A few years ago, I started working with a somatic experiencing practitioner who opened every session the same way: “How are you?” I always had an answer ready. Then she’d ask the follow-up that stopped me every time: “How do you know?”
In this solocast, I’m sharing that simple but not easy question, and why I keep bringing it to my clients.
Most of us can explain what we’re feeling and why. But when it comes to where we actually notice it, we hit a wall pretty quickly. That gap between the story in our head and our direct experience in the body matters, because the body is where performance happens, and the present moment is the only place it can.
I get into why you can’t leave a place you’re unwilling to be, how Joseph Goldstein’s three vectors of temperature, movement, and pressure can bring you back to direct experience, and why it helps to expand where you go looking for information.
We also talk about why that specificity can feel uncomfortable, how intellectualizing keeps us at a distance from our bodies, and how this question starts building a bridge between the mind’s language and the body’s.
I close with a few practical ways to make it a habit, including bookending your day, setting reminders, and inviting someone else into the practice with you.
How are you doing right now? And how do you know?
Learn more about working with me one-on-one at drkcoaching.com.
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