Written by: Assunta Cucca, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Before the pandemic, when I said to my executive clients that there was the option for us to also bring mindfulness and some yoga principles into our coaching space, they usually looked like if they were suddenly freezing.
‘It’s a somatic approach ‒ I explained ‒ I look at the whole you, we cannot separate the mind from the body and vice versa’.
Yes, often there was some resistance. Often the lack of information around this approach, contributed to a distrustful look, gently dissipated by a courageous try of this technique.
Then the pandemic hit, and I was asked more and more to BRING this practice into my coaching space. Now, as we are thrown into another wave of uncertainty where we perhaps feel mentally and physically in danger, certainly on the edge of constant fear, more grounded and holistic conversations are needed.
So, through this article, I want to tell you how powerful and transformational a somatic approach to coaching can be.
I also want to reassure you that no, it’s not just for youngsters, it won’t take up some of your precious time if you are in a senior leadership position. Instead, it will allow you to make more space and time for the important things.
How?
This sort of somatic practice can help to think more strategically if you are willing to embrace the moment. And at that moment, you are invited to stay within your body, connecting with what is your home.
The word somatic comes from the Greek soma, meaning body ‒ I guess also referring to a time when there was less disconnection between our bodies and minds. Think of Socrates and all his fellow philosophers. Nowadays, somatic education is recognised to have a long modern history, being introduced first at the end of the 19th century by Frederick Matthias Alexander, an actor who realised the hoarseness of his voice was not just caused by medical problems, but there was a relation with his psychology.
Later on, more work on somatic education expanded with names such as Moshe Feldenkrais and Thomas Hanna.
Nowadays, a somatic approach is emerging powerfully in the coaching industry.
And I love it.
As coaches or therapists, we are trained to read people’s emotions, and when we focus on their bodies, we can see how emotions have shaped their bodies. We can look in someone’s face and almost see their lives through their lines, their movements, gestures, frowns, or relaxed expressions.
What somatic coaching does is helping the individual to work with their body but also on their body, gaining more awareness of emotions and staying with them, instead of dismissing them.
‘Where do you feel this emotion? Could you place your hand where you feel it? Instead of getting rid of that ball of emotions, can you stay with it?’
When we start holding emotions, locating them, owning them … we also start changing shapes. Yes, we do.
I will give you an example:
think about a time you felt sad or even depressed. What muscles did you tend to use? Often, we use our flexor muscles that bring ourselves inwards, making us smaller and protected, like an armadillo would do.
now think of a time when you were happy and relaxed. You probably used your extensor muscles which help us stretching and reaching out, expanding our body, relaxing our lines, and communicating our openness.
A somatic approach would help to regain connection to your authentic self, because let’s be honest, we tend to put on a mask to go and face the world.
Funnily enough, then we spend so much time practicing yoga or even martial arts (I am guilty of it, I did 20 years of Taekwondo and am now a yoga teacher…) trying to regain our true shape.
Maybe because of the repetitive actions, or the clear shift from the mind to the body, but look at your reflection after an hour of yoga or martial arts: what do you notice?
I am curious to hear.
Somatic coaching work similarly to the above, challenging that body narrative we have of ourselves, and facilitating that connection with our bodies that is so needed.
During the pandemic, I must admit assessing people through their bodies more than any other time. I have been more than ever fascinated by how people showed up on the Zoom screen or over a coffee chat. I saw people embodying their stresses, emotions, difficulties but also satisfaction and happiness; carrying them anonymously, until they had a space to explore and become sensorily aware of them.
So, career coaching, for instance, reaches another level: we are not looking at your CV or your values on paper, but looking at how your body responds to the job you are in, to the people you are surrounded by or the events that are unfolding around you. The mind will then be connected through mindfulness and awareness of the present moment.
Rolf Sovik, in his beautiful book ‘Moving Inward ‒ the journey to meditation’, says “Mindfulness is a process of self-remembering. It’s a process of simultaneously remembering who we are and what we are hoping to become. This safeguards our sense of purpose’.
I could probably write forever about this somatic perspective and how I use it to challenge people’s mindset, but it will be too much for you to read here.
So, I am leaving you with some somatic questions you can try:
Where do you feel these emotions?
Can you place your hands on the feelings that are coming up? How does it feel ‘holding ‘them? Heavy? Light? Spiky? Soft? Smooth? Stay with it.
If you could choose a colour, what colour would these emotions be? Where about does this colour run in your body?
As you speak, can you notice your posture? What’s going on here?
Has your voice changed when talking about this?
What shape are you right now? What happens to it as you breathe?
I hope this article will inspire you to look more inward and welcome your body in.
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Assunta Cucca, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine Assunta Cucca is a transformational coach and founder of Kokoro Consultancy, whose mission is to help people thrive in business and life, by bringing back more humanity into their lives and workplaces. In the past, she successfully led people and programmes to shape corporate cultures and encourage innovation in organisations such as lastminute.com, Tesco, Photobox and Moonpig, but she knows how challenging it is to navigate the corporate world … Previously a competitive TaeKwonDo athlete, Assunta brings to companies a holistic approach, keeping ‘mind, heart and body’ connected, believing that we can’t exclude the role that healthy bodies and clear minds play at work. She guides and understands the minds of high achievers and the role that perseverance and resilience have in one’s career and life. It all starts from our kokoro (heart/mind in Japanese)...
