Somatic Centring

This practice has become one of my favourite parts of my morning rituals. It comes from the lineage of Strozzi Somatics, and I was taught the practice by the wonderful Staci Haines.

I show up in the morning, bleary eyed and holding a cup of coffee, still in my pajamas, plopping down directly in front of the mirror in my office/studio. It’s been a week. It’s been a month, a summer… I feel like I’m juggling so many things, and I honour the holding.

Sink into your feeling body

I notice the ground under me, the warmth of the coffee in my hand. There’s an aching under my right rib that wraps around my spine. My feet are cold, the sun is shining and I can hear birds chirping outside my window. I come to this practice over and over again because I want it engrained in me like muscle memory. The more we practice when things are easy, the easier it will be to call on our tools when things get hard. I used to think it was laughable, that it was just something people said. The first days (weeks) of showing up to my morning practice was a chore. Now it feels sacred. Now I feel the roots of the practice in me. How I can respond and not react, how I can move from a place of centred embodiment even when shit hits the fan.

And shit has been hitting the fan.

The first direction we’re going to centre in is length

Length, from the bottom of my tailbone up and out the crown of my head. I sink into gravity, letting it hold me. I move through life so unrooted, not connected to the earth, not tethered into my sense of gravity, and just for this moment I feel the ground beneath me. Like a long line, I imagine this grounded connection running up and out the top of my head. It reminds me of the crown of light another teacher of mine used to teach. Length, this crown of light, its connected with dignity. Nobody belongs here more than me. I am worthy because I am.

We centre in width

And how often I’ve gotten used to not taking up my full space. I shrink, get smaller. There is pride in barely existing. As someone raised and conditioned female in a conservative christian culture where women are praised for being meek and submissive, in the medical world where I was taught my body did not belong to me, it is a rare sensation to feel into my own edges. I feel the width in my shoulders, my hips. I extend my arms to take up more space. As we centre in width, we also centre in connection. Coming into contact with others and letting others contact us. I think of Sophie Strand, and her work on the body as an ecosystem. I think of every other being who has contributed to my bodily ecosystem, who I am in contact with. Every human and non human being, I am centring in interdependence.

We centre in depth

I let my eyes soften, becoming aware of my back body. I spend the majority of my days leaning forward, curled in, both to appear kind and attentive to others but in self protection of my vital organs. When I sink into my back body, I open up space. I remind myself I have my back. I think of the past, of where I’ve been, and I hold it with reverence. I find my core, my centre line. The internal organs that have endured so much and still continue. This is where I acknowledge the pain in my body as it currently is, the bittersweetness of a transplanted organ, the way the rest of my body has adapted when I shouldn’t have had to be so resilient. And then I focus forward, on my front body and also on what comes next. Where I’m going.

The final direction we centre in is purpose

I am learning to embody myself again. I return, every day, to this commitment of what I care about. I am a commitment to… The mantra I’ve been working with for the past number of months is I am a commitment to embodied aliveness. I’m learning embodied aliveness doesn’t just mean when things are good, when I’m full of passion and zeal. Part of embodying radical aliveness is also with-ness when it gets hard. Aliveness is the full range of the human experience, and I let myself feel it. I sink into my full range.

I take a few deep breaths, and then I get up. The coffee is still hot when I sip it. I notice my reflection in the mirror, seemingly unchanged but also noting a shift. I come back to this practice multiple times throughout the day, both in the world and interacting with my environment and dropping back into my body, finding centre.