SOMASPACE.ORG was originally created to be a place I could store all the things I shared with my clients, colleagues and other professional contacts as my work evolved. It's become much more than that since I launched the site back in late 2006. Here's a little overview of what I can offer you here and why the theme of SERIOUS PEOPLE FUN is what you'll get each visit. My work is called THE SOMATIC METHOD...and that's a damn shame because it sounds like something you'd learn formally, like driving lessons or something. The reality is TSM is just a handle I have for the ocean of ideas that have gelled into a system of principles and practices I've developed to apply the somatic paradigm to everyday life. The tools are all here for you.
So what is this thing called The Somatic Method (TSM) anyway? At it's heart, it's a fast way to answer the loaded question I get when I meet someone - 'So what do you do Filippi?' After years of wearing out the throw away line "It depends..." I started putting all of this under the broad umbrella of TSM if for no other reason than to provoke the easier follow up question of "What's that?" The answer is hanging right over my words here; Behavior, Biology & Beyond.
BEHAVIOR
We spend a fortune in the country trying to control, legislate and medicate human behavior. TSM views things from a dynamical systems perspective. To simplify, that means nothing we do happens in isolation. Everything is interactive and connected. So whether we're talking about a child who runs high fevers or a baseball player who can't hit a curveball, we're in the realm of habitual patterns. These patterns are ingrained during development, adapted and refined and then internalized over time. Changing or elevating any behavior, whether it's a skill we naturally express or a limitation we've acquired requires us to alter how we function within.
BIOLOGY
For over a century now, modern medicine and psychology have been able to skate on the thin ice that lies between our fundamental make-up (genes, chemistry, physics) and our party line social conditioning that filters how we express ourselves as both individuals and a culture. The epicenter of that perfect storm is the relentless mapping of our personality traits from an outside-in perspective. In the last forty years or so, as the era of humanistic psychology emerged, some idle attention was finally paid to our biological roots. Of course, we then got lost in the '3-pound universe' of the brain for twenty years. Once neuroscience was taken over by Big Pharma we just poured the drugs into the brain instead of the body. Yet despite that detour, a lot of new ground was uncovered. TSM is a template to access to our open identity that is outside the boundaries of our limited, linear, temporal ways of seeing ourselves.
BEYOND
Once you move past labeling behaviors and attributing your vitality to your genes and fate, the next step is a doozy. This is where TSM shines because every resource seeks to optimize your awareness capacity by expanding your reference point. We begin by better regulating your rhythms; rest/activity, sleep/wake and growth/repair. Once you can notice those, then we can spiral out to lunar and seasonal cycles. That leads to being aware of transition cycles that take 6 to 18 months to complete. But it all boils down to that raising the ceiling for your awareness in-the-moment. Every 4 seconds we blink, breathe and build our world again. To do that for a lifetime takes patience, passion and purpose. TSM provides you with a portable way to, as we say in this work, live in the rhythm. Being able to move into the unknown willingly with a wide-eyed curiosity is key to sustaining and advancing a Sense of Coherence (SOC).
In order to fully connect these dots you need to live not learn TSM firsthand.
Everyone who comes in contact with this work usually has one or more of the following reactions.
I'm a what???
This question gets asked in a variety of inflections but the curiosity is universal. Before you can appreciate the payoffs of TSM, you need to meet THE 4 DOMAINS, or T4D. The mistake we make in somatics, education, and especially health care is that we tend to take a 'one size fits all' approach to it. When you discover your primary domain it's like you just registered your human vehicle with the world. The domains become your guidance system. A lot of lingering mysteries about behavior, human nature and conflict are suddenly resolved. Then the real work of using your new awareness to reframe the way you live and relate to others can start.
To get a quick overview of T4D visit:
http://www.somaspace.org/t4d.html
To learn the basics of the art of somatic profiling read the free e-book "The S-List"
http://www.somaspace.org/slistprimer.html
Why not just skip all the preliminaries and take the "Somatic Signature Survey" right now?
http://www.somaspace.org/sss.html
SFW?
Being out here for 20 years I've accepted that many people will initially minimize or dismiss a new idea or approach simply because it's foreign to them. That's just natural. Unless you're in a place in your life where your looking for help, T4D is just another dopey bunch of labels that you can ignore or at least trivialize. Then that day arrives when you're not at your best and you wander over to SOMASPACE.ORG and gee maybe I'll check this out again. The quickest way and most tangible way for a skeptic to get started is by doing SIMPLES. The very reason I named it that was because many of us take our vitality for granted, until we start to lose it. With SIMPLES you have a lifelong companion to steer you back into rhythm with life. And yes, it's easy sapiens. I called it SIMPLES for that reason too! That's my SFW to your SFW. Deal?
To sample SIMPLES right frickin' now visit:
http://www.somaspace.org/SIMPLES.html
Now SIMPLES has two digital cousins...
iTunes app: http://www.somaspace.org/moodbender.html
Desktop expercises: http://www.somaspace.org/moodbenderliveinfo.html
Now what?
When you start asking this one all the cynical denial and the snarky attitude is gone. Now you really want to use this work. That's when TSM surprises you even more. It's more than being able to profile yourself and others. It's more than having the self-care resources to shed the dread that weighs so many of us down. TSM becomes your path to removing the barriers that you needed to live inside. With this work, you can go from meeting T4D to living in them. That option was always on the menu. Once you order it, life serves it to you every day. WHAT NOW? TSM offers you a set of skills, resources and portable tools to help you answer that recurring question with genuine wonder instead of the resignation many of us still carry inside.
Check out the latest Coherence Calendar here: 2017