Neuroplasticity & Somatics

Neuroplasticity is the process by which the brain changes and adapts in response to experience. This includes the strengthening of existing neural pathways and the creation of new ones.

Studies have shown that the brain retains its plasticity throughout life, meaning it continuously adapts, learns, and reorganizes in response to stimuli, experiences, and traumas. By engaging in practices that foster a deeper connection between body and mind, we can effectively influence how our brain understands and reacts to our system and the world around us.

Somatics is essentially any practice of directed intention that highlights the body as a field of knowledge. Derived from the Greek word "soma," meaning 'the body experienced from within,' somatics aligns mind, body, and spirit through heightened awareness and connection to internal sensations. Somatic practices such as Feldenkrais, Alexander Technique, Body-Mind Centering, Pilates, and yoga, require a heightened state of presence and proprioception, reshaping the brain’s understanding of space and our bodies within it.

While somatic based movement can be almost anything, Martha Eddy identifies common themes across all somatic movement systems:

1. Slowing down to feel the body and pay attention to bodily cues.

2. Releasing into gravity with breath support.

3. Becoming aware of how to live and move in three-dimensional space.

4. Discovering new patterns of coordination.

Somatics views the mind as an embodied aspect of the Self, directly relating movement to the structuring and attending of consciousness. By emphasizing the internal experience of movement rather than external performance, we can profoundly influence the embodiment of movement, the formation of neural connections, and overall brain plasticity. This reshaping of the brain, known as neuroplasticity, allows us to form new habits, break old patterns, and heal from injuries and traumas.

The process of embodiment is a being process, not a doing process, not a thinking process. It is an awareness process in which the guide and the witness dissolve into cellular consciousness... Embodiment is automatic presence, clarity, and knowing [...], the cells' awareness of themselves [...]. It is a direct experience; there are no intermediary steps or translations.

-Dance, Somatics and Spiritualities: Contemporary Sacred Narratives