Befriending Sensation

Somatic awareness is a skill that helps us befriend the body. Somatic awareness is the capacity to be mindful of our physical sensations, qualities like warmth, pressure, spaciousness, or constriction.

The body speaks to us all the time using the language of sensation, saying things like “something is wrong”, or “thank you, I feel safe and happy now” or “I need to sit down." The body communicates to us whether we listen or not, through vibrations, tingling, pulsing, discomfort, posture, breath, and movement, to name just a few ways.

Though we may have strong habits of overriding, ignoring, or avoiding our body’s communications to us, we are missing a lot of richness and depth, the satisfaction of a loving relationship with this important part of our inner family, if we ignore the body & all she has to say.

If we disregard her too much, she has to “speak louder”, maybe even through illness or accidents. Therefore, it benefits all of us to learn to understand and speak body’s native tongue - all the many different varieties and combinations of sensation that are streaming through the channels of our somatic awareness.

 
 

My invitation to you:

Explore the language of body sensations through the following EXA process. Think of this exercise as a way to signal that you are interested in friendly contact.

Materials and Supplies:

  • Paper for writing down words, any size, can be scrap

  • Markers, pencils, pastels, or another easy tool for making marks.

  • 12 small pieces of paper. Post-its work great, but anything on the smaller side will work.

Part 1: Set an Intention Related to Body Sensations

Before you start today, write down a few intentions for why you might like to do this process.

I want to befriend my sense of…

I want to explore sensations so…

I want to increase sensation in…

I want to sense more…

I want to sense into…

I want to get a better sense of…

Part 2: Short Movement Exploration

Stand up and come to a still, comfortable stance for some touch, movement, and sensation exploration.

Step one: Notice Existing Sensations

Begin with noticing any sensations that are already present through a quick body scan.

From head to toe, where, if anywhere, you can sense anything at all?

A good way to find sensations that are already there, is to close your eyes and ask yourself, How can I tell that my body is still here, even though I’m not looking at it right now?

Answers like, “I can feel my body swaying slightly” or “I can feel a breeze on my arm” or “my tongue is touching the roof of my mouth” are all examples.

No comparison to someone else’s sensations is necessary. This is a private conversation between you and your body.

Step Two: Create Sensations through Movement and Touch

Now begin to create gentle, pleasant sensations in the body through touch and movement. Please don’t hurt yourself, make sure these are friendly touches from you to yourself.

This is a two-part exploration:

1) first try a movement or touch, such as rubbing your palms together briskly for several seconds, lightly stroking your ankles with your hands, or tapping your lips lightly with a pinky finger

2) then stop the motion or touch, and take several seconds to just notice and observe the qualities of any sensations you created

Then move on to another movement or touch exploration.

Intend to create sensation all over the body, leaving nobody out:

  • Crown of head, back of head, sides of head, back of neck

  • Temples, forehead, eyes, ears

  • Jaw, cheeks, nose, mouth, throat, neck

  • Collar, upper chest, upper back, rib cage, sternum, belly, lumbar, sides

  • Undercarriage, pelvis, hips, buttocks

  • Thighs, knees, calves, shins, ankles, feet, toes

  • Shoulders, upper arms, elbows, forearms, wrists, hands, fingers

Ways you might create sensation through touch:

  • Laying hands on a part of your body, lightly or firmly, pressing into, pushing against

  • Stroking skin with different degrees of pressure and at different speeds, lightly tracing, sweeping hands over, rubbing firmly

  • Massaging, kneading, palpating, squeezing

  • Gently pinching, pulling, lightly scratching

  • Tapping, softly thumping with finger tips or soft fists, exploring a range of pressures and frequencies (from feather light flutters to more impactful, from fast to slow, in different combinations: fast and light, fast and medium weight, slow and light, slow and heavyweight, etc)

  • Holding, hugging, and squeezing

  • Or something else?

Ways you might create sensation through movement:

  • Bending, contracting, shortening, pulling in, condensing muscle groups

  • Extending, unfolding, stretching, reaching, lengthening, lightening

  • Turning, twisting, rotating, spiraling, directioning

  • Swaying, rocking, moving back and forth repeatedly, shifting weight

  • Swinging, lifting, dropping

  • Undulating, rolling

  • Stepping, stomping

  • Or something else?

Allow all the moving and touching explorations to come to a stop, and move to Part 3.

Part 3: Collect Sensation Words

Look at the following list of sensation words, (from Sensorimotor Psychotherapy), and just notice which ones resonate or jump out at you. Do any of them correspond to, or evoke, a sensation you just experienced?

 
 

On a piece of paper, make your own list of sensation words.

Take any words from the list above, and also add words of your own, feeling free to make words up if you like.

Use words that could be used to describe what you sensed today in the short movement exploration, as well as any other sensations you may be familiar with from your body’s repertoire of communications with you.

 
 

Finally, choose 12 of these words to work with further today. Circle, star, or underline them on your paper, and move on to Part 4.

I chose to work with:

  • constricted

  • prickly

  • radiating

  • coiling

  • floppy

  • released

  • squeezed

  • bubbling

  • tight

  • spacious

  • quivering

  • pressure

Part 4: Capture Sensations as Marks on Paper

Using your 12 small pieces of paper, write one sensation word on each paper.

Now use markers, pencils or pastels to make a snapshot of the sensation, using gestural, expressive marks that record the qualities of each sensation word.

We are not using symbols in this exercise (such as a heart to represent love or a hammer to indicate a pounding pain), but rather using the line quality.

Your markmaking communicates heaviness or lightness, density or spaciousness, shape, directionality, speed, and so on.

You may want to imagine that the sensation is going down into your hands, and expressing itself out of your mark-making tool as lines and marks. A light, floaty feeling would make light, floaty marks. A heavy, jabbing feeling would make heavy, jabbing marks.

Part 5: Sound and Movement Response

Put your drawings somewhere you can see them, and do a short sound and movement response to each piece.

Aim for finding one gesture or movement phrase, while saying the word out loud expressively, reflecting the qualities of the drawing through your prosody. You may want to repeat the word several times.

Use your vocal pitch, speed, and pressure to respond to the qualities of the sensation pictured.

For example, saying the word floppy while looking at what I captured for that sensation, I discover a wobbly sound, starting on one pitch and ending on a lower pitch. For the word prickly, I use a clipped, pursed, aspirated delivery.

Whatever your body wants to do in response to what you see in each image is just perfect.

Part 6: Journal to Reflect

To end the exploration for today, write for a few moments about your experience.

How did your exploring go today?

What stands out? Any surprises? Anything familiar?

What sensations are large in your awareness now as you sit down to write?

If the body were to use these sensations to communicate something to you, what might she be saying to you?

Did your body seem to like these explorations? How did you know what the body liked or didn’t?

Write down a short message of one to three sentences, that you would like to send to the body, such as:

“Thank you for playing today. I liked feeling the sensations with you. I hope you will talk to me more, I want to know what you have to say.”

Thank you for engaging!

warmly,

~HM

Holly Mae Haddock