somatic

Why posture matters (the answer might surprise you)

You’ve heard about the importance of posture - how it impacts your mood, breathing, spine, etc. Frankly, that part of posture can be a bit bland, which is why you end up not terribly concerned about it until you glance in the mirror and look hunched over. Or until your neck hurts and you can’t pick up your child. Or your back hurts and you have to sit with all sorts of contraptions to be in an ‘ergonomic’ position.

But you know what matters more than that? It’s how posture shapes your inner experience.

Posture is how you interact with the world.

It’s how you animate your body.

It’s how you take up the space - how you matter.

It’s how you pay attention to others.

It’s the way you organize yourself to be present.

When you organize the whole of yourself in a way that connects you to the forces larger than you (gravity, light, sound), you expand your presence.

You inhabit your body in a new way. You don't just take a new posture, you become a new posture. Feeling and meaning intersect in your body to dictate the new posture you become.

In my book “When Things Stick: Untangling Your Body From Old Patterns, you learn new concepts that take you into your new posture.

You learn:

*how to feel your internal support
*how to find your power without strain
*how to find your ease of breath
*how to move forward
*how to take up your space

It's not mere data - it's your living breathing body that speaks back to you and says

"You're supported."
"You're safe."
"You're capable."
"You're more than you think you can be."

You'll trust it because you'll feel it. You won't have to fake it to create it.

Are you ready to find your personal power, the posture you were meant to be?

Purchase the book to learn more.

Top 3 Posture Mistakes

Are you making one of these top 3 posture mistakes?

1. Thinking posture is what you do instead what you feel.
2. Fighting the support that is built into the human system.
3. Focusing on one area instead of taking a global approach.

If you've read my book When Things Stick: Untangling Your Body from Old Patterns there is of course something that you 'do'. But the change that endures is recognizing that what you feel is stability, power, ease - what that means in your life and becoming familiar with how you get there.

Think of a common situation during your normal day when you typically feel defeated, overwhelmed or in need of support. Where does that feeling express in your body? Can you feel the position you take when you feel you have to do everything, that you have no support?

Can you instead organize your pelvis as if you are about to take a seat? Not in a way where anyone outside can see, but internally, make that postural change and notice what happens?

It's a simple shift, but changes your entire spine and gives you access to your ankles. Do you feel it?

Your body is designed to offer you specific support that is highlighted by understanding the 3 Keys. How do you organize yourself to take advantage of the internal support your body creates when it works with gravity, instead of against it?

That is a concept that many of us need to learn again and again, because this level of habit is deeply ingrained. But it's a surprisingly quick fix. Knowing when to use that fix when you need it is part of what you learn in my book (read an excerpt HERE).

Learning to be present through your body

When you say “I need to learn how to be present”, what does that mean? That you mentally feel scattered or fragmented? That you get distracted from overthinking about a memory, problem, situation? That you have a hard time staying still or focusing?

These are all descriptions of the same thing. And they all have the same elegant solution - learn to use your body.

Let me explain. The distractions from the present moment are not bad in and of themselves. You need to plan for the future, to remember your history, and to discover solutions to problems. However, when you do so out of distraction, compulsion, or avoidance, you are doing without using one of your greatest assets - your feeling capacity.

Feeling is the main gift of having a body. It’s the feedback system that allows us to be the observers of our experience. Being able to observe your felt experience is how we are able to choose how we experience life.

Without conscious choice, we feel frustrated or stuck, so we move away from the feeling. And we “do” without feeling. And we feel fragmented, distracted, stuck, compulsive, restless.

When I teach people how to be still in their bodies, they get better at it as they learn how to move in a way that is organic and whole.

Ironically, learning to move with feeling is one of the best pathways to stillness. Moving while feeling is the definition of somatic movement.

Over the past 20 years I have sought the most direct, effective, and lasting ways to make global changes in a body. When I started teaching classes online, I discovered that doing so through a digital medium - one that had no dimension - naturally demanded that people listen differently. When you learn embodiment online, you experiment more, you listen differently, you are naturally more self-reliant. In fact, you uncover your strength, your ease, and your resilience.

Are you ready to access more of yourself? Read an excerpt from my book to learn more.