The Somatic Dimension

At a technical level, we work with leveraging the ventral vagal state of your nervous system to anchor into a state of safety. So that gradually, whatever comes up can be met in bite-sized pieces: no overwhelm. There are thousands of ways we can approach creating this state. But the bottom line is supporting you in feeling safe. From safety, old trauma can emerge up into the body and clear through in a way that leaves you with less agitation, more calm.

The compassion we are talking about here is so much about an absence: its a space where there isn’t finger wagging, fixing, or judgement. This whole egoic perspective is invited to quiet down for a moment. And something else is invited forth - a basic warmth and respect for whatever comes up - whatever shape it takes. The feeling is less like sitting down in front of a butterfly and saying “I accept you” and more like letting our awareness be an open space in which butterflies fly freely, unrestricted by any kind of should. Along with butterflies: rage, terror, disgust, deepest grief. Everything given room.

We’re speaking here of leaning into the kind of warmth and compassion that stays steady when things get really uncomfortable. The kind of compassion that doesn’t get fall away when some inner vandal jumps up and starts smashing windows. When things get a little crazy…that’s where stillness and compassion have so much transformative power. That’s what we’re here for.

We’re speaking here of accessing the wisdom of the body. But how deep does that go? We’re speaking here of accessing all the wisdom that lies outside ordinary mind - intuition, the whispering of instinct, openness to messages from something “greater than ourselves”. The felt sense of the body can be the place through which we expand past the loops of our ordinary mind to find something radically, awesomely new.

Here’s the Ground from where it can become possible to stay open-hearted, even when triggered - even when confronted with something we find gruesome of bad.

So - we stay open - still. Listening: for the depth of our own inner wisdom and grace. And we stay open to notice a kind of primordial dignity beneath all our anxieties and perceived shortcomings. From this place - this ground of being - we may notice how infinitely worthy we are. Not broken. Not irredeemably bad or wounded. And this becomes the place from which we can meet the world and all its sorrows with a renewed sense of grace and agency.

Empathy in Rosenberg's NVC framework is about fully connecting with another person's emotional state and understanding their needs without judgment or offering advice. It involves a deep level of listening and presence that goes beyond mere acknowledgment of the other person's feelings. Empathy in NVC is active and engaging; it involves guessing at another's feelings and needs and reflecting them back to ensure understanding and connection.

Sympathy, on the other hand, while also an expression of concern, tends to involve feeling pity for another person but from a distance. It often places the sympathizer in a superior position, looking down on the situation rather than standing in it. Sympathy can sometimes lead to disconnection rather than connection because it might not engage with the depth of the emotional experience of the other person. It may come with an implied judgment or a sense of separation between the giver and the receiver of sympathy.

The body - our somatic sense - offers an incredible entry point into the non-dual orientation. Muscle and bone doesn’t hold judgement: the wisdom of the body reflects the wisdom of nature.

It seems many of the non-dual traditions ask us to simply “stop” - dropping directly from ordinary chattering mind to shimmering silence. Some of the tools drawn from somatic therapy techniques offer a less abrupt transition into stillness: moving through consciousness like wading slowly into the ocean. Rather than dropping into the ocean from from a hovering helicopter, and then feeling sucked back into the sky a moment later.

When the mind slows down and roots - even a little - in Stillness, we begin to notice it as very expansive. And then it may happen we notice it’s too big too fit inside our own head: random thoughts and ancient feelings are rising and falling in the same space as the pine tree across the street. No boundary between. Sharing this Endless body has no benefit for the self. But peace, ease, some kind of nectar in the heart…these are part of this orientation as much as bears and trees are part of a forest.

In this approach, we don’t so much walk a path in the sense of striving forth to win the day. It’s more a matter of providing a space in which the whole forest - the whole field - can be located within us. Which is to say…letting this moment be present within us, filled as it might be with grief or rage, hummingbirds and windblown leaves. When we know ourselves as split off from the world, there can be a sense of dormant stillness - like being on a sailboat at sea without wind. The doldrums. What we're talking about here is the opposite experience. Here the wind is blowing from all directions - full and alive. Standing in its center with it blowing through you, it becomes part of you - part of how you spontaneously show up in the world.

These sessions offer the chance to notice ourselves as a flowing assembly that goes its own wild way. What happens when the ego isn’t acting like a lion-tamer, trying to keep everything under control? What happens when all parts of ourselves are given some respect and space: to express their own needs and nature? What happens when we experience things from the Ground where our difficulties aren’t perceived as problems. These sessions are a place for finding out.

These sessions touch in one three ways of being that are sometimes overlooked in the press of ordinary life. Each contributes to Wholeness. The first is embodiment - meaning both the details of your everyday life, and the way truth expresses itself in your muscle and bones - through sensation, posture, breath. The second is the waking dream - being open and listening for the flow of imagery that flows up from some underground river below your ordinary mind to offer insight, perspective - a reflection of a larger world. Third - there’s stillness: the eternal, unshakeable Ground: the perspective where every Pine Tree and every sob of grief may reveal itself as a Buddha.

These sessions offer the chance to notice ourselves as a flowing assembly that goes its own wild way. What happens when the ego isn’t acting like a lion-tamer, trying to keep everything under control? What happens when all parts of ourselves are given some respect and space: to express their own needs and nature? What happens when we experience things from the Ground where our difficulties aren’t perceived as problems. These sessions are a place for finding out.

These sessions offer the opportunity of having a guardian at the gate: holding space for you to turn within and speak the truth that lies well beneath the surface, that may have nothing to do with anything known and familiar. There's no inflicting some other truth or changing what you say to make it more understandable or comfortable. Just a space held for you to discocover and say what's true for you - whether it comes out like a lion's roar or a little unsteady at first like a doe taking her first steps.