What follows is a large amount of material, and it’s only going to grow over time. It can be easy, when we’re gliding through the spirals and links, to lose sight of the big picture. I know for certain that in the past, I have come to a meditation technique for a specific reason, only to wake up months later and find that I’d gotten lost in the weeds of technique and framework, lost sight of the big picture.
I’d like to avoid that here, if possible, so this page will stay right at the top of the course, ready for you whenever you need it.
We’ll soon get into what I see as most important in Somatic Resonance, the opportunities I’ve seen it opening up for people, why I think it’s a foundational human birthright. But none of that matters half as much as you: what you’re looking for, your personal compass and navigation towards What You Hope To Find Here.
Your sense of this navigation will shift and grow over time (mine certainly does) but it’s important to pay attention to it from the start, to note these rectifications and re-directions as they take place.
To that end: journal frequently as you go through this course (and as you revisit it later, with new insight in yourself and new materials in the course), starting with the following questions, prompts, and provocations.
Answer these questions as best you can right now, and return to them every couple weeks or months, see what changes over time.
The big question: What Is Somatic Resonance?
The simple answer: it’s the state when you are reliably filled with the deep, rich voice of your own being—which arises from the body—and that “voice” is your ally in navigating life.
Another answer that might be helpful: When you’re living life from the head, from the ego—something feels a bit “tinny” doesn’t it? Like your life is a song being played from a cheap speaker in the next room. Like the bass notes aren’t coming through, the deeper harmonies and percussion are unsatisfyingly thin. Somatic Resonance is a path towards the rectification of this situation—towards richer harmonies and the strong, steady percussion of your own heart.
For most people, most of the time, it feels like we’re living a few inches outside of our lives. We’re numbed to our emotions, our bodies, our relationships, our interconnection with the world around us—we’re hypersensitive to petty happenings, passing peeves, the flitting ups and downs of inconsequential trivialities. For some reason, a late food delivery sparks a more intense response than the simple pleasure of washing behind our ears.
It doesn’t need to be that way. The biggest part of the problem is that we’ve spent so much time locked in a particular mode or style of being, one that is valued by our time and culture to the destruction of all else. If we are able to not only notice that style, but also locate its complement (which is too often missing) we can start to move towards that complement. We can start to feel the bass notes and hear the voice of the soma, emerging spontaneously from our still, quiet moments.
To be clear, I don’t see this claim as anything extraordinary or superhuman. I see the lack of this deeper style as a somewhat unique phenomenon. Its restoration is just a return to the baseline of a human inheritance.