When we meet a client for the first time, we give our attention to everything: their body mechanics, the story they are telling, the reason they have come to see us. know hat the process of re-organization doesn’t just impact the person’s physical situation, but their mental and emotional organization as well. Feldenkrais named the four components of every action: Thinking, sensing, feeling and movement. And while it’s true that movement improves everything, that doesn’t mean we should ignore the emotions and thoughts that both we and our clients express throughout a session. We can develop skills for better “seeing” the emotional patterns in our clients, students and ourselves.

Unlike psychotherapy, there is no need for somatic practitioners to analyze or discuss a student’s emotional life (although many of our students do want to share this). But by understanding the physiological relationship between movement and emotion, we can help our clients and students literally move and be moved toward greater clarity in both thought and feeling.

Emotional expression, while not limited to humans, is part of our wiring. What is the difference between a sigh of relief and a sigh of resigned grief? Between joyous and bitter laughter? We instinctively know the difference, but few people go deeper to understand the physiological functions underlying these expressions. By learning to recognize our own patterns, we can more effectively understand our clients’ needs and somatically assist them to finding their, as Feldenkrais put it, human dignity.

I have dedicated years of research into the physiological relationship between body language, emotion and movement. This has convinced me that as somatic practitioners, we cannot ignore the fact that emotions are a PHYSICAL experience. They are chemical reactions in the nervous system that affect the muscles, the posture and ultimately, health. This “missing link” is as important a skill as developing greater proprioception. If we can learn to listen to both our clients’ and our own emotional movement, we can use the tools we already have to support, clarify and enhance people’s function.

While the material we will be exploring is serious, my personal philosophy echoes Feldenkrais’. “Learning should be a pleasurable experience. If you’re not having fun, you’re not learning.” Come prepared to learn, laugh, make new friends, and open your mind/heart to another dimension of study that will enhance your practice as well as your life.