My 10 year old created a lot of words when she was younger that we still use to this day. One of my favorites is ‘flibbily’. In her younger years she had a fair amount of sensory issues especially with clothes and when she would refuse to wear something and we’d ask her why she would tell us it was too flibbily. 

Even though we didn’t have an actual definition for that word, I could feel within my own body what that meant and it didn’t sound very comfy. She is better able to tolerate textures as she’s gotten older but we still pull out flibbily as an adjective when needed. 

When we are learning the language of our body – sensations – sometimes we can get caught up in finding the right words and trying to describe our experience just so. Either we assign meaning like emotion or a judgement of good or bad, or it feels like there just isn’t the right words to describe what you are actually sensing. 

I’m all for making up our own words if that works for you – do you have your own version of flibbily?

In the moments where maybe we feel at a loss, here is a list of different sensation words. As you read over this list, I invite you to see if you can feel into them – some may be easier than others. 

Tight

Shaky

Tingly

Prickly

Buzzy

Warm

Zingy

Spacey

Trembly

Bubbly

Wobbly

Fluttery

Open

Expansive

Contracted

Constricted

Smooth

Airy

Spacious

Expansive

Blocked

Stuck

Dull

Frozen

Heavy

Edgy

Dense

Clogged

Congested

Dark

Fluid

Streaming

Flowing

Radiating

Settled

Any words in particular stand out to you? Any place in particular you noticed them landing in your body? 

It’s okay if not. We are just being curious. There is no right or wrong way to do this.

We are constantly taking in information from our surroundings to assess for safety and connection or lack thereof and making decisions based on these assessments. 

It is important not to equate our sensations with emotion. Emotions do have sensations but sensations are not emotions. This helps us keep things separate and not get overwhelmed or make assumptions as we are learning to understand the language our body is speaking. 

Thinking about the example from my last post, I might feel tightness or warmth in my stomach. Instead of describing that as anxiety or fear (which could be possible) I start with the sensation so I can be curious about what it’s trying to tell me. Starting with that curiosity offers me the chance to slow down, get more information and potentially make a more nuanced decision. 

This is a practice that we can all learn from and continue to work at and part of what we learn in our Embodiment Coaching sessions. 

What does your body have to say today? 

So wait, what are you offering? 

The sessions we have together are driven by somatic inquiry and curiosity.

One of the questions that I ask a lot in Embodiment Coaching is some form of “What are you noticing right now?” 

We talk a lot about the importance of noticing.

Curiosity is a must have in our work together. To be truly curious, we must suspend judgment and pause meaning making and just notice. Wonder. Listen. Observe. (There will be laughter and cussing and frustration, too).

This can be really hard. Our brains love to assign meaning and value to our experiences. This isn’t a bad thing at all. We can create really beautiful meaning from our experiences, but it can also get in the way of our present experience. I’m curious to notice what’s going on before the meaning making.

I’ll give you an example: As I take a minute to slow down, quiet my mind (as much as possible) and do a brief body scan, I’m noticing that my stomach is a little tight. 

My brain wants to do something with this information, it might get interpreted as “Uh-oh, I don’t feel well, somethings wrong” or “I’m anxious and scared” or “Shit, I knew that third cup of coffee was a bad idea.” And if I stay with that meaning either the story ends there and I just assume that’s what’s going on or, more likely, this ramps up the intensity of the feeling or thought that something is wrong and I start fixating on the sensation and trying to figure out what happened to make me anxious, which then makes me more anxious. So. Much. Fun. 

Instead of chasing that runaway train, I’m going to pause and see if I can sit with the sensation of tightness a little bit longer – with as little judgement or assigning of meaning as possible – just noticing. 

Sensation is the language of our body (I’ll talk more about finding words to describe our sensations in my next post), and although we don’t want to assign meaning just yet, we can find lots of ways to describe the sensations. Notice I used the word ‘tightness’ instead of ‘anxious’ or ‘scared’. 

As I do this, I realize that if I just notice the tightness without assigning meaning, the sensation doesn’t seem like that much. And then, I notice that my awareness expands to just above my stomach and there is some tingly warmth. I might choose to stay with these sensations or see if there is anywhere else in my body that I want to be curious about. 

By being curious, slowing down and just noticing sensation rather than naming/judging/assigning meaning, I am able to expand my capacity of this experience and not get caught up in a story or hyper focus on discomfort. 

This may seem overly simplistic and in some ways it is. And, at the same time, it can actually be really hard to practice this awareness and curiosity.  It takes some time to slow down and have comfort with this. Especially if you hold a lot of trauma in your body or don’t have a lot of experience sensing into your body, it may not feel safe to slow down and notice. Or slowing down might bring on a sudden flood of memories, emotions, and/or sensations that feel like too much.  Or there might just be numbness. All of these responses are normal and understandable. These skills are not modeled, taught or valued in our society.

This slowing down and curiosity are practices you can do by yourself and in fact, that’s one of the wonderful things about somatic inquiry, it is something that can be accessed any time, anywhere. However, in the beginning stages of learning these skills, it can be more accessible to have a guide to help you along, to remind you of the moments when to pause, slow down, ask a different question or get you unstuck. We are social creatures and look to our pack around us for cues of safety and what I bring to our sessions is not only my experience but also my regulated nervous system. Being in space with another nervous system allows you to co-regulate and to potentially be able to access this awareness a little more easily. Even through a computer screen!

So at this point, you might be thinking, “Wow, yes! I would love to learn how to be more curious and learn the language of my body!” And if that’s how you’re feeling, awesome! Let’s go! 

Or you might be like, “Um…..okay, I guess? But why does this even matter or why would I want to communicate more with my body?” 

This was certainly my response when I started learning more about somatic techniques. When I tuned into my body, I only felt discomfort, pain and shame and that would create way more problems, so ignoring my body as much as possible seemed to make more sense. But as time went on, I found myself tripping, falling and injuring myself way too often and found myself saying yes to things that I wanted to say no to and ending up in situations where I felt uncomfortable and stuck. 

As a fat person, I had been taught from a young age that my body was a problem that needed to be fixed and controlled and the more I tried to do those things the more I lost any ability to feel into myself. Depression runs in my family and I know there is a genetic piece but I also have no doubt that this continuous de-pressing of emotions, awareness, pleasure etc. from such a young age has greatly impacted my depression struggles. 

When I finally stopped dieting and fasting and doing cleanse after cleanse, and started exploring intuitive eating, I found that I had no ability to actually tell when I was full or hungry, or what tasted good or bad because I was so disconnected. When I’ve found medication that helps with my depression, it gets me to a certain point in feeling better (and that’s no small feat!) but even then, I had a hard time knowing what activities I enjoyed or how I wanted to spend my time because I felt numbed out in so many ways. When I went to physical therapy after an injury and they were giving me exercises to do and they would tell me to move a specific body part I would freeze because I didn’t always know either where that part was or how to engage with it. 

Through my own journey with somatic inquiry I have come more into myself, become more embodied in so many areas of my life. 

Being Embodied for me means:

I am more grounded and have a wider access to a variety of emotions.

I am more emotionally/mentally/physically available to my partner and kids and present with my friends. 

I experience fewer triggering events and when they do come up, I have more capacity to self-regulate and get unstuck.

I say YES and NO more fully and when I say ‘Maybe’ or ‘I don’t know’ it’s truly to give myself time to think about something rather than confusion or overwhelm. 

I set and hold boundaries with myself and others and advocate for myself more easily.

I can identify as a fat person and not shrink into shame and even find joy and pleasure in my fat body.

I have more drive to get up in the morning and live my life. 

Learning the language of sensation helps with so many of these things. The more present we are, the more access we have to our WHOLE SELVES. There is more resilience and stability. We can take things piece by piece instead of trying to do it all at once. 

And each of us is different in our ability and our desire of how embodied we want to be. You get to be the boss of that. I am here to offer the tools and accountability but at the end of the day the amount is your decision. And I fully support you in that. 

So now, maybe you’re feeling a little more intrigued about this process and want to know more, please reach out and we can schedule a free get-to-know-you call to figure out what working together might look like.