generative somatics + scribing workshop review
digest
The first time I saw the fusion of somatics and scribing was years ago through a workshop led by Cielo Morales. I think it was the first time I had come across somatics at all, although the invitation of sensing more through the body felt like a familiar echo from dance and movement spaces I grew up in. Cielo offered a series of workshops and a lab where participants would move through the life/death cycle of a body, attaching the rhythm of learning to different bodily processes like birth, breathing, digestion, and death.
Before signing up for the Somatic Scribing Lab, I listened to this podcast between Cielo and Dare where they wander through stories, questions, ghosts, and embodied practices, ending with an explanation of what the lab space would hold. I remember sitting by a small waterfall on the outskirts of Pennsylvania woods, watching the water slide over smooth rocks and feeling a deep bubbling in the center of my chest, like something was shifting, expanding.
The first Somatics Scribing Lab was an incredible container for getting immersed in somatics. I also felt completely over my head, immensely grateful to be surrounded by people who were brilliant and kind and fluent in these somatic competencies but also intimidated to trust my voice as a newcomer. I remember having a conversation with Cielo about the process of digestion, how taking in so much information and content at one time can feel really overwhelming, especially if it has no way of being metabolized and nowhere to go. Sometimes, you have to shit things out, you can’t hold on to everything. And it’s okay to let things go. Especially in traditional school environments, we are taught to hold on to everything, cram it in, seize it and hold it still, only to regurgitate it later. We haven’t let that content pass through us, let it change us and let us change it. That was the practice of the Lab.
Although I didn’t feel like I could process my learnings and discoveries much at that time, I continued building my practice and scribing in ways that felt authentic to me. After reflecting back on the year, I began to realize how the knowledge from the Somatic Scribing Lab had integrated into my work without me consciously intending to do so. Of course, I continued to think about the content from the lab and gush about somatic scribing to anyone that would listen but I wasn’t scribing with a posture of “I am scribing somatically”. And that was the magic that I didn’t expect– that trusting my intuition and using sensations as a guide to my scribing practice would lead to more integration instead of applying new frameworks purely through thinking.
iterations, repetitions
Fast forward a few years to last summer when I finally picked up The Politics of Trauma by Staci Haines (big thank you to elspeth for the recommendation!). Reading more about the origin of the generative somatics tradition, I learned about where trauma lives in the body, how trauma responses appear in behavior, and what tools we have to respond to stored and inherited beliefs. This felt incredibly liberating. The idea that we can recognize patterns of trauma and behaviors motivated by protective mechanisms opened up a whole realm of stewarding a group through challenge. What does group safety look like when people’s trauma responses are preventing clear communication and connection? How can scribes become more literate in identifying trauma responses within a group and what resources do we have to support and ease people into more connective shapes? What would it look like to provide resources through scribing without having to know every person’s specific experiences and wounds?
a note on structure
I struggled to find a way to organize the content sequentially in this blog so feel free to skip and hop around as you wish. There are a lot of somatics terms that were new to me when I started learning about the practice a few years ago so I have tried to provide more context + examples to ground them but that has also made the journey a little windy from the top of the page to the bottom. Slipping all the way down to the end too fast is overrated anyway, hopefully you can slide onto a little mossy rock and read an anecdote and then continue your journey downstream.
opening questions
Our check in question to begin the workshop was:
“What is a practice that helps you feel grounded in your body and what makes you feel disconnected?”
Many of the connective practices related to being in nature, movement/dance, and being in water. Disconnection came from too much screen time and the urgency of capitalism among others. As you continue through the blog, consider if there are ways that you can feel more connected to your body while reading this on some form of a screen.
Another question that resonated with me and felt important to the theme of somatic scribing related to being witnessed by others.
“Where do you feel most seen in your somatic practices/your embodiment?”
I often feel the most embodied when I am alone. Alone, I feel safe expressing myself in ways that feel bigger, weirder, more energized, more authentic. With others, I find myself becoming smaller, more muted, postured in a specific way– feeling that instinct to mold around and mirror others within a group dynamic. I have learned so much from my neurodivergent friends who have taught me about masking and have fostered spaces to be big and resist norms of “civility,” to expand the possibilities of how I can show up, and how to better understand and express my boundaries.
I have also felt consistently myself in dance classes and movement spaces. Something about the absence of verbal language and the invitation into more embodiment helps me access more of myself – the silly goofy side that wants to make a fool of myself, the fierce fiery side that wants to take on a challenge way too hard to actually accomplish, the soft smooth side that wants to relish in slowness and texture.
What are spaces where you feel seen in your embodiment? Who are you with? How does that change the way you show up?
what is somatics?
Back to the workshop, we grounded in some definitions of somatics that also stretched back towards themes from the emergent strategy workshop:
“Somatics is a path, a methodology, a change theory, by which we can embody transformation...individually and collectively.”
Somatics purposely elicits resilience and pragmatically builds a “new shape” through body centered transformation... Somatic theory and practice helps us embody emotional competency, be generative in conflict, build lasting trust and design practice that is aligned with our commitments and visions for change.
– generative somatics
In locating these definitions within the world of scribing, I shared a piece from Cielo’s somatic scribing workshop that integrates somatics into the cultural body. Cielo writes: “The methodology of Somatic Scribing understands our bodies as the maps, illuminating paths of wellness by noticing what’s here in the social body right now.” Through this approach, Cielo understands somatic scribing as a form of naturopathy, listening and reflecting in order to diagnose the cultural body and provide medicine and resources to alleviate the illness or stuckness.
safety shapes
Within the practice of recognizing illness or stuckness in the cultural body sits the theme of safety shapes. Safety shapes are the ways that our body contorts to respond to stress, dysregulation, and trauma. As referenced in the name, safety shapes are our bodies’ protective responses but they limit our capacity to connect with one another and embody our fullest self. Often, we adapt and continue to grow within these shapes even after the initial stressors reside. Under systems like capitalism, with its manufactured urgency, competitiveness, and constant disembodiment, safety shapes become necessary as a survival technique. What happens when our safety shapes become our habits? How does this inhibit how we relate to ourselves and to others? How does this manifest in broader culture?
blending
One somatic technique to ease people into fuller embodiment is called blending.
As Staci writes in her book,
"[Blending] is the principle of supporting the contractions or embodied patterning in the direction it is going. ..assuming intelligence in the tissues and reactions. Through supporting the contraction we take on the holding for the soma/person, deeply validating these adaptive responses.” (275)
Instead of trying to shift behavior or place a judgement on why people are reacting with a trauma response, blending looks at the core impulse of that reaction with an understanding that it is trying to protect the body. What we can do as visual facilitators is respond to those shapes through our scribing pieces and provide visual ways for people to feel safer in their bodies. In the same way that stretching a tight muscle or putting gentle pressure on a sore joint can help ease pain, sometimes, encouraging generative opposition can facilitate ease and growth.
A participant also brought up the strategy of appreciative inquiry when a conflict arises in a group. Instead of amplifying a piece that doesn’t feel good (e.g. incorporating the disagreement as a visual in the scribing piece), they like to illustrate aspects of the conversation that get obscured in power dynamics (e.g. placing questions around how voices are valued in the space). In this way, harmful dynamics aren’t amplified or replicated but rather reoriented or “deflated.”
scribing shapes
We then compared safety shapes as they show up in participant behaviors with resources we can offer through scribing to support blending with those shapes. The five principle safety shapes are fight, freeze, flight, dissociate, and appease. As you read through these shapes, notice if you recognize these aspects in your own behaviors, Where are you when these reactions arise? Who are you with? How do they protect you? What resources do you have to shift in and out of these shapes?
fight
how it shows up in individual bodies: defensiveness, very strict boundaries, taking up space, skeptical of agreement
how scribing can serve as a resource: Scribing showing alignment where it already exists, illustrating the consequences of stiff boundaries, reducing the amount of physical space for louder voices
freeze
how it shows up in individual bodies: numbness or stillness, lack of response, aversion to stimulation, belief in self sufficiency
how scribing can serve as a resource: Scribing illustrating the interconnectedness, titrating the stimulation of a group to make it digestible
flight
how it shows up in individual bodies: low eye contact, leaving groups
how scribing can serve as a resource: Scribing offering a way to stay connected with the conversation without staying in direct conflict, remaining present and tapped in through observation
dissociate
how it shows up in individual bodies: floaty, sensitive to others emotions but not your own
how scribing can serve as a resource: Scribing allowing people to see themselves reflected in small or big ways, using layers of metaphor instead of direct quotes
appease
how it shows up in individual bodies: shape of apology - shaping to fit others needs, making yourself smaller, avoiding conflict, lack of boundaries, gendered + racialized dimensions
how scribing can serve as a resource: Scribing visualizing how everyone’s voice can hold the same amount of space, visually drawing boundaries to model what they look like or what happens when they don’t exist, using appreciative inquiry to make conflict more manageable
bringing in the body
We also discussed using illustration to invite participants to prioritize their body sensations and offer movements they can use to self-regulate. In my scribing practice, this looks like drawing postures like a “posture of solidarity” with open arms or hand motions that represent holding and letting go.
I have also imagined using shapes like spirals, waves, and curves to support breathing patterns. My approach to using these shapes in the past has been motivated primarily by aesthetics and wanting softer, more organic edges but I think these shapes also serve to ease the pathway of the viewer’s eyes and breath through the piece.
somatic scribing cohort crew
This has been a long blog post so thank you for sticking around! I wanted to end by lifting up the amazing group of people that I have been hanging out with/learning from in the somatic scribing mentorship these past few months. Hosted by Cielo, this group of practitioners are 1) incredible people and 2) bringing the principles of somatic scribing and other ancestral methods of recordkeeping and communication into the field of visual practice. Please check out their work and stay tuned for more exciting creations from this space!
Orion Camero — instagram
Juwon Harris — linkedin
Mari Shibuya — website
Claudia Lopez — website
Adriana Contreras — instagram
Red Rojas — instagram
Téyo Saree — website
Cielo Morales — website
