Somatic coaching is an approach to coaching that combines psychology, martial arts, meditation, and the Feldenkrais method to implement body-oriented practices.
Coaching is now recognized as one of the most effective approaches to support individuals in their personal and professional growth.
However, growth is change, and this represents a great challenge for everyone.
In fact, our habitual behaviors have developed over time as effective responses to some of our needs, three in particular:
- Security – To meet this need, we implement behaviors to protect ourselves.
- Being recognized, being seen, having an impact;
- Belonging, feeling part of a group, of the community.
These ways of navigating the world, of acting, of relating to others, represent our resilience and survival strategies, our worldviews, our habits that have allowed us to become who we are. They characterize us and are so deeply rooted in us that often we are not even aware of them.
And everything is fine, until we realize that, in some way, it is these very behaviors that are now hindering us.
They were useful in getting us to where we are today, but they don't allow us to move forward.
Perhaps the need to be accepted has pushed us to be very attentive, yet not assert ourselves when we have differing viewpoints, and the new role in the company requires us to be more assertive. Or perhaps this same need led us to do what satisfied the expectations or culture of our family or reference group, and at some point, we can no longer continue this way.
Or, in order to be recognized, we tend to stop listening and try to prove we are right, losing the contributions of others and creating strained relationships.
Somatic coaching
A coaching journey can be extraordinarily effective in making us aware of what we truly want, in clearly defining the goal we want to achieve, and in taking responsibility for the results of our actions. It allows us to decide which new behaviors we need to learn and then practice them.
But often, no matter how hard we try, in times of difficulty, we might revert to familiar paths. We might become the people we once were, and old habits resurface. Why does this happen?
Our ways of acting have become "embodied" over the years, ingrained in our muscles, tissues, and nervous system. They have shaped our body, posture, voice, and the way we move and speak.
The body represents the center of our lived experience in the world. It embodies us and speaks for us.
Implementing new behaviors in a sustainable and authentic way requires that they be "incorporated."
Richard Strozzi, with over 50 years of experience and a PhD in Psychology with an emphasis on mind-body integration, developed the somatic approach to change more than 50 years ago.
Somatic coaching combines – precisely – psychology, martial arts, meditation, and Feldenkrais to implement body-oriented practices.
Strozzi argues that to achieve truly sustainable changes in individuals and teams, it is necessary to implement body-oriented practices to dissolve habits, behaviors, and world interpretations that are no longer useful.
These patterns can be changed through three steps:
- Become aware through the sensations that our body sends us about our ways of moving, how this reflects our habitual behaviors, and how they impact others;
- Implement movements and practices that allow us to open up and let go of old habits;
- Train new practices to incorporate new habits, so that the new actions are aligned with the body, emotions, words, and posture, embodying new ways of being.
