What Is Somatics, Understanding the Wisdom of Your Soma

By Crystal Harmoenius, Harmony is Healing

Most of us move through our days on autopilot, shoulders tense, jaw tight, breath shallow, and the mind constantly racing. We learn to push through, adapt, and keep going. Over time, this constant bracing becomes our normal, and we forget what it actually feels like to live in a body that moves with ease, clarity, and presence. This is where somatics comes in. Somatics is more than exercise, more than stretching, and more than a technique. It is the art and science of coming home to your body, restoring your natural patterns of movement, and reconnecting the brain and body relationship that stress and life experiences have disrupted.

The word soma means the living, aware body, the body as experienced from the inside out. Your soma includes the physical tissues, the nervous system, your breath, your emotions, your energy, and your internal sense of self. Somatics is the study of the soma, and the practical methods that help you feel more alive, integrated, and at home within yourself.

Because of the meaning of somatics, you may hear this word used in many different contexts, sometimes referring to breathwork, contemporary movement, dance based practices, emotional release modalities, or almost any body centered approach. While all of these can fall under the wide umbrella of somatic awareness, my lineage is rooted specifically in Hanna Somatic Movement Education, which focuses on neuromuscular reeducation and the brain to body connection.

Modern somatics comes from the work of several pioneers who understood that the body holds habits and the brain can relearn ease. Thomas Hanna was highly influenced by the earlier work of Moshe Feldenkrais and Frederick Matthias Alexander. Feldenkrais explored how movement shapes the brain’s functioning, emphasizing gentle curiosity and sensory awareness. Alexander focused on how habitual tension shapes posture, voice, and presence, and how conscious awareness can shift deeply ingrained patterns. Hanna expanded on these foundations and developed Clinical Somatic Education, exploring how patterns of stress, injury, and emotional holding can create sensory motor amnesia, which means the muscles forget how to release. In his work, slow, mindful movement retrains the brain and restores the ability to relax deeply held patterns.

My own somatic path has been shaped by two teachers who brought this lineage to life in ways that were meaningful and transformative for me. James Knight, the developer of Gentle Somatic Yoga (GSY), taught me how slow, intentional movement can unwind deeply held tension in a safe, supportive, and meditative way. His work carries the heart of Hanna’s teachings while making the movements accessible, nurturing, and deeply restorative. Aimee Takaya, whose Radiance Program supported me through my own experience of burnout, blended Hanna Somatics with breath, energy awareness, and emotional regulation. Her approach helped me personally come home to my body in a way that felt nourishing, empowering, and sustainable.

These trainings helped me understand a simple truth, when the brain remembers how to relax the body, everything begins to change. As muscles release and the nervous system recalibrates, people often notice shifts in their thoughts, their mood, their energy, and their overall sense of possibility. This is why somatic work is so powerful for burnout, chronic tension, overwhelm, emotional exhaustion, and for those who feel disconnected from ease and rest. Somatics works by retraining the brain, not just the muscles, and that creates a ripple effect through your whole being.

Somatic Movement Education helps re-pattern habitual tension by restoring clear communication between the brain and the body. When you release chronic contraction, you also release the emotional charge and protective patterns stored within those muscular habits. The body softens, the breath deepens, and your internal experience becomes more spacious, grounded, and alive.

This is also where MAP Coaching becomes a complementary part of the work. Somatics creates change from the body to the brain, while MAP works from the mind to the emotions to the subconscious. Somatics unwinds old patterns held in the nervous system, while MAP helps rewrite the beliefs, emotional imprints, and protective strategies that have shaped those patterns. Together, they support the whole soma, the whole being, the whole integrated self.

If you are feeling burned out, disconnected, or stuck in long held tension patterns, somatics offers a gentle and powerful way back home. In the rhythm of slow movement and attentive awareness, your body remembers what ease feels like, and your entire system reorganizes around that new possibility. Your soma is always communicating, somatics helps you hear it more clearly, and MAP helps you shift the deeper layers that your body has been trying to protect you from. Together, they lay the foundation for profound and lasting change.