Finding my Feet
As someone with a background in English language teaching and journalism, I find language endlessly fascinating. How many idioms can you think of that involve feet, for example? Here are a few: Finding my feet, Get your feet wet, Take a load off your feet, Dead on my feet, Cold feet, Itchy feet, Stand on your own two feet, Sweep someone off their feet, Thinking on your feet… you get the gist!
I’ve always loved movement. In my 20 years in Whistler I snowboarded 100+ days per winter season, coached high-level snowboarding to groups of teenagers, cross-country skied, mountain biked, hiked, practised yoga 4x a week and on… my feet of course necessary for all of this! Upon moving to the Sunshine Coast I trained as a Somatic Movement (and mindfulness) teacher in 2019 and I can happily say I’m still finding my feet teaching and guiding somas. One of my intentions when I teach is to never behave like an expert, as that takes away from the soma on the mat’s experience. I have no desire to take away any person’s power and autonomy by ‘experting’ (yes, this word doesn’t actually exist as a verb, but it does now!) — as one of my teachers Theresa Evans said “The truth is more meaningful when you discover it for yourself.” My role is to guide my fellow somas, they are in charge of their own discovery process. Our nervous systems self-organize when given the chance; we are an adaptable organism. Can I be confident and competent but let the soma keep their power and autonomy? Or maybe even help them find it again if they have lost it somewhere along the way. That is my aim.
This does not mean I do not have any knowledge to help — of course I do, but can I allow the soma to have their own somatic process, one of curiosity, courage, compassion and above all ownership and self-efficacy? I will be forever finding my feet teaching Somatics as there’s always something new to discover! Both somatically and intellectually. Somatic knowledge is inherent in all of us, but mostly very much neglected as in our modern world we allow our prefrontal cortex to prevail (thinking, analyzing, coming, striving and on…). We can all find easier, more efficient ways to move and be in this world if we simply change the channel. So next time you’re feeling uncertain, anxious, angry or disconnected, try this: Take off your shoes and socks. Stand up. Feel your feet. Notice the temperature. The texture of the surface you’re standing on. Is it smooth, spiky, uneven, soft? Is it pleasant or unpleasant? Do you trust the ground that’s supporting you? What information do you receive through your amazing feet about the surface you’re supported by?
Our feet have enormous sensory capacity. They have a huge amount of space in our body maps in the brain, the sensory-motor homunculus. The face and hands have even more. That’s a lot of untapped information we’re often not tuned in to when we allow our cognitive minds to dominate our daily experience. We are s much more than our intellectual minds. Feeling our feet on the floor beneath us is a simple way to connect to ourselves on a different level. It takes us out of the thinking mind and allows us to feel what it’s like to be human, a giant sensory-organism whose home is Planet Earth.
And by the way, Birkenstocks and socks truly feels THE best! ;) As does bare feet in the warm Salish Sea being caressed by sea grass.