Last week on Bodywise Wednesday, I introduced the concept of Awakening the felt sense in the body. If you haven’t read Awakening the Felt Sense Part I , I recommend reading that first by clicking here. Awakening the felt sense is one of the primary keys to Somatic Awakening/Healing because in order to process any held trauma/grief, we must be able to first feel it…scroll down to read more or watch the video here.
But we must first build and then expand our capacity to be present with feelings and sensations we may consider to be both “positive” and “negative.”
We often think that healing means we move on the “feeling” scale from “bad/negative” towards “good/positive,” feelings.
In actuality, with healing we move on the “feeling” scale from not feeling/feeling mostly pain towards being able to feel a wide range of sensations and emotions fully, and allowing these feelings/sensations to simply flow through us as though we were a hollow bamboo.
Whether you consider yourself to be a “deep feeler” or someone who is more logical and less emotional/feely, awakening the felt sense in the body can be highly beneficial as it will build the capacity and resilience of your nervous system, and also we open the possibility to experience more pleasure and joy when we awaken the felt sense.
The first step to awakening the felt sense in the body is to begin to explore feeling the very surface sensations on the body.
Deeper sensations are more challenging, and we must first build the capacity in our nervous system to feel and explore the surface sensations before we want to move towards exploring deeper sensations in the body, or we can easily become overwhelmed.
So we want to start very simply, and very surface.
You can begin right now through the practices below.
The skin is like the container for our body – it marks where our body ends and the rest of the world begins. The skin has an incredible capacity to feel sensation, and helps us orient to the world and keep us safe by giving us feedback about hot and cold, pain and pleasure etc.
Let’s start with the skin!
Notice the sensation of your clothing touching your skin.
Notice the air on any exposed parts of your skin.
What is the temperature?
Is there a breeze or is the air still?
Does the air feel cooler on some parts of your skin that others?
Does the skin on your belly feel warmer than the skin on your hands, for example?
Wiggle your toes a little – notice that you have toes, and that they are also covered in skin.
The toes are like the bottom tip of the container of your body.
Wiggle your fingers – again, notice they are there and they are the tips of your body.
Are your fingers warm or cold?
Now feel the top of your head – notice that it is also covered by skin, and maybe also hair.
Take your fingertips and massage the top of your head. Notice the sensations of your head come alive. The top of your head is the top of the container of your physical body.
Now feel your butt on the chair underneath you, or if you’re laying down feel the weight of your body, and the imprint of your body on the surface underneath you.
HomePlay:
For the next seven days, practice feeling your skin.
Especially when you are outside, can you feel the breeze on your skin.
See if you can tell which way the wind is blowing by feeling it on your skin!
Enjoy and let us know in the comments below what you discover!
