Diverse Bodies, Diverse Practices: Toward an Inclusive Somatics

The first law of thermodynamics, also known as the law of conservation of energy, states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed; energy can only be transferred or changed from one form to another. Something shifts on an energetic level; how is this new energy form experienced? Is it like when you’re feeling positive and encounter someone

undoing my own poisonous feelings around fatness, I also need to undo toxic internalizations of all of the systemic oppression that is compounded into our culture’s body ideals. I need to be actively working to dismantle all of the systems of oppression that are wrapped up in how I have learned to relate to my body. In this writing, I am not attemp

What makes their work possible in a world riven by conflict is that they are operating on the subconceptual, nonideological level, where the sensations of rhythm, movement, sound, and words felt in the throat and mouth take precedence over the ethereal philosophies and theologies that are used

The unique characteristics of each method evolved from particular locations in history and geography.

Nearly fifty years ago, a handful of us joined in using the Greek-rooted term somatics as an umbrella designed to coax together a fragmented community of innovative and revolutionary teachers who had managed to craft methods of sensory awareness, touch, breathing, sounding, and moving to address the healing of old and widespread traumas, and to enh

The way I inherited how to feel about my fat body is connected to values that were based in my people’s white supremacy, Christian hegemony, colonial violence, and enslaving and genocide of Black, Brown, and Indigenous people. There is no escaping that the way I was taught by my family to feel about my fat body is inextricably linked to this excruc

my Reiki training, I learned that it’s important to know that when you “remove” something negative for the enhancement of healing, a space is left open. Balance is created by filling the space back up, whether it’s by replacing it with positive thoughts or healthier choices; otherwise that hole can attract other negative energies.

Two important models for the early formation of the somatics community were Wilhelm Reich and Mohandas Gandhi. Intimations of the kind of work we are addressing in these chapters are found in the works of these two revolutionaries.

This is a way in which power dynamics perpetuate, by continuously focusing on how the marginalized or oppressed can better communicate to get those with more power or privilege to listen. We know that is not real. We know that if people are not willing