Listening to Your Body: A Simple Somatic Exercise

Somatic work is based on a simple idea: the body holds and processes experience, not just the mind. Trauma, stress, and emotion don't only live in our thoughts, they show up as tension, restlessness, heaviness, or a felt sense of "stuck." Somatic approaches work with the body directly, rather than only talking about what's happening in it.

You don't need a background in movement or dance to try this. Here's a simple exercise you can do at home.

A short movement exercise

Find a space where you can stand comfortably, with room to move in any direction. If it helps, take your shoes off so your feet are in contact with the ground.

Take a few slow breaths. Breathe in through your nose, and let the breath out through your mouth, with a bit of a sigh if that feels natural. Do this once or twice, then let your breathing settle back to normal.

Now, simply notice what your body seems to want to do. This might be standing completely still. It might be a small shift of weight, a stretch, a sway, tension in your shoulders relaxing. There's no correct movement here, and stillness counts as a valid response.

Give whatever you notice a little more room than you normally would. If your body wants to move, let it move a bit more. If it wants to stay still, let it stay still. You're not performing a movement; you're noticing what's already there and allowing it slightly more expression.

After a minute or two, gently bring your attention back to the room around you. Notice how you feel compared to when you started.

Why this can be useful

This kind of exercise isn't about achieving a particular outcome. It's a way of building awareness of what your body is communicating, separate from what your thoughts are telling you. For some people, this reveals tension they hadn't consciously noticed. For others, it's simply a moment of slowing down and reconnecting with the body after a day spent mostly in the head.

If you find this kind of practice genuinely useful, it can be one small part of a broader approach to working with stress, trauma, or overwhelm, alongside other tools rather than instead of them.