May 14th, 2025

The Overlooked Body: Somatic Sustainability Begins Within

By Marianne Adams

Link to the JSE May 2025 General Issue Table of Contents

Adams JSE May 2025 General Issue PDF

 

Abstract:  This article provides a process-based model of embodied practice to broaden the discourse regarding somatic sustainability. The article provides background regarding the rise of somatic studies in university dance programs and delineates resources that embodied perspectives and somatic concepts can offer. The article provides an interdisciplinary approach to sustainable education and outlines the development of a new curriculum for a university minor in Somatic Sustainability. A common question throughout the minor is: How can we bring about sustainable and positive social change using body-based perspectives and practices? A guided, experiential session is outlined for educators to help students recognize their sense of embodied resiliency. From the Somatics and Sustainable Practices course, an example of a small shifts and quiet practices project is presented. The intersectionality of somatics and sustainability informs the dialogue in each of these fields and offers resources from the often-overlooked body perspective.

Keywords: felt-sense education, embodied resiliency, kinesethtic awareness, somatic attunement, body-based sustainability, sensory restoration

 

How can the conscious awareness of our embodied, internal, fluid, and ever-changing state become a resource and inform our sense of somatic sustainability? I come to this question from a multidisciplinary perspective arising from a depth of experience in modern dance, somatic practice, clinical psychology, and expressive arts. As a dance professor at a mid-sized, liberal arts, state university in the southeastern United States, approximately one-third of the thirty-five courses that I have created have a somatic focus. In each of these courses, although the content differs, the emphasis for teaching and learning is on building awareness of self and understanding the impact of self on the ensemble or community. I believe that the cultivation of awareness that arises from body-based practices can enhance and broaden efforts to cultivate sustainable practices.

In many university dance programs, somatic classes and programs have grown in prominence within the dance discipline over the last 30 years (Eddy, 2002; Dragon, 2015). Generally, somatic coursework emphasizes how our embodied knowledge and experiences impact our ways of seeing and being in the world. As a critical thinker, one might be tempted to ask if the terms somatic sustainability or embodiment are being used as buzzwords, merely jumping on the current bandwagon. It is fair to question how somatic sustainability might differ from embodied sustainability. While many disciplines overlap in their ideas and approaches regarding sustainability, researchers have advocated for sustainable practices that call for knowledge across disciplines and blended approaches to develop solutions for complex world problems (Annan-Diab & Molinari, 2017). Scholars and researchers in the field call for bringing cognitive, somatic, affective, feminist and moral considerations into the discussion for deeper understandings and more systemic solutions (Johnson and Wilkinson, 2020, Eaton et al., 2016). Somatic study helps to balance a disembodied approach to learning and instead offers a systems perspective valuing first-person experiences and knowledge gained from internal sensory awareness (Green, 2015). By nature, somatics offers a holistic, systems approach to embodied learning which emphasizes decentering external authority, promotes dialogue and discovery, using proprioception and sensory information (Batson et al., 2011; Rouhiainen, 2008; Dyer, 2000). The dysfunction of the dominant patriarchal, cognitive approach to education calls for new ways of being in the world and new interdisciplinary conversations to emerge.

Defining Sustainability

Although many definitions are used, the United Nations Brundtland Report is often cited: “Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (Brundtland, 1987, p. 41). Eaton et al. (2017) refocused the discussion, stating: “Today, the concept of sustainability is seen in broader terms than either sustainable development or ecological sustainability, and includes community, organizational, cultural, economic, personal and social sustainability” (p. 6).      

What is Somatics?

Somatics, like sustainability, can be slippery to define. Both somatics and sustainability are multidimensional fields and contain complexities that call for multifaceted perspectives. Thomas Hanna (1979) is credited with defining the term Somatics as inclusive of body, mind, and spirit as it coexists within the environment (p. 5-6). They later added, “Somatics is the field that studies the soma: namely the body as perceived from within by first person perception” (Hanna, 1995 p. 341). From proprioception to sensory awareness, this first-person perspective is important, as it provides unique and immediate sensory data. From the Generative Somatics website:

Somatics is a practice-able theory of change that can move us toward individual, community, and collective liberation through working to embody transformation. Somatics with a social analysis understands the need for deep personal transformation, aligned with liberatory community/collective practices, connected to transformative systemic change (n.d.)

Central to many body-mind practices, there is a commitment to devaluing external visual references, focusing on internal noticing, slowing the immediate effort, and seeking a fluid sense of flow, or connectivity (Adams, 2016). Rita Irwin (2008) states: “Ironically, becoming a practitioner is less about practice and more about becoming…the becoming never ends, for the becoming is a continuous process, inherent in the knowing-through-the inquiry process” (p. 73). Central to the work of becoming is engaging in the practice of nonjudgmental reflection. Experiential somatic methods place importance on developing an intuitive, kinesthetic somatic authority or self-agency rather than the dissemination of knowledge through expert hierarchical models. (Williamson et al., 2014; Geber & Wilson, 2010; Fortin, Vieria & Tremblay, 2009; Batson & Schwartz, 2007). Although there are many daily physical practices that could offer the capacity to recognize and renew oneself, a somatic practice values self-awareness and attending to process over product. A mindful, consciously repeated body-mind practice allows space to recognize internal body sensations and allow awareness to increase habits of coherence. (Adams, 2012). Through the repeated practices of an individual, conscious embodiment can begin to shape how a person sees their world. With consistent practice, somatic sustainability strives to cultivate an understanding of one’s actions and their relational impact on the larger world.

 

Creating Sustainability from the Inside Out

From my perspective as a practitioner, there has been an increasing social and cultural awareness that the fields of dance and somatic practice have much to offer in the discourse of sustainability. My premise is that the emerging field of somatic sustainability provides a process-based model using fundamental concepts from movement and somatic practice to teach embodied sustainability, from the inside out. The content emanates from the somatic body, movement experiences and contemplative practices. Our somas are always in process. The body is a complex model of structural stability that is also organic, fluid and everchanging. Our somas are like rhizomes, interconnected, simultaneously living and decomposing in the present, felt moment—ever changing, a part of the natural world. (O’Conner, 2017). Movement practices that connect us to sensations and emotions give us the power to choose and recognize resources from the body—the ability to adapt, express, balance, and make conscious choices to change (Pallant, 2018).

Somatic methods often focus on bringing conscious attention to intention to develop a sense of mindful awareness while moving. When moving from a mindful state, it is sometimes described as a ‘felt sense’ of flow within the body. A felt sense of flow can also expand to a sense of receptivity and openness to others and the natural world as we explore and nurture our relational awareness. As we practice moving open heartedly with one another, in a safe and non-judgmental environment, we can begin to sense how we transmit and receive energy, which can lead to a greater understanding of our interconnectedness and shared responsibilities. Movement, even small making repetitive, small movements, can help a person to become receptive and accustomed to, the everchanging rhythms of the world.

Being present in the present moment is central to somatic work which includes ‘being and doing’, simultaneously. Because our bodies are everchanging, touching and being touched, we have more agency to use creative practices and imagination to tackle the difficult, daunting issues of sustainability from a place of somatic literacy. The integrative experiences from embodiment, attunement, movement explorations and process work offer a broadened conceptual framework to strengthen sustainable pathways for resilience, to ‘show up,’ rebalance our world, and adapt. “Experience of the living world reverberates throughout our being with every breath…The sensations we experience through our bodies are a kind of intelligence, an intelligence that speaks with the world around us” (Witteman, 2020, p. 81). Lived, embodied experience, centers movement as a fundamental principle in a body-based, ecological conception of life (Pulkki et al., 2017).

Scholars are calling for more integrative approaches to sustainability, citing the importance of connecting disparate ways of knowing, including artistic and embodied practices to better understand climate change and community resiliency (Bentz et al., 2022). Both reflective and contemplative practices are important aspects of somatic sustainability. While reflective practice helps us to better understand our actions, contemplative practices can allow us to access imaginative, creative ways of moving forward (Killen, 2016).

Background and Development of a New Minor in Somatic Sustainability 

Initially, our somatic offerings were electives within our BA major in Dance Studies. Additional students also enroll in our somatic classes as they fulfill General Education requirements for Wellness Literacy. In 2016 my colleague, Associate Professor Laurie Atkins, started using the term ‘Somatic Sustainability’ as we began conversations with the intent to broaden the dialogue regarding the value of somatics and contemplative education to shift the focus from the individual to include the collective. As Eaton et al., (2016) stated: “… the creation of contemplative and reflective space holds promise to strengthen both our individual and collective capacity for difficult and effective work in the study of sustainability” (p. 2).

We initiated a new minor in Somatic Sustainability in 2019. We currently offer courses in GYROKINESIS®, GYROTONIC®, Pilates Mat, Pilates Apparatus, Yoga as a Somatic Practice, Floor-Barre®, Yoga Nidra, and Somatics. The somatics course provides an overview of various bodywork methods, basic applied kinesiology/anatomy, and a nourishment unit. The lens on nourishment is very broad, emphasizing taking personal authority and responsibility for self-care. Conceptual ideas related to mindfulness practices and the cultivation of embodied resilience are emphasized in all the somatic classes. In the minor, an introductory course from the Sustainable Development department is required, along with a new course entitled Somatics and Sustainable Practices. A common question throughout the minor is: How can we bring about sustainable and positive social change using body-based practices and perspectives?

 

Body-Based Sustainability

The idea of fostering the culture of human development as compassionate, self-aware embodied beings calls for an oscillation of our attention from self-witnessing to noticing and compassionately sensing others. Risa Kaparo, in her book, Awakening somatic intelligence: The art and practice of embodied mindfulness, states:

Somatic learning represents an intersection between the practical and profound. It is an invitation into a deeper alignment with our innate intelligence. This intelligence brings about a self-sustainable new order that functions from these three fundamental characteristics: It is self-sensing, self-organizing, and self-renewing (2012, p.14).

 

Gillian Judson (2015) contributes to the discussion by bringing to light the neglect of imagination and wonder in education for sustainability. Judson asks an important question: “Are students learning in ways that acknowledge that they are emotional and imaginative beings?” (p. 205). Other discussions of embodiment in sustainability have often centered on the human relationship to nature, the need to sense ourselves as within or as a part of nature. Schutten (2011) argues that for biospheric (author emphasis) literacy, the body, pain, pleasure, and imagination become important aspects in sustainable dialogues. Judson (2015) expands on the need for inventive thinking in this way: “…imagination seems to play a crucial role in enabling us to take on alternative perspectives. Imagination opens up a theoretical space in which to broaden notions of self to include interrelationship with the natural world…” (p. 4).

Our somatic intelligence, with its capacity to self-organize, self-sense, and self-renew, brings many overlooked resources to the sustainability problems that we face. Somatic approaches, by nature, give validation to imaginative, affective, playful, associative thinking. A relaxed body-mind state is a by-product of many somatic practices, which can help in problem-solving and accessing shared leadership and creativity in group work. But in today’s world, it is easy to be so disconnected from our bodies that the accessibility of these resources is often overlooked.

Attending to Somatic Clues

To begin to organize resources from this perspective, it may be useful to start by focusing on our senses. Seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching are the common senses through which our bodies generally perceive external stimuli. But as adults, what does it really mean to live in our senses? Most of us knew exactly what that felt like when we were two. We slept when we were tired, ate when we were hungry, relieved our digestive selves whenever we felt the urge, and cried when things didn’t go our way. Gradually, through socialization, training, and observing our elders, we learned to value thinking over feeling, product over process, and mind over body.

So how do we begin to attend to our perceptual cues that are often brushed aside in a harried, product-oriented world? What does the process of living in the present moment look like? From this perspective, we might notice when our temples are pounding or when our stomach is in a knot and begin to pay attention to the warning signals that our nervous system may be sending out.

Perhaps we allow ourselves to notice when our screen-weary eyes have become fatigued. If we pay attention, we will notice a slight sense of discomfort and allow ourselves to recognize and acknowledge what messages are being signaled. Although there could be many choice points along the way, as adults in a product-oriented society, we’d most likely choose to push through or ignore the sensory signals we receive rather than engage with them on an embodied level. The low-level body disconnect or slight crankiness that this habit promotes impacts our sleep patterns, our stress levels, our hearts, our bowels, and our nervous systems. It also clouds our relational capacities and lessens receptivity. It dims our sensory capacities to the present-ness that allows us to relate open heartedly to others.

Being disconnected from our basic body states and clues can allow repetitive, reactive behavior to occur and diminish our capacity to practice resiliency, to be relationally receptive, or to process new information. Pausing to deeply exhale allows us room for more oxygen. This basic body action, when applied consciously, is a reset⎯ a pause to empty our lungs can literally allow us the opportunity to take in fresh air and allow possibilities for new thoughts and additional perspectives to emerge.

If we were attending to our somatic selves, we’d start by simply noticing what we are feeling and attending to where those sensations reside in our bodies. And, without censorship or judgment and hopefully with a sense of kindness, we’d identify and acknowledge our ‘felt sense.’ We might opt to allow ourselves a short reflective pause or take a moment to consciously breathe. One somatic approach might simply be to notice our sensation(s) and then reframe our bodily experience with a word, a short phrase, or refocusing of intention. For example, taking a brief, internal inventory could allow one to recognize a sensation of tightness in the chest or the sensation of holding in the shoulders. A few consciously slow exhales, in conjunction with imagined words such as ‘let go’, ‘float’, or ‘melt’, could be enough for a body-mind reset.

A further step towards utilizing our somatic resources would be to engage in a moment of reflection to better understand why we are stressed or tired. As adults, we have often learned to ignore our ability to pause, restore, and renew daily, as we push toward ever higher levels of productivity. Although we might feel resistance to taking this step, thinking that we have no time for it, even a one-minute pause can yield a shift of perspective. Sometimes, a reset happens organically when we pause to simply acknowledge what we are sensing and feeling. As adults, simply tuning in to our fluid and changeable body state(s) can release some of the everyday tensions and body clues that we regularly feel and ignore. When interviewed in 2022, ClydeRae Jolie-Ashe, a somatic practitioner and GYROTONIC® and GYROKINESIS® master trainer, spoke about the need for periodic resetting in this way:

When the nervous system becomes too stimulated, a sense of overwhelm can cause a freeze response, a splintering of the self. In order to return to a state of aliveness, the body/mind requires rest, quiet, and a felt sense of safety. The parasympathetic nervous system can bring the body back to a state of calm (Adams, p. 187).

It is our nervous system, including the brain, spinal cord, and nerves and their relationship to our proprioceptive and kinesthetic senses that allow us a possibility for transformative somatic engagement. Resmaa Menakem (2017) helps in understanding the importance of our multifaceted brain, focusing on our Vagus nerve, which is also sometimes called our lizard brain or wandering nerve. Menakem aptly calls it our soul nerve:

Your soul nerve reaches into most of your body, including your throat, lungs, heart, stomach, liver, spleen, pancreas, kidney and gut (both your large and small intestine) …This is why we sense so many things in our belly— and why some biologists call the gut our “second brain.” This second brain is where our body senses flow, coherence, and the rightness or wrongness of things. (p. 138).

Settling ourselves and noticing our breath patterns can be an overlooked resource. When we have been glued to a screen and typing for hours on end, the ability to shift slightly to make oneself more comfortable begins with noticing. Notice the ergonomic placement of your forearms, wrists, and fingers on the keyboard and desk surface. Notice the placement of your weight in your chair, the slump of your spine, the locked motionlessness of your head on the cervical axis of the spine, the tension in your neck muscles to hold your skull still—all sensations offer often-overlooked body clues. These sensations give information that affects receptivity, the ability to make connections, and our capacity to be fully present without judgment. Being in congruence with a sense of our soul nerve, or lizard brain, helps to avoid living in a dulled state of anxiety or reactivity and can open us to new possibilities and other ways of being.

A Classroom Teaching Guide for Building an Awareness of Embodied Resiliency

A facilitator’s guide is provided to help students build awareness and access their ‘lived’ sense of embodied resiliency. The lesson begins with questions: Where does a sense of resiliency reside in your body? What sensations arise as you imagine resiliency? Each person’s way of exploring these questions, experiences, and insights will be different. The process starts by creating a safe environment for students to attune to body sensations as they embark on an exploratory journey. The facilitator offers guidance to lead participants into a non-judgmental state of motion. After the multilayered movement experience, time is allowed for individual reflection, group processing, and brainstorming. Approximately 45 minutes is needed.

Guided movement exploration

Facilitator: To create a sense of safety, encourage participants to move with closed eyes. This allows students to focus on additional senses such as breath, kinesthetic impulses, body curiosities, or simply to discover authentic sensations of pleasure. From my experience, within the first 5-7 minutes of any exploratory body play, most groups will need lots of reassurance as some participants will still be self-conscious or worried if they are ‘doing it right’. As a facilitator, take the time to find a comfortable spot to begin where you can see everyone. Sometimes, it may be helpful to walk or move within and around the participants to really feel the energy in the room. Notice the resonance in your voice as you help to create a safe, vulnerable space for others. Notice and stay with the pulse of the room while you begin to track the depth and tempo of your own breath. As you pause between each sentence in the script, can you regulate or slow your own breath? Can you feel sensations of relaxation in your body by dropping minute increments of tension as you lead others in this exercise?

As you begin, give participants permission to rest their eyes and provide a few minutes to focus inward, with prompts to encourage participants to simply notice their present state. Can the students notice tension or tightness in a particular area of their body? Can they identify places in their body that feel comfortable, bound, or easeful? Gradually, begin to encourage participants to jostle, jangle, and jiggle their lower limbs, head, shoulders, and spine to loosen up. Encourage exploration with small, continuous, shaky motions as they notice their breath begins to deepen.

Can the participants identify when there is a movement impulse that resonates or simply feels good or delicious in their body? Some might find satisfaction in repeating a movement until it feels familiar and comforting. They might find satisfaction by allowing their movement to morph— to enlarge or change over time. Or it might be satisfying to shift their weight forward and back or side to side. Or perhaps, moving their hips in a figure eight is the motion that pleases them. Can they let themselves be guided by impulses and urges? What seems to want to happen? Allow playfulness, repetition, silliness, and curiosities to be explored. Can the participants discover movement and impulses that give satisfaction and joyful pleasure? Or allow the movement phrase to be unplanned, to be guided by improvisational whims? Can they let curiosity guide them? As the facilitator, encourage the participants to not censor or judge what arises. Can the participants be present with their process and notice what feels natural and authentic⎯ and maybe at times, even delicious?

For the participants, the emphasis is on process, with no pressure to create a product. Simply notice what feels good and stay with that motion for a few minutes to find a sense of play, ease, pleasure, or satisfaction.  Since most participants will likely remain stationary during this initial phase, as they move into the next layer, encourage the participants to find ways to stay with what they are discovering and enjoying and slowly begin to travel through space as they continue in motion.

After 8-10 minutes of traveling explorations, begin to guide the participants to move incrementally downward, toward the floor. Allow time and space to find new paths, experiment, and play with what feels good, using adjectives such as melting, gooey, softening, folding, and unraveling onto the floor. Once on the floor, encourage participants to feel the surface of the floor, its support, temperature, and texture. Encourage yielding motions, such as rolling, curling, stretching, curving, carving, and inquisitiveness. What movements feel comforting? What wants to form, to repeat, develop, add to, be embellished or distilled?

Ask the participants to identify one movement from the floorwork and one movement from their traveling, vertical movement. It can be a short series of movements that is repeatable and resonates authentically. Recalling and repeating a few movements from their exploration is the physical starting point for recognizing their sense of embodied resiliency. Gradually, wind down to the awareness of breath, heart rate, energy, and pulse in the body. Feel the energetic pulse of the group, even as you guide them to move toward stillness. The facilitator might ask: “Does your sensation of resilience arise from a sense of stretchy plasticity? Buoyancy? A recognition of your strength—or flexibility? Or is it related to a sense of reaching and growth? Or perhaps, for you, it comes from a sense of comfort and ease− the simple pleasure of repeating small, contained movements or gestures while noticing the rise and fall of your lungs and breath.”

Journaling to describe, articulate, and voice awareness(es) 

Allow contemplative time and space for perceptions and sensations to come into conscious awareness. Give at least 5 minutes for individual body reflection on the experience.

It may be helpful to structure this as a free write, to write or draw continuously without censoring or stopping, for several minutes. Ask the participants to sense their current embodied state and identify the most resonant or helpful information gleaned from this experience. As participants begin the descriptive process, their felt sense could be described in many terms, as comfort, a sense of groundedness, feeling supported, being centered, a sense of freedom or ease, etc. The terms described or associated will likely be different but will relate to how each person senses resiliency.

Some might describe an awareness of strength, another as sensing their flexibility, another from sensing their ability to shift, to be unstuck or to move through or beyond an obstacle. The awareness(es) might come from a surprising physical response or a cognitive realization. Or it may come from making an emotional connection with a felt sense. The facilitator might ask if participants felt a body impulse or resonance with a word or directive that was given. Asking: “Can you identify a specific nugget or pearl that comes to you from this experience?”

Example journal entry: An excerpt from my personal journal after practicing the embodied resilience activity.

In my body, compassion feels fluid, with channels and rivulets flowing; it feels receptive. The gurgling sound that I imagine reminds me of a quiet, continuous babble; it is gently soothing. The temperature of my fluid body feels just right. In contrast, when I am afraid or anxious, I sense holding, rigidity, constriction and tightness in my body. To stay guarded in this way sucks my energy. I feel isolated, alone and am unable to embrace others, hesitant to engage externally. In this state, the heat in my body burns unevenly. I run hot and cold. On most every scale, compassion simply feels better in my body than holding tightness and fear⎯that is how I recognize my sense of resiliency. When I sense self-compassion, I feel resilient. I have room for empathy and compassion for others. My body feels pliant.

 

Group Share 

Part of the beauty of somatic sustainability is that each person comes with their own story, lens, history, strengths, limitations, experience, and background. So, the dialogue that emerges from a shared experience becomes like a multi-faceted star. Each person participated in the same experience, but each person had their own unique exploration. What each individual experiences within an activity becomes their entry point for recognizing their embodied resiliency. Commonalities and unique points of divergence are recognized and valued. Sharing their experience with others allows participants to share their perspectives and to be heard in a small group community, and it gives them an opportunity to practice receptive, active listening skills. Seeing one’s body experience individually and through peer feedback helps participants to understand their personal experience more deeply. When the participant’s contextual awareness is enlarged, there is more room for compassionate understanding of differences. What symbol might the group create to synthesize their collective experiences?

Group Brainstorm

Using their group symbol as a starting point, how might the group imagine new ideas or ways of taking this activity one step further? How might the group begin creatively to move toward social action from their shared experience? The final questions become: What action might the group identify to disseminate this conceptual knowledge into the larger world? How can the group use their experience to begin to make transformative community change? How does a small ripple begin? Can the group describe their project clearly and concisely and identify 2-3 next steps to develop this activity in a larger community?

Renewal through somatic sustainability

In the first Somatics and Sustainable Practices class, Laurie Atkins and I devised a unit to introduce somatic concepts and develop a project that focused on making small shifts and quiet practices. The emphasis was not so much on what a student did, but on building somatic awareness, noticing body cues, and learning from them. New awareness often led to identifying and tracking habits and actions that they wanted to shift. Often, this step brought habits or impediments to change into consciousness by attuning to body states. Somatic attunement can be described as an integration of feeling, sensation, attention, intuition, and perception (Fernandes, 2014). The initial starting point might be to simply notice sensations, pleasures, and discomforts within the oft-ignored body.

Students were asked to devise projects to explore a small shift or quiet practice and repeat their chosen practice for a 3-week period. Many students found that very small, subtle body shifts had profound impacts. For example, pausing to take a few conscious breaths periodically throughout the day often led to an awareness of when or where the student was holding tension or not taking in or releasing a full breath. Making that connection sometimes revealed an unresolved, unconscious point of tension, body holding, or incongruence between body and mind. A project that began as an evening stretching ritual soon morphed into taking periodic, improvised stretches at multiple points during the day. Their actions were reinforced by noticing both the sense of pleasure that arose with a release of tension and the awareness of an increased sense of efficiency after taking a quick break.

After their initial projects, students brainstormed in small groups to discuss how their individual practices might develop further by using the strategies of scaffolding or habit stacking to create other small changes. For example, a few moments of conscious breathing might scaffold, or build in increments, by increasing body check-ins throughout the day. From practices that began by simply noticing body cues, avenues for body awareness and somatic shifts began to sprout easily. Some students stacked shoulder jiggles after hand washing; others found it helpful to incorporate loosening exercises while in the shower. Reinforcement happened naturally since the small shifts felt good, and it was novel to have self-care projects as homework.

After revising their individual practices, students formed small groups to develop larger projects. They were asked to consider how their embodied practices could begin to impact or engage the community outside the classroom. They were given wide latitude to reuse parts of their individually developed practices, or adapt using commonalities within their projects, or simply abstract earlier learning and imagine and embark on a new, unified group project. The class was to have their first small group meeting the day that schools in this area were shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Students were given a choice to work online with their small groups or pivot to individual projects. Given all the unknowns of the viral world at that time, all students opted to work individually to create their projects. Although students turned in outlines of their adapted plans and met periodically online to discuss their progress, their work was completed mostly independently. Online project presentations were shared with the class for their final exam. They were asked to create a slide presentation that included a visual symbol of their project, and to organize their oral presentation detailing their process, methods, results/awareness, and insights/action. Here is a sample project from that semester.

Example of a Small Shifts and Quiet Practices Project

Process

This project was initially planned as a small group project, but efforts were individualized as it was initiated just as the COVID-19 pandemic began. The student started by taking daily, contemplative walks in the woods, to notice and track their sensations.

Method

During their isolated, contemplative walks, the student gathered artifacts from the natural world along with trash. The student explored nurturing body practices, such as slowing down and noticing sights and sounds in the natural world while focusing on deep breathing to reduce anxiety. After their walks, the student created Mandalas and used reflective journaling to process their experiences.

Results/Awareness

Resiliency was practiced by developing flexible thinking, adapting plans, and making creative use of resources. What began to emerge from this body practice and daily reflection was the urge to repurpose trash while celebrating the beauty of nature.

Insights/Action

The waste from man-made single-use products and resources from the natural world are brought into one lens to highlight the need for awareness, balance, and change. Although the amount of trash found was disheartening, there was satisfaction in creating a symbol of beauty to heighten the awareness of consequences stemming from our actions.

Limitations

Although I have shared positive student responses to the somatic sustainability classes, the question remains as to how their insights and intentions will carry into the world without the continuing structure of the classes. As a practitioner, I recognize that this emerging field would benefit from more dialogue to further articulate a conceptual framework. This somatic approach is not immune from the blind spots, bias and prejudices that are contained in the world we inhabit, since “…somatics offers a way of knowing that is not separate from the culture from which we each reside” (Barr & Anderson, 2020). Whether somatic access is limited due to sociocultural constructs, socioeconomic inequities or a lack of inclusive opportunities, more work is needed to make somatic approaches available to a plurality of communities. Future research is needed to track embodied practices and sustainability efforts over time, to add more data to the intersectionality of somatics and sustainability.

Conclusion

Attending to internal body clues is a process that builds somatic awareness and possibilities for shifting our responses and ways of being in the world over time. Somatic sustainability begins subtly and initially values contemplative time and reflective practices. Embodied restoration builds with practice, and the sense of somatic sustainability renews and grows with small shifts and quiet practices. As students began to transform their awareness of self, they laid a foundation to connect to others somatically. Self-witnessing, active listening, and sharing body discoveries can increase perceptual sharpness, build trust, and make space for more multifaceted dialogue. Small acts of embodied self-awareness are generative and can build steps toward connecting more empathetically with others.

While slowing down to reconnect may initially seem counterintuitive in dealing with complex problems with urgent needs, the process of somatic work opens us to previously overlooked resources. The process of listening to intrinsic, often disregarded senses within oneself settles and readies individuals for more multilayered conversations. When our students were seen and heard, they felt a part of the community, the group ‘hive’. As the dialogue deepens, we can create more thoughtful and compassionate connections with others. Noticing, trusting, and valuing our body cues feels better than the wasted energy it takes to stay disconnected. Body-based somatic exercises build essential skills as movement awareness feeds the integration of feeling, sensation, attention, intuition, and perception.

In the classroom, the ripple effect of somatic attunement manifested in many different forms. Some students realized a sense of incongruence in their body, a chest tightness or increased heart rate came with a recognition or realization of being in an uncomfortable situation. For others, there was tension and holding in the unspoken, which led to the insight that a relational concern needed to be voiced. For some, their practice led to a felt sense of fatigue. From a repeated 5-minute breathing practice, some students commonly fell asleep, which led to the insight that their ability to be present was simply hampered by a pattern of sleep deprivation.

The shared, vulnerable, and divergent experiences that come out of embodied work can become a non-threatening but powerful way to begin listening to others. Hearing a roomful of divergent experiences encourages inclusive dialogue since there is no right or wrong; all voices and experiences are valid. Somatic work, by nature, values a democracy of voices and approaches. Shared experiences leading to small group work can decrease students’ sense of isolation and bring about the first steps to building resilient communities. The process of self-listening and listening to others begins to establish a ground, an empathetic underpinning, a foundation to begin to understand our interconnectedness, our interweaving.

The physical actions that we practice when moving together can offer lessons for how we interact in the world. Shifting our weight can become a metaphor for realizing that we are not stuck, that we can make choices, play with new possibilities, and choose new ways of moving and being in the world. Tracking practices or nonjudgmentally self-witnessing can begin to make habits more consciously recognized, turning them into habits of consciousness. Eventually, this type of tracking becomes second nature, a method of oscillating attention from inward to outward, from self to other, from sensation to emotion, body impulse to insight. To understand self, as a part of, in relation to others or within the larger world, is an important aspect of somatic sustainability.

When concepts of renewal, restoration, and resiliency are understood from within the body, energetic shifts can resonate outward to inspire social action. While we might describe resiliency in various terms, as strength, flexibility, agility or agency, our somatic experiences engage us in a dialogue of differences with a non-charged sense of neutrality. Our listening and sensitivity skills are fostered by embodied practice. Our overlooked bodies give us daily clues to be empathic to self and others from our shared, visceral experiences. Balancing our intellectual efforts with our somatic resources can help us begin to initiate holistic shifts and quiet practices toward community change, one deep breath at a time.

 

References

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