Mapping the Soma, pt 1: Shaping Senses with Enactive Imagery

Pain regulation, motor learning, emotional homecoming, creative insight -- these are all reasons to tune into bodily experience.

But somatic practitioners know that simply amplifying the senses is not enough: We need to build a map to journey into ourselves, to regulate and eventually challenge ourselves to grow. Once created, a map lets us come to a safe and generative relationship with ourselves and others.

In this unique 4-hour experiential workshop -- takeable online or in-person -- bodyworkers, psychotherapists, mindfulness teachers, and therapeutic movement specialists will gain powerful skills for applying multisensory imagery and metaphor to facilitate healing and transformation. Drawing upon insights from neuroscience, phenomenology, and somatic movement therapies, we will investigate how the brain constructs embodied experience and how that experience can be modulated and transformed. Through a dynamic mix of lecture, discussion, and guided exercises, we'll build a framework for using embodied imagery effectively and ethically.

Our clients who experience chronic pain, dissociation, motor challenges, or creative blocks will immediately benefit from these skills:

• Guide clients through Qi Gong and "small dance" practices to enhance sensory awareness of gravity, ground, and self
• Use somatic imagery techniques to engage the central axis and related structures
• Lead imaginal meditations that cultivate secure attachment and a friendly relationship with the "space/void" element
• Facilitate embryological movement and visualization to promote synchrony and emergence
• Integrate time/continuity with space/form through "dancing the image" practices
• Help clients move from different layers and centers of initiation, inspired by Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen's work
• Bridge language, sound, and space through vocal practices
• Apply yield/push/reach/pull patterns based on developmental movement and attachment theory

Whether you're a seasoned practitioner or just starting your mind-body career, this workshop will deepen your understanding of how somatic maps can open up new possibilities for healing and wholeness. Come prepared to move, explore, and expand your own embodied horizons! This workshop is part 1 of a 2-part series, with part more focused on mapping the self, and part 2 aimed at exploring relational space.

This workshop is open to somatic practitioners of all experience levels. You'll leave with a wealth of practical tools and techniques you can immediately integrate into your work with clients.