Somatic Movement • Perception Training • Anatomical Embodiment
HAVE an Open Dialogue With Your Body
What would it be like to sense your body with compassion and curiosity... to learn about and become friends with the physical systems and processes known as you?
The Method
How does PME work?
Sensing, moving, and touch are treated as questions asked to the body. The body answers — through sensations, impulses, images, emotions, movements, and shifts in organization. Those answers are listened to and supported, rather than corrected.
Rather than imposing change from the outside, we explore how meaningful responses can emerge from within on their own.
The reframe
The body is always adjusting to information that it perceives. Perception is a combination of raw sensory information, sensory information filtered through beliefs, and concepts. Thus the adjusting, i.e. the conscious and habitual physical expression of the body, is a function of what physical information is sensed, the meaning one's beliefs create of sensory information, as well as the consideration of concepts per se.
Like in any endeavor, access to accurate and live information allows for the most amount of learning and development. Therefore PME is designed to help a person sense inwardly in the here and now and then to allow the body to naturally develop from this information. PME therapists and methods help a client (a) safely and curiously navigate the inner entangled space of emotions, beliefs, concepts, and sensations and (b) use the sensory information for the body to self-learn, self-heal, and self-develop.
The self-healing / self-developing process is a natural state every body can be in. PME teaches you to enter into that state intentionally and then support and amplify the body's natural self-organizing abilities once there.
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The difference between listening to the body — and listening to the body's response to compassionate inquiry and attention.
Practice Somatic Movement Now. Follow these steps:
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Look around you and notice where you see light, where you see shadows, colors, textures, shapes, and more. Notice where one object begins and another ends. Observe your environment with curiosity, compassion, trust, and acceptance. Notice if observing within these qualities has an effect or not.
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Do nothing. Observe your breathing within one of those qualities. You do not need to change anything :-) instead observe what is happening now.
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Ask your body, “Where would you like attention now?” then pause. Continue to do nothing. Wait and listen for an answer. Wait and listen for as long as you’d like.
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Once you have an answer (or if you have no answer just choose a place), bring your attention to that part of your body. If you can and want to, also bring a hand there. Use your attention and your hand to sense what is there with friendliness, openness, and acceptance. What details are there, what is changing, what is staying the same?
Do nothing, continue to listen.
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Notice any subtle movement, sensations, or changes that are happening on their own and allow them to happen.
Keep sensing with friendliness and openness.
If thoughts and emotions arise, acknowledge them for as long as they feel pleasant, then come back to sensing.
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Notice if more of your body wants to become part of this movement and allow that to happen. Allow for more full-body movements.
Stay sensing inward within open qualities. Sense the details.
The slower and gentler you move, the easier it is for your body to register new ways to self-organize.
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Come to a natural end with this exploration. Walk around.
Begin to allow words and ideas back to the forefront of your experience.
Find a place to sit or stand. Reflect on what you experienced and how that part of your body is now, as well as how are you now overall?
One question PME deliberately sets aside — "Why?" The method works from the here-and-now forward; it does not set out to excavate the past.