What is Somatic Inquiry?
Somatic Inquiry Overview
Somatic
Inquiry
Somatic inquiry is an innovative technique with profound implications on regulating the nervous system.
It does this through the root level approach of releasing trauma stored in the body.
It incorporates the holistic understanding that the ‘body’ and ‘mind’ are in fact not separate, but are an interconnected unit.
Yet in life there is no such separation; there is no body that is not mind, no mind that is not body
Dr. Gabor Matè
In this way, somatic inquiry harmonizes the discerning quality of mind (thoughts, labels and concepts) with our intelligent and innate capacity to feel our emotions.
Perhaps most importantly though, it also recruits intuition as the vehicle that underscores the entire process - granting us access to the deepest depths of our unconscious.
As an analogy, intuition is the driver of the car on route to healing/trauma integration, while thoughts and feelings are in the passenger seats.
All play an important role.
Through the delicate use of inquiry, loving acceptance and an attitude of curiosity to see these unconscious programs clearly, natural release (and compassionate understanding) of why you are the way you are begins to emerge.
This can change your life very quickly.
You will not not only see, but directly feel the release of long-term binding emotional fixations in the body and notice that situations that used to trigger you reduce more and more.
Furthermore, this empowering approach also has the added benefit of enabling you in sort of ‘becoming your own therapist’, as you address the core emotional programs (such as social anxiety, people pleasing, anger regulation challenges ect) in real time throughout the day on an ongoing basis.
An Example of Somatic Inquiry (real client example further down)
We may have a pattern that appears as a form of social anxiety that, when inquired into with somatic inquiry, says: ‘Show anger!’
But if at a young age our parents deemed being angry as unacceptable behaviour, another unconscious component may be saying ‘Don’t show anger!’
In this example, a totally unconscious, competing agenda of resistance is set up.
Through somatic inquiry, we are able to inquire and examine these exact programs very directly.
Somewhat mysteriously, when competing agendas like this are seen clearly by shining the light of awareness onto them through skillful inquiry - letting go occurs spontaneously and very naturally as our nervous system is no longer throttling against an unconscious resistance program.
Beyond noticing resistance (which takes up a significant portion of this work), the simple act of steeping in the knowingness of a certain view (or frame) the somatic contraction percieves the world through will also release contraction.
Ultimately, seeing it from all angles: how the contraction has served you, what it has been doing for you - and exploring what's at risk if you didn't hold onto the pattern anymore (for example, social anxiety) is an incredibly illuminating, humbling and beautiful process.
It fulfilfs the ancient wisdom of 'know thyself' at an incredibly deep level.
It also gives us tremendous compassion for ourselves as we see in real time exactly how certain programs are perfectly designed to keep us safe, be loved and fit in.
The release of certain emotional contractions that have felt like they've been there your whole life is often felt as a warm, gushy sensation in addition to (but not always) spontaneous bodily movement.
From initial release, we then follow the threads of inquiry even deeper into the unconscious - delving into the core programs such as the need for safety, love and validation that underpin everything.
These are the types of programs that underscore more superficial beliefs.
In other words, a surface unconscious resistance program such as ‘don’t be angry’ and ‘show anger’ are only the tip of the iceberg.
Going deeper and deeper into the unconscious using a variety of inquiry tools that are intuitively recruited in the moment (which is why it is so helpful to have a facilitator) that rely heavily on intuition rather than overt thought reveal profound things about ourselves that are otherwise obscured.
Ultimately, this process is like peeling back onion layer after onion layer, to find your younger self whom initially felt rejected by the world curled up in a fetal position - and putting a warm blanket over his back and giving him a hot chicken soup, letting him/her know that it’s okay.
Not only is it okay, but he/she is fully welcome to come back out and play again.
That he is loved.
That she is worthy.
That he/she are whole and complete, just as they are.
We start to feel whole and complete at an embodied level.
When we go into the depths of our unconscious with the help of a facilitator and see very clearly that it’s totally safe over and over again to venture into your most darkest and repressed parts, the nervous system learns that there’s nothing wrong with it.
Modern man can't see God because he doesn't look low enough
Carl Jung.
How does this work, though?
Truth be told, the mechanism is largely unknown as to how this is actually occurring on a neurological level, but at the end of the day - who cares how it works?
Do you know how your phone works?
No, but you still use it for things like google maps, phone calls and accessing the internet, right?
We don’t really need to know what’s happening on a cellular level for this sort of thing to take effect - and yet, it just works.
Not only that, it works for long lasting change where you can start to feel empowered to engage with life with an open, unbound heart.
To give your gifts to the world.
To unfreeze emotions that feel like stones in your body - the kind that tighten you up over and over again in daily life.
That inhibits your innate, radiant, natural & beautiful childlike expression.
Where This Work Comes From
I want to provide a bit of context toward where this work originates from.
This can sometimes feel like ‘just another new-age, shallow technique promising everything and providing nothing.’ - so knowing where it comes from can be useful.
Yogi’s and sages have known the value of connecting to the felt sense in the body for thousands of years (Tantra, for example).
There are a few who have popularised this approach in the modern world that have also come at it through a therapeutic angle in the traditional ‘counselling’ or ‘therapy’ sense.
Eugene Gendlin deserves a crowning acknowledgement for his work in his book ‘Focusing’ - where he guides people very clearly on how they can experience their felt sense and inquire into bodily contraction, releasing trauma and fixations.
In collaboration with the famous psychotherapist Carl Rogers, Eugene observed that the biggest indicator of therapeutic success (that could be quickly observed and trained into new psychology students) was remarkably simple.
What was it?
The client’s capacity to turn inward toward their ‘felt’ sense as they processed trauma.
Every bad feeling is potential energy toward a more right way of being if you give it space to move toward its rightness.
Eugene Gendlin.
Furthermore, Somatic experiencing pioneered by Peter A. Levine is another compelling modality which also relies on inquiring into the felt sense.
Peter’s technique has a rather significant following, and has demonstrated powerful implications for accomodating profound transformations in people.
If frightening sensations are not given the time and attention they need to move through the body and resolve or dissolve, the individual will continue to be gripped by fear.
Peter A Levine.
More recently, Scott Kiloby has also made some exceptional developments in the somatic inquiry space in his work with ‘the Kiloby inquiries’.
Put briefly, this work combines the wisdom of Eastern traditions of resting as awareness/the True Self alongside a plethora of inquiry tools that address somatic content directly.
Scott's deep practice of teaching open awareness based practices for over a decade revealed to him the depth of spiritual bypassing going on within wisdom traditions.
He repeatedly came across spiritually awake people who remained deeply traumatized with conditions such as depression, anxiety, inability to express anger and so on.
He developed powerful inquiries that inquired directly into bodily contraction that resulted in the healing of chronic conditioning.
The stuck sensation in your body during meditation is not just “an arising to awareness”. That’s the repressed/suppressed rage, fear and hurt you’ve been hiding from since childhood.
Scott Kiloby.
A plethora of popular books have also been released detailing the power of working with somatic experience.
Dr Gabor Matè’s ‘When the body says no’ alongside ‘The Body Keeps the Score’ by Bessel van der Kolk come to mind.
Personally, I facilitate through a combination of modalities that have worked for me.
I combine the technique of ‘Focusing’ pioneered Eugene Gendlin in combination with the genius work of Scott Kiloby’s. I also draw upon the wisdom of Eastern meditative traditions that acknowledge the true Self, and rely heavily on intuition to guide 1:1 facilitation processes.
Through these tools, your emotional fixations are warmly welcomed into my experience (no matter how triggering).
I help show you that it’s okay.
You have the capacity to meet and feel all emotions.
Even those seemingly pesky ones that feel adverse to getting extra help. The ones that you feel and say 'oh nonono, I'm not going there!'.
THOSE emotions, my friend, are starving for your love and attention.
Fierce grace will find you addressing that place eventually...
The question is, what's stopping you from taking the plunge right NOW?
Why I facilitate Somatic Inquiry
Maybe you’ve come from a background of intensive meditation practices such as Vipassana, self inquiry or Dzogchen meditation.
Maybe you’ve come from a background of trauma, and have used traditional Western therapeutic approaches to address it.
Or maybe you’ve been deep down the natural therapeutic remedy route.
Or maybe none at all.
Where does this sort of work fit in for you given the context of the above approaches, you might be asking?
Is it just another new-age, shallow technique promising everything and providing nothing - feeding into the helpless circle of trying to find relief, spending money, failing, and then doubting anything will actually work?
Don’t worry - I understand this place clearly.
Before trying somatic inquiry, I was very skeptical too.
As detailed on my about me page, I was slamming my head against a wall trying to apply meditation techniques for hours per day trying to find liberation from the nature of self and identity before I finally gave in to trying something different out of sheer necessity for integration.
I wanted to be free from social anxiety, feeling like a fraud and being doubtful of my capacity to actualize profound teachings in my direct experience.
Why couldn’t I just embody these teachings like everyone else?
Why is this suffering so intense?
Why me?!
Somatic inquiry was a major piece to the puzzle in discovering ongoing relief and empowered me to take a 'mobile' toolset into daily life's most triggering circumstances.
It illuminated many of the unconscious resistance patterns hammering away in my mind (despite lengthy meditation experience) fundamentally rooted in shame and doubt.
The sorts of patterns that would be twisting and tightening in the body as I sat for hours on 10-day Vipassana meditation retreats.
Or in my 2 hour daily meditation practice, where I would plaster wise advice on top of bodily contractions such as ‘witness it as it is, without needing to change it’ I’d heard from many of my teachers.
Or just in daily life where I was constantly being met with such intense dysphoria that led me to a dark, embodied understanding of just how heavy the human condition can be.
Somatic inquiry finally empowered me to look at these patterns directly - to dive into them lovingly, and find deep, root level resolve from the most challenging emotional fixations that were my constant companions.
To examine them with intense curiosity rather than avoiding them with spiritual practices.
It was the way that worked for me come back down to earth and feel like I could stand on my own two feet.
To feel like the earth was finally connecting to my feet rather than floating in the turbulent sky of resistance to everything.
So...
Maybe you’re just tired of whatever approach you’ve been trying.
Chances are if you’re reading this, part of you is.
And if that’s the case, that’s okay!
I understand where you’re at.
It’s confusing, painful, can feel helpless and unending.
Perhaps somatic inquiry is for you - but trust yourself.
Not your egoic fears and doubts about yourself, but your deepest instinct.
You know yourself best.
If it gives you that squrimy feeling of ‘this really isn’t for me’ (which by the way, can actually be worked with directly in somatic inquiry) - or you really feel a strong gut feeling to not try it, that’s fine!
I don’t claim for somatic inquiry to be the ultimate solution to all suffering like others may.
I actually believe there is a middle way between over-indulging in ‘healing’ work and letting go of the self (we can spend eternity trying to fix all of our ‘faulty’ conditioning) - yet I’ve found it to be incredibly valuable in dissolving emotional fixations for deeper and more efficient psycho-spiritual unfoldement.
That said, I invite you to ponder this:
How's my current situation working out for me?
Do yourself the greatest service of being deeply authentic here.
Assess it from all angles
- How you feel about your career
- What your relationship is like with yourself moment to moment
- Whether spiritual practices are providing you with what they've convincingly been promising for years
- How your intimate relationships are going
- How much ease are you experiencing moment to moment
- Whether you're living in alignment with your deepest truth
Explore that right now.
Take the time to inquire for a minute or 2.
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Is what you found illuminating?
Is it inviting you to try something new?
Wherever you do not want to go..
Is where you will find him [the Ego pulling you back into familiar territory].
Avi - Revolver (2005)
Who is somatic inquiry for?
This tool is really for anyone who is either exploring new modalities or is just exhausted with things that don’t work.
It’s for people who want to go right into the roots of their suffering rather than just digging 50 different shallow wells without ever reaching water.
It’s for the hardcore meditator...
It’s for the zealous atheist...
It’s for the spiritual guru who is brave enough to acknowledge their behaviour is harming others...
It’s for someone who’s had an awakening...
It’s for someone who’s in the thick of despair....
It's for someone who has NO psycho-spiritual background, and is just simply curious to understand why they are the way they are - or why they act the way they act.
Ultimately, it’s really for anyone who has an open mind and is willing to come in with a beginners mindset.
That said, if you have a diagnosed psychiatric illness - I would kindly suggest you seek professional help.
Work with me 1:1
I am now opening up (with limited availability) 1:1 sessions to help accommodate this process for you. If you feel that yearning, book a free call right now to see if we're a good fit.
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