What is somatic coaching?

How does it work?

The first step when working with a new client is usually to help them become more attuned to and aware of their sensations, emotions and the way they hold themselves physically (their ‘shape’). You can’t change what you are not aware of!

Once a client has a better sense of their current shape and how they would like things to be different for them, we can chart a course for how they might get there.

A key principle I work from is that our current shape is influenced by the conditioning that we have received during our lifetimes and the lifetimes of our ancestors and others that came before us. We are the product of our past experiences and some of these will have included perceived threats to our safety, belonging or dignity.

Typically, these experiences will have caused us to take on survival strategies to cope in the moment. As we grew up, those threats may have dissipated but the ‘memory’ of them remains in our tissues. Hence, if our bodies perceives similar threats in the present, we will react in the same way.

To take an example from my own life, as I was bullied as a child, I received the message that it is safer to make myself smaller and unseen, and hence my body language and behaviour began to reflect this - closed in posture, discomfort with eye contact etc. It also caused me to avoid situations where I feared I may get into conflict.

Importantly, in somatic coaching, we don't seek to ‘correct’ or ‘make wrong’ the client's current shape. Instead, we acknowledge it and integrate the influences or ‘conditioned tendencies’ the client has taken on during their lifetime. Building on my own example, I spent years telling myself to stop being small, but that tactic proved to be ineffectual as it lead to me feeing guilt and shame around being shy and reserved and frustrated that I couldn't seem to change it.

Instead, I learned to acknowledge that playing small had helped to keep me safe. This reduced feelings of shame and provided space for me to take on experiences of being visible and potentially getting into conflict situations. I started small with what felt manageable and then worked up from that as my comfort zone expanded.

When I help my clients through a similar journey of ‘somatic transformation’, I use a process known as ‘blending’. This is typically a combination of visualisation, noticing of sensation and hands-on bodywork. This usually allows the conditioned tendency the client has taken on to loosen its grip on them. That then makes way for the client to take on a more empowered shape which is more in tune with their real wants and desires.