent muscular contraction and […]
Embodiment is not simply becoming aware of the body. It is the practice of bringing awareness into direct relationship with lived experience through the body. The body provides a doorway into the present moment through sensation, movement, breath, emotion, and […]
A friend recently spoke of the shift from “hanging on” to “hanging out.” This really struck me. Hanging on feels a bit scary, desperate, tense. The phrase “hanging on for dear life” comes to mind. “Hanging out” has such a […]
Clinical Somatics was the way out of chronic pain for me and my passion for sharing this modality led to me training in it. Much later, in the sometimes irritating, sometimes illuminating way that the algorithms work, I was led […]
…of embodied practice! What a fantastic article from the Daily Maverick archives about recent research into the somatosensory cortex of the brain! (click here to read) “Activating the somatosensory cortex may help us connect to our bodies, develop our sensitivity, […]
Thomas Hanna, founder of Clinical Somatic Movement, coined the term Somatics in the 70s. Although from the original Greek, Soma means “of the body”, he used the word to denote more than our bodily selves. He referred to the Soma […]
I am offering mindfulness-based Somatics sessions. As a trained facilitator of the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction programme (MBSR) developed by Dr Jon Kabat-Zinn, I soon realised there is such a natural resonance between somatics and mindfulness. People who are drawn to […]
At the heart of Clinical Somatics are gentle movements called pandiculations. When you look this word up in the dictionary, it is defined as stretching but this description loses its nuance. Next time you wake up and “stretch” see if […]
Feeling and Healing the body from within. In 2020 I led my first Somatics and Mindfulness retreat at the Buddhist Retreat Centre in Ixopo. 25 beautiful people showed up, slowed down together, moved gently, explored with interest and nourished their […]
Are you tired of that contracted, short and tight feeling, body and mind? Is stretching just not providing long term relief? Have you had the experience that it feels good to stretch in the short term but within a short […]
“Develop a mind that is vast like space, where experiences both pleasant and unpleasant can appear and disappear without conflict, struggle or harm. Rest in a mind like vast sky.” Jack Kornfield Mindfulness points us to the the sky-like awareness […]
