This piece lives in conversation with poems like “The Invitation,” which have long inspired me — but through the language of the body, nervous system, dignity, and becoming. It is shaped by a recent event I attended on disability justice with a room of people sharing so close to their heart about fear, longing, learned self-protection, death, love, and community; what a special space the speakers created so definitely check them out (learn more).

What is somatics — but a coming back to ourselves over and over again—

An unlearning — all the decades, generations, and intergenerations of you and your ancestors overriding basic needs and longings
A relearning — to keep being compassionate to yourself, for all the ways you seek to care for yourself and keep going
A returning to you, over and over and over again — whether you feel lovable or absolutely, awfully, despicably gross It is a way our breath can represent all the complex traumas we’ve experienced and lived through and taking in a drop of how miraculous it is we can nourish ourselves

It is a settling into a knowing that others feel aloneness too
Our bodies are our teachers, and we can start to notice a little more, to listen a little more, and to interrupt what no longer serves us
It is a way our breath holds the story of what we’ve lived through — trauma, capacity, harm, survival — and the quiet miracle that, drop-by-drop, our body has been nourishing us It is about our dignity and our inheritance for love, care, and basic needs to be unquestionably provided for

It is a courage to self-witness how true we are with ourselves — and all the ways we pretend, even about how much we pretend
And offering even an ounce of the love we pour into others — into our own flawed, beautiful ways A witnessing yourself in those moments of despair, grief, fear
A naming that you feel nausea over your own shame — “what if you don’t get it right?” — and your simultaneous deepest need to be really seen

It is a realizing we have a body still largely unfamiliar to us — with needs, longings, and urges which can contradict
It is a learning we have a nervous system too, that is predictable in its own right, and which shapes so much of our lives
It is a forgiving ourselves and each other, while also learning to ask for our needs

It is a growing our capacity to believe we are so holy, and so deserving of our needs to be met
It is a learning what it is like when we are well resourced A being with the ways others may (or may not) be able or wanting to offer support; an asking again to someone else who can meet us
It is a seeking guidance from indigenous ways, disability justice, queer movements, and Black and brown movements for liberation and joy
It is a being okay being wrong, fearful, avoidant, numb, distracting, and all the other ways we have sought to protect ourselves

Somatics is practicing love, and joy, and care, and taking care of ourselves, our relationships, and the earth
An acknowledging your constant attempts and failures to honor your word, to express yourself, to meet your needs Somatics moves us beyond the “why” we are the way we are, into the how and what we do on a daily basis — how we live who we are, and who we are becoming It is a listening to our own inner arrow — which knows the way, the path forward — and our congruency in following it

A building our capacity — to return to ourselves one breath, one cry, one vulnerable share, one noticing, one pause, one centering at a time A learning to be soft, loving, open, less guarded, while still self-protective of our dignity As we grow our shell, turn into a butterfly, peel back another layer of the onion, learn to embrace stillness, okayness, and satisfaction
A way we begin to get in the repetitions to witness our own fears, defensive patterns, and all the ways we avoid our own future death and vulnerability

It is a practicing our own micro, mini deaths of ego, discomfort
It is a building a more trusting and honest relationship with our own body as it changes—again we are not alone though we may utterly feel it A practicing listening to our intuition, being courageous, and going to the edge of risk and rejection and being okay and not okay and okay and not okay It is a embracing ancestral, cultural, and traditional methods of healing, nurturing, and being connected to each other’s and nature’s rhythms

May all we face and move through become more normalized. As Resmaa Menakem says, we are not defective. And so—-it is all of this and so much more and perhaps none of it — you take what you like

By: Sarah Rimmel