Joey Lott - Introducing Somatic Re-awakening and Integration: A simple, gentle movement-based approach to discover greater ease and freedom from physical and emotional pain, restriction, and discomfort

If youve struggled with physical, feeling, or emotional pain, discomfort, or restriction, chances are, youve tried a lot of things to fix the problem. And almost certainly (since youre reading this book), nothing worked completely to your satisfaction.

You might have even tried some other somatics-based approaches such as the Feldenkrais Method or the Alexander Technique or Somatic Experiencing.

If nothing else youve tried gave you completely satisfactory results, you might be skeptical that this approach could help. After all, what could really be different? Surely theres nothing really new under the sun, right?

I was in your shoes not that long ago. Just years ago, I was struggling with a whole host of problems. And probably like you, Id tried everything. From hypnosis to breathwork to yoga to massage to Rolfing to Feldenkrais. On and on, and yet nothing really worked completely. So I understand skepticism.

Let me explain as simply as I can how Somatic Re-awakening and Integration works and why this approach is truly different.

But if you really pay attention, you will likely discover that every experience that you care about at all every experience that holds your attention even a little is something you feel.

Whether you consider it to be physical pain or emotional pain, that pain is something you feel. Anxiety is a felt experience. Worry is a felt experience. Anger, fear, sadness, loneliness, boredom, greed, hatred, jealousy, resentment, and so forth are all things you feel. So too do you feel burning, itching, swelling, aching, numbness, tingling, tightness, stabbing pain, cold, hot, and all the other sensations we classify as physical sensations.

All of these felt experiences every single one is produced by your nervous system. None of them is produced by anything else.

True, if you hold your hand in a flame, the fire triggers the pain. And burning yourself is unwise, of course. But the point is that the pain is not produced by the fire. The pain is produced by the nervous system.

All types of pain, discomfort, and restriction are products of the nervous system. Whether physical pain or emotional pain, they are produced by the nervous system.

Why does the nervous system produce pain, discomfort, and restriction?

Because it has conditioning that causes it to interpret whatever is happening as potentially threatening or harmful.

When you understand this, you hold the key to unlock freedom in your body, mind, and spirit.

We are in the habit of blaming conditions and circumstances for our pain, discomfort, and restriction. We might believe that we experience pain, discomfort, or restriction because of an injury, a past traumatic experience, the family we were born into, our job, our spouse, our neighbors, an infection, and on and on.

But the fact remains that none of those things have the power to produce (physical or emotional) pain, discomfort, or restriction. Our nervous systems produce those experiences.

And we can use simple, gentle movement explorations done slowly to develop awareness that allows us to voluntarily release old conditioning. Then we dont have to produce the unwanted felt experiences.

In fact, in theory, we dont even need the movement explorations. In theory, we just need sufficient awareness and then to choose to release old conditioning.

It is truly that simple.

Yeah, right!, says the inner skeptic. I know because mine says the same thing. And that makes sense that our inner skeptics are skeptical. Because if it is so simple, why are we still struggling with (physical and/or emotional) pain, discomfort, and restriction?

The answer is that the old patterns are established and we lack sufficient awareness. If we didnt have the old patterns or if we had sufficient awareness (and the will to choose to release the old patterns given that awareness), we wouldnt struggle with those things.

As I wrote a moment ago, in theory all we need is sufficient awareness. We dont necessarily need movement explorations to develop that awareness. We could use meditation or some other similar means to cultivate awareness. But in practice, simple movement explorations are the most effective thing Ive found.

I cant take credit for this discovery. Moshe Feldenkrais and Thomas Hanna can take credit. They developed bodies of work that use gentle movement to develop awareness and thus allow us to release old patterns that result in pain, restriction, and discomfort.

But what I found with their systems was that for me and for people like me who had lost so much somatic awareness, those systems are too complex for a starting point. So instead, I found that an even simpler approach works better. If youve ever tried the Feldenkrais Method or Hanna Somatics and didnt get satisfactory results, it may be because you, like me, and like others Ive coached, will benefit from a simpler approach.

With Somatic Re-awakening and Integration we use simpler movements and focus more on the quality of attention we bring to the explorations. We learn how to voluntarily release tension. In this way, we learn how to move through life with greater ease.

You can do this simple exploration right now. As you are reading this, are your shoulders completely relaxed? What about your forehead? What about your belly? Chances are, if you bring your attention lightly to these areas, youll discover that you are holding tension.

Do you need tension in your belly or forehead or shoulders to read? Clearly not. But you are in the habit of holding this tension.

Now, that is tension that you can easily become aware of. But theres plenty of other tension youre holding that youre not even yet aware of. All this tension youre holding that is not even needed to do the task at hand contributes to physical and emotional pain, discomfort, and restriction.