Generative Somatics

1. Generative Somatics Study Days July 28, 2012

2. What is Somatics? • Somatics is a path, a methodology, a change theory, • By which we can embody transformation • Individually and collectively

3. Embodied Transformation is Foundational Change Shows in our actions, in our ways of being, relating and perceiving

4. Somatics works through the body • Engaging us in our thinking • Supports values and actions being aligned • Emotions • Develops depth and capacity to feel ourselves, each other and life around us • Commitments • Builds the ability to act from strategy and empathy, to access conditions and “what is” clearly, to inform vision and action • Vision and Action • Is a practice-able theory of change that can move us toward individual, community and collective liberation.

5. Somatics is NOT • The “body” add-on to psychotherapy • Any body-based exercise • Solely bringing attention to bodily sensations

6. Somatics is • 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.

7. “Shapes” • 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.

8. 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

9. 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

10. 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.

11. While Somatics has much to offer in healing trauma, • 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.

12. Definitions • 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.

13. Somatics works with all these interdependent aspects of who we are,An integrated Whole • Thinking and conceptual • Emotional • Biological • Spiritual • Relational • Social 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)

14. What are you practicing? • 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.

15. Somatics • 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. • 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.

16. Generative Somatics A transformative change theory and praxis that uses: • 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.

17. SOMATIC AWARENESS • 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.

18. SOMATIC OPENING • 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.

19. SOMATIC PRACTICES Build new skills and competencies, a new “shape” aligned with our values and politics, that become natural actions: • -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!

20. Social Context • 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.

21. Spirit and Landscape • 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.

22. Resilience: A Somatic Definition • 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?

23. Trauma: A somatic Definition • Traumatic experiences cause a somatic contraction and “shaping” that becomes non-responsive 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.

24. Generative Somatics Through somatics, we are able: • To learn presence and boundaries, • Re-establish connection with self, others and community, • Connect to what makes our life meaningful, • Garner our resilience and courage to live.

25. Somatics in the Field • 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.

26. Bibliography • Http://www.generativesomatics.org/content/what-somatics pp. 1-5