Somatic Listening: What Does My Body Know?

In this guided inquiry relaxation, we listen to our body. What does my gut know? What does my heart know? What does my brain know? Below thoughts generated by our nervous system, we can access wisdom and intuition. We settle into whole mind-body awareness as we listen.

Transcript

Let's tune into what's here today and right now in this moment.

Check in to see what does your body know right now.

It could be sending us all kinds of different signals.

It's tired,

It's relaxed and calm,

It's stressed,

It's.

.

.

What is your body telling you right now?

What does it know?

And if you were to move your body a little bit,

Move your head around or your shoulders,

Stretch a bit,

Wiggle your toes,

Your fingers,

And see what it feels like to do a bit of a deeper breath,

Bigger inhales,

Longer exhales.

And as you're breathing out,

Notice what that feels like in your body.

So often we work within this narrow range with the breath.

Whatever your normal is,

Do something different.

You're normally very quiet with your breath,

Make a gusty sigh or two on the out-breath.

And then come back to noticing what does your body know right now?

Maybe some part of your body has a certain energy in it now,

Maybe something tightened up or softened.

Sit with that question,

What does my body know right now?

And notice the thoughts in your mind.

Is it more of a quiet curiosity?

Is it a scolding?

Well,

Your body knows you should go for a walk.

Does it really feel like it's the body or is it maybe the inner critic or something?

We could notice that too.

Not everything that comes into our mind is intuition or wisdom.

Sometimes it's that quacking of the inner critic.

Get a little bit more specific.

We have these three brains,

The brain in the head,

The heart and the gut.

What does your gut know right now?

You might not get much of anything.

It might be because there's not much there or it might be because there's a bit of a freeze.

You're not really connecting with your gut.

It might be physical,

I'm hungry,

Something else.

The movement of our body with the breath is in this area from the lower rib cage where the diaphragm attaches down through the stomach area,

Navel center,

Lower belly.

What does it feel like to breathe in whatever way you're breathing right now?

And notice how your mind responds to whatever it is you're paying attention to.

Our mind is very helpful in that sense,

It will almost always come in with commentary.

And that's OK too.

Sometimes we need to filter that out and not believe what the mind says.

Sometimes we need to really look and see is this negativity bias,

Is this stored trauma?

What is it that's happening there?

If there's a lot of negative thoughts or inner critic,

Maybe we could allow that to move to the background and not pay so much attention to the thought about that.

What are the sensations in your gut right now?

Does it feel comfortable?

Is there an uneasiness?

Because we store fear in our gut,

There's often a sense of not quite comfort in the gut.

That would be very common if that's happening for you.

It doesn't mean that we're afraid of something,

It just means there's an energy there.

The knowing in your gut,

How does that move into the rest of your body?

Definitely it's connected with the mind,

The mind is engaged with whatever is going on there.

And if there's fear or stress or anxiety,

There's certain kind of thoughts in the mind.

You also might be holding your shoulders more tightly or punching your jaw,

Wherever you tend to tighten up.

If that's the case,

We could soften those areas.

And notice as we breathe out,

There's that softening of the stomach area back towards the spine.

And notice if it's tolerable,

If it's okay with you to pay attention a little bit to the gut,

The stomach area,

The knowing,

Our gut sense.

Maybe you're working with something right now and you need to tune into that a little bit more.

This would be an opportunity for that.

What does my gut know right now?

And bring your attention up a little bit into your heart center.

What does your heart know?

We have such a multi-layered experience in life.

From moment to moment it changes and there's also that real momentum that carries through.

If you settle your awareness into your heart center,

Notice what does that feel like?

Is the wisdom of your heart available to you in this moment?

Very often we're not really attuned to the heart and there are always good reasons for that.

There might be something going on that's really painful or overwhelming.

We might have a habit of not really being present with ourselves in our heart.

There's always reasons for these patterns in the way that we relate within and to our body.

And notice again how the heart is not an independent operator.

The mind is probably commenting.

And that's fine.

There might be thoughts coming into the mind that relate to what the heart knows.

And there might be some attempt to control or comment or judge what the heart is telling you.

Sometimes we have an experience of our heart opening.

Other times we have more of a blank or a numb,

Kind of a disconnect in the heart area.

Let's stay with that for another few breaths.

Bring your awareness into your heart center and let it rest there.

With somatic listening we're not really asking a question.

It's more that we're posing something,

An awareness or focus,

And then we listen.

And then bring your attention up into your head,

Into the brain in your head.

What does your brain know right now?

A lot of times thoughts in the mind get a bad rap,

Often because of the negativity bias and because most of the thoughts in the mind are generated by the hypervigilance in our nervous system.

And we also have this wise,

Intuitive sense,

Body-based,

And it's also in our brain,

In the head.

What does the brain in your head know right now?

It's interesting to notice how sometimes the brain in the head is very connected with the brain in the heart,

The gut,

The whole wisdom of the mind-body.

Sometimes it's just up there doing its thing on its own,

Very disconnected.

We can always tell the difference.

We all know both of those and everything in the middle.

Notice the thoughts that are coming into your mind.

Take a few deep breaths again and move your body a little bit,

If that's what your body wants to do.

Let's come back into what does the body know?

And this time,

The whole mind-body.

What does my mind-body know in this moment?

Be aware of your body from head to toes,

Toes to head.

Bring your attention,

Your awareness down through the back of your head,

Neck,

And shoulders,

The large muscles of the upper back.

Notice your mid,

Lower back,

And behind the heart center,

And behind the gut.

And notice your arms and legs as well.

Your hips down through your thighs,

Calves,

Feet,

Toes,

Heels,

Soles of your feet.

We have this two-way communication.

If your arms and legs are restless,

The communication from your arms and legs is,

I better be ready.

And we can also communicate through the body to the arms and legs,

Hey,

It's okay.

We can look around the room,

Notice cues of safety.

We can feel our feet on the floor.

We could signal to our arms and legs,

There's nothing we need to run away from or fight in the moment.

Not to say we won't five hours from now or next week,

But right now in this moment,

We don't.

And you might also notice maybe your arms and legs are often a bit restless,

And now when you checked in,

They were pretty steady,

Or a little bit more steady than they are usually.

That would make sense as well,

As we've been sitting with this mind-body knowing.

Bring your awareness around the front of your body as well,

From the forehead and eyes.

Soften the corners of your eyes.

Bring a smile to your lips for a moment.

Let that smile come into your whole face.

Bring your awareness down through your chest,

The heart center,

Your stomach area,

Your gut,

And back to your whole body from head to toes.

And as we rest here,

Notice what was your experience during this inquiry,

This experience of somatic listening.

We don't have to judge it or want it to be different.

We could notice.

Notice your breath again.

Take a few deeper breaths.

Relax on the exhale.

Bring your hands to your heart.

Let your heart know it's okay to be here.

We can offer ourselves a heart connection,

And at any moment,

We can come back to the heart.

Reviews

Pace and tone are perfectly balanced. Deeper listening is the result of this wonderful meditation.

Very interesting… one I will return to again, I think.

Really lovely. I like the three brains. I imagined a golden cord linking them. Thanks Lynn

This helped me connect to my body: gut, heart, mind by drawing in calm awareness. Thank you 🙏🏼

Lovely .. I felt a real sense of calm, thank you 🙏💕

Many thanks for your guidance. It’s helpful to reconnect with the gut-brain-heart circuit as a dynamic whole. It feels deeply grounding and energizing.

Perfect! (The wooden flute at the end made me chuckle as it is very similar to the theme tune of a much-loved 1960’s children’s tv cartoon in UK- Noggin the Nog! ) 🙏

Some good practical methods and info on somatic listening. Very interesting, and I am keen to improve my own somatic listening. Thanks

Perfect, thank you. Nice flute finale in place of bells