SANDBOX OF SOMATIC SOLUTIONSVipassana meditation. Ecstatic dance. Contact improv. Circle singing. Collaborative poetry. Men's circles. Holotropic breathwork. Thai bodywork. Tantric latihan. Yin yoga. Ice plunges. Eye gazes. Nature runs. Sound baths. Art cafes. Cuddle puddles. Tea sittings. Shared silences.
Since the start of the year, my number one priority has been to transition from chaos mode to stable state. Maybe it's too soon to call 2023 the best year of life yet (a broken record-type beat every year at this point), but even ignoring all of the funky voyages I've had to date, there's one core realization that has powered all of my major decisions: trust your body.
The theme of this chapter: "from intellectual to emotional pursuits, to intuition development". A lot of the latter extends beyond just knowing your limiting beliefs and inner parts (i.e. the mental & emotional), and literally stretches to knowing your body. While The Body Keeps The Score, No Bad Parts, Wisdom of Your Body, and related literature focus on a retrospective view on trauma and therapy-based applications, I think we can simplify the application for our day-to-day lives. There's a softer outcome when we focus on gradually opening our bodies, bit-by-bit, part-by-part: befriending our bodily sensations helps us develop a significant amount of resilience and joy.
As an old-age science nerd, there's a chemistry analogy that I really enjoy using as a way to make sense of "somatic growth". The concept of titration: touch into these sensations one drop at a time, just as if you were using drops of acid to dilute a base to an equivalence point. In our world, this “equivalence point” manifests as just a feeling of balance in our lives. There comes to a point where mental and emotional-type practices hit a ceiling to your personal growth, in a way where your body never fails. This is what I mean when I say you can access somatic superpowers.
This approach seems to sync with Carmen Lee's POV on self-improvement arcs:
"I have a theory that you can only therapize/meditate/work on yourself full-time for about 1-2 years after which you have to re-enter the world or you get stuck there unable to take any real action... [go bump around in the world now]" You can keep mining to get every piece of diamond ore or you can just leave the mine and go make a beautiful necklace with what you've already found or something"
I agree with this sentiment insofar as it relates to making meaningful changes in your life. After all, you can go to >1,000 therapy sessions and still not be any better off than you were at the start, if you don't integrate the learnings into practice. But that's thing with somatic / body-type work: the mechanism for learning and the mechanism for action are intimately tied together. Take meditation: once you dive into a deep calming state, you've immediately landed on a landing base that you can return to at any time. You might struggle to find it again, but hidden behind all the layers of internal grime at some part of your body, you can find your way home back again.
When it comes to somatic work, one of the critical ingredients is the importance of practicing when you're not being watched. Enlightenment is a moment, not a state of being. Spirituality is not about using the practice to construct an identity (i.e. "building some sense of self"), because you'd just start contorting into a crazy creature like in Animorphs. The goal is to “be where you are”, actually giving a shit about the world you live in and the people you engage with. Look over your shoulder at someone in the same cafe as you and wonder, "what's their deal?"
It's funny to me how the most woo-woo, airy fairy practices turn out to be the most grounding. Many of these systems have also existed for millennia, with so many permutations that transcend cultures and contexts. They are rooted, ingrained, embodied. The craziest thing about something like meditation or breathwork or bodywork exists in its simplicity — you're literally just using your breath, your movement, your speech to make magic. At some point you just dissolve away, like a drop of food colouring in a deeply simmering broth. When every ounce of you is floating in the open universe, you unlock stepwise changes to your personal growth.
Breathing in particular is a core theme that wraps many of these activities together, and this has been a skill I've painstakingly honed over the years. A new mindset I'm harvesting: Breath as a psychedelic practice, a consciousness contact sport. Whether you indulge in the 3-part circular breathing of pranayama yoga, or the more intense which gives rise to the so-called 2-shot expresso breath, where the heart and stomach acting as conduits for energy reactions and mental downloads. The word holotropic means "moving towards wholeness", which is probably the most... Hell, you don’t even need all of this fancy stuff — vipassana teaches you to just observe the natural flow of your respiration. In, out, in, out; sensation, respiration.
I'm bringing these technical applications of breathwork to the table because it's such an accessible, but because of it's automatic nature, it becomes our most hidden-in-plain-sight tool. I think even if my life blows up unexpectedly, knowing that I can return to my body in its many shapes and styles is the most comforting feeling of them all.
Two years ago, I started this blog to feel more.
Two years later, and the same flavour still applies. Just more embodied in the main snack itself :)
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What am I holding onto? What changes am I afraid of?>> I'm holding onto the remnants of my last identity and not taking the full pledge, or plunge, into the newness. I think I'm honestly afraid of deep diving into the art world, not going full throttle into new friendships, being scared of my new love life approach. This is about not having the big balls to just go and do it — go make the thing, go hit up the person, go stick to the damn plan instead of just spontaneously lounging and waiting for things to happen!What changes am I calling in?>> My main character / anime protagonist energy in all areas of life. Stability and structure, the lean towards committing and investing vs. my default mode of exploring. I want to show up in these existing and new relationships as a person with capacity to listen, support, and co-create. I am shifting my focus to bake in as much goodness into this somatic spiritual journey; the hallmark of starting age 27.What is the chapter I want to write?>> The next book in my installment should be one that is coloured by vibrancy; controlled, grounded spontaneity, and a new type of bravery that I've only just seen glimpses of. A bravery that calls me to make more stuff, to produce as my mind & heart feel right, to have genuine conversations with important strangers that continue to nourish my emotional gas tank. These strangers — some of which may become future partners — are the next plane of growth. Follow-up, conviction, dedication, progression. All of these are important elements to keep in mind. How do I layer in more trust in myself to make sure I attract and magnetize these authentic humans to float in my orbit, while at the same time accelerate my own drift into these unexplored planets. The space theme seems and feels adequate: the balancing act between appreciating all the goodness in my current planet and embracing the desire to explore new ones. New forms of connection, new versions and mutations of identity, new angles of viewing the world and approaching situations will add texture to this new book, in a way that doesn't betray the learnings, battles, and lived experiences that have injected so much life into the past book. Gratitude is one layer, but an ecstatic aliveness is another, so shoutout to the strange and serendipitous characters that have sprouted.Letter to Present Self from Future Sam>> I am in the most calm, peaceful state that we've ever been in. We have trusted the divine process am I buzzing with the dual focus of inner work and the basket of healthy thriving relationships. I am more of an artist than I've ever been: by attitude, by output, by association. We are putting in all the required work ethic, and then some, because that is the core skill we've always had. I am beyond proud of your progress — whatever opportunities, experiences, lovers, setbacks, and advancements sprout up, just always remember that the only control we have is over ourselves.personal psychedelics>> I felt like I was levitating. A massive forcefield of energy gushing through my entire body with intense force. An expansion of colour and visuals, even if for a brief half-second in its appearance. Feeling so much, including the energy and vibrations of people around me. Complete surrender of my body, numbness consumes it. Did I actually lose consciousness for a bit? The intense chanting helped facilitate a deeper plunge into the unknown. Peak experience. somatic saloon>> A voyage: moving, vibrating, touching, holding, releasing, diving, swimming, floating. Working with Thai Bodywork has unlocked a new mindset, going beyond the mechanics of a "massage treatment". You feel completely cared for during the back-and-forth session with your partner, likely a stranger who you just met, in a way that allows your body and mind to relax completely even in beginner hands. Combined with a sound bath-infused breathwork, you realize that the symphony of snores, the wave of whimsy, and the staccato of sighs all stack into place. A profound beauty in the collective wellness of a grounded group. The question that sticks out is: how do I layer these states of pure relaxation into my everyday? Do they overlap with the strength of Goenka's vipassana? How do I share these methods with a person who is not really in tune with these spiritual-style methods?
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