Your body is constantly sending signals. Your jaw tightens, your shoulders rise, and you hold your breath. At the end of a long day, you may simply find it difficult to relax, having barely noticed what was happening within you throughout the day.

A somatic approach brings your attention back to these physical experiences. Alongside movement itself, it makes room for how you experience movement, breathing, and presence within your own body.

Connecting with your body can become part of the attention and care you give yourself.

What Is Somatic Movement?

The word “somatic” comes from the Greek soma, meaning body. This approach focuses on the body as experienced from within: sensations, breathing, muscle tension, and the changes you notice as you move.

An essential part of somatic movement is paying attention to how you feel during a movement. What range of motion feels comfortable? Where do you notice tension? How does your breathing change?

This approach can be present in many forms of movement, from slow, mindful movement to intuitive stretching. The common thread is attention to your own physical experience.

Why Can We Lose Touch With Our Body’s Signals?

In everyday life, it is easy to organise our attention around tasks and expectations. We work, plan, respond, and take care of things. Meanwhile, our body’s signals can fade into the background.

We may only notice in the evening how tense our shoulders have become. At other times, even during a workout, we focus more on repetitions, performance, or visible results.

Body awareness also means noticing how we experience these situations. Over time, we can become more familiar with how we experience exertion, rest, and movement.

We do not need to find an immediate explanation for every physical sensation. Observation itself is an important part of connecting with the body.

The Connection Between Body Awareness and the Nervous System

Stress can also be a physical experience. Our breathing may change, our muscles may tighten, and it may become harder to remain calmly present.

Certain breathing, relaxation, and body awareness practices may support relaxation and self-regulation. Individual experiences can vary, however: the same approach may feel different to different people.

It is therefore helpful to view somatic movement as one way of getting to know our body. Promises of a complete nervous system “reset” or guaranteed trauma release make much stronger claims.

How Does This Relate to Exercise?

Body awareness can complement the ways we already move. It can be present during strength training, stretching, dancing, or walking.

During a workout, we can pay attention to technique and performance while also noticing our breathing, how exertion feels, and our own limits. Greater awareness can help make movement a more personal experience.

Strength, mobility, and body awareness can all have a place alongside one another. Our relationship with our body can include both what we are capable of doing and how we feel while doing it.

The Venus Method Approach

Body • Soul • Psyche

Within The Venus Method approach, movement, physical experience, and the attention we give ourselves are connected.

Alongside shaping the body, there is room to get to know it: how we move, what sensations we experience, what level of exertion feels comfortable, and how we relate to our own limits.

Connecting with the body is a personal process. Sometimes more active movement feels good; at other times, a slower pace feels right. Body awareness makes room for these differences without expecting the same experience every time.

Respecting Your Own Limits Is Part of the Process

A somatic approach includes taking discomfort and our own limits seriously. Pain, dizziness, or overwhelming emotions are not goals we need to reach in order to make progress.

Everyday body awareness practices differ from therapeutic work guided by a trained professional. Somatic movement does not replace necessary medical or psychological care.

Your Relationship With Your Body Deserves Attention

When it comes to our body, we often focus on how it looks, how much it can do, or what we would like to change.

A somatic approach offers another possibility: becoming more familiar with what we experience within it every day.

Noticing the breath, tension, and the experience of movement. Recognising when activity feels good and when we need rest.

Movement can also make room for connecting with ourselves.

Move. Breathe. Feel. Reconnect.

The Venus Method
Body • Soul • Psyche

© Kamilla Csigás ✦ The Venus Method — All Rights Reserved