How You Move Matters
Somatic Therapy San Francisco
Recently while putting lotion on my hands, I noticed the way I approached the task and marveled at how practical and utilitarian I was being. When applying the lotion, I was treating the task as an item on my to do list, rather than a way to connect with myself or how I was feeling. I completely tuned out any physical sensations in favor of efficiency. “I must do this task so that I can get on with my day” permeated through my being and my thoughts. When I reflected on how I was moving and treating my body, I was struck by two things 1) We can choose to be present and attentive to sensation at any moment in our lives and 2) how we move matters, sometimes more than the movement we are doing.
The Meaning Behind Movement
To let you in on a secret, as much as I study and observe movement and how it both conveys information about and affects psychological health, I put little stock in people that claim to be experts in body language. Especially if the expert claims that when you do a specific movement, it means a specific thing e.g. “if you touch your mouth when speaking to someone you are clearly lying!” To make meaning of movement, you need context. This could be cultural context (in a certain culture you shake your head to indicate “no”) or situational context (something happened that caused you to move a certain way. . .perhaps an outside force or an injury) or any other context that can be embedded in movement. Without context, we are guessing at what movement means and possibly putting our own cultural and personal context onto movement, which makes the movement ripe for misinterpretation.
Many times, as a dance therapist and somatic therapist, I am much more interested in the how of movement rather than the what. A person moving their arm is to be noted but also HOW they moved their arm. Was it abruptly? Slowly? In a certain direction or pattern? All these things are of interest. Let’s go back to the specific example I started the blog with, that of applying lotion. I noted that I applied the lotion pragmatically, which for me meant as quickly as possible and with little attention to the sensation of my hand on my arms or legs. The HOW of the movement gave some more indication to my psychological state and attitude, in this situation more so than the actual movement itself.
How Somatic Therapy San Francisco Can Help You Find Meaning in Your Movement
If we believe that how we move has meaning, and we move literally every day—all the time, we are continually providing meaning in our life through movement. How we move can show how we feel about ourselves, our lives, the outside world, other people, literally everything. If you imagine touching a person abruptly and forcefully vs. touching someone softly and gently—the difference between those actions may demonstrate the different feelings one has. Meaning is imbued from how the action, e.g. touching, is executed. Yet beyond the fact that how we move has meaning, there is the potential to change the meaning we hold or wish to hold by changing our movement. In others words, if we change how we move, we change how we feel. Our movements are not mere indicators of emotion and psychological state, our movements have the power to change the mood and psychological state that is being expressed.
If movement has such power to help our mind and emotions, not just our body, why is it so rarely talked about? Most people do not recognize how they move or how the particular way they move makes them feel. It’s simply not something thought of as integral or relevant in mainstream US culture for the most part. Luckily, somatic therapies such as dance therapy exists and can help people reconnect to their bodies and emotions through movement. Somatic therapists can help guide people to connect with their bodies’ sensations and feelings and help them become aware of how they are feeling and what changing their movement patterns might do for their lives.
If you are curious about somatic therapy or dance therapy in particular and how you can discover the meaning behind how you move, please email me at lisa@lisamanca.com. I would love to see how I might help you!