Autumn weather is perfect for gardening. Not yet too dry to dig that hole, with crisp mornings and warm days. And to make my recent gardening forays even more fun, are four brown chooks, gifted to me by a girlfriend leaving the area. These nosey, affectionate, greedy, sentient beings shadow my every movement and scratch with great delight into every new pile of soil. Gardening, being in nature and hanging out with these small brown hens, is healing to us on every level and could be likened to Somatic healing.

I teach a fair amount of Somatic and Trauma informed Yoga, mainly to private clients. And somatics by its very definition is body orientated, which is what yoga is all about. Paying attention to how the body feels and why we hold particular tension, trauma or pain in one part of the body. We try to get out of the head and tune into the wisdom of the body and then connect the mind/body relationship with new awareness and insight, which can be very healing. Somatic yoga is ultimately about trusting this natural intelligence that is the core of our being. The same intelligence that grows trees and moves clouds across the sky, this intelligence in all of us, supports our healing process. Somatic yoga allows us to reconnect with our emotions, our discomfort and our pain and move away from the freeze, flight or fight cycle we have been trapped in.
How do we get so dissociated from our very own bodies and feelings? A lot comes from childhood. When we receive the proper support in childhood, our nervous systems will return to a state of homeostasis after a stressful event as naturally as a plant leans towards sunlight. If we don’t get that proper support as children, we often resist that process, shutting it down and often seeking some other way to feel better. And, hence, round and round we go with our trauma patterns for most of our lives – patterns of behaviour, thought patterns, emotional cycles all intimately connected, playing out on repeat. 
So where does gardening and hanging out with the chooks fit into somatic healing? Nature is an important part of any somatic healing journey. When we go into natural spaces, we’re drawn into our senses, observing and experiencing the smell of the soil and the song of the birds. Wide open spaces somehow gift us more inner space to notice and be curious about our feelings and our bodies. Once you recognise your somatic wisdom you don’t have to hold yourself together so tightly and you will start to trust yourself more. Nature works in cycles that are endlessly self-sustaining and self-regulating. In nature, we too can tap into, activate, and use the wisdom innate to our bodies to reach our optimal performance.
Margot Wagner
Yoga Under the Bodhi Tree
(Find and like articles similar to this on my Facebook Page: Yoga Under the Bodhi Tree)