Inside Awareness Center for Integrative Somatic Learning

Mastery of Fear & Anxiety stimulated by the physical environment of pain, from memories of past pain somatically

Posted on October 1, 2025 | Leave a comment

by Renee Lindstrom, GCFP, Author of Somatic Archetypes

On Podcast – @ReneeLindstromofficial

Since 2007, this author has had the opportunity to work with people who have had long-term chronic physical pain. In these cases, the body has been the environmental stimulus to inner messages and emotional responsive reactions. Usually, in Canada, people in these circumstances will seek out acute care to resolve the pain complaints. In some cases, the results of seeking solutions can backfire. The backfire comes from the interactive seeds of socially conditioned language. In this health wellness area, physical constraints from pain, the evaluative assessments by practitioners are conceptual and focused on fixing strategies. Sometimes this works, and other times it doesn’t. It only works with certain personalities. In some personalities, it increases anxiety. The current socially conditioned language is such that some people take it personally, which essentially means internalizing it. Others brush it off. Both responses have their peculiar consequences.

There is another communication perspective that is grounded in somatic awareness. In this form of communication, it starts where you are in the moment. It is not conceptual. This means the first focus is not on labelling and diagnosing, it is on the behaviour. Yes, physical function has a behaviour! It’s called one’s posture and postural transitions.

Here is an example I have created to demonstrate what a somatic response might be. It’s not based upon anyone in particular. In this example, someone is seeking understanding, support and reassurance after the disillusionment of conceptual assessments and labelling………

Here is my written response:

Nerve pain assessment:

With regards to the nerves in these circumstances, they were the last to be ignited from the environmental stimulus contributing to their flare-up. Stands to reason, if the environment calms down, they will as well.

Somatic perspective of integration between mental, emotional and physical:

I am going to respond from a meditative mindfulness perspective.

You’re triggered. Something has happened that has stimulated past reactions to old injuries and events in your life that have come forward into the present. Perhaps not with conscious awareness in a way to catch yourself, however, somatically. It’s a somatic response directing your focus of attention through reactive conditioning. A reaction that is familiar and shaped by past events (muscle, mental and emotional memory). Does it present in the way that has been suggested? Perhaps to someone who has learned to diagnose and label living experiences as conditions.

So, let’s look at the past. Yes, you have acute situations that have created a familiar pattern of response that has reared its ugly head due to the many factors all playing out at the same time. Unfortunately, this means your physical body constraints in your movement patterns are similar to ones that have given you grief in the past. Your responsive reaction is conditioned by those old experiences.

How to engage your focus of attention differently?

By shifting your focus of attention.

Easy for me to write as I am not feeling the pain you’re having. However, the hyper focus on it can increase the levels of discomfort more than 10-fold.

How to shift your focus of attention?

By changing the thought sentence structure in your inner mental pattern of thinking.

Shift what if, or ……(whatever you’re saying to yourself), to, I have been here before and moved forward out of it.

_{Your new mantra, “I have been here before and moved forward out of it. I have been……..”}

Micro Movements to shift focus of attention for calming the nervous system

The hyper focus is an aspect of your brain that is an alarm. It is a warning system of the brain, and right now, yours is in a glitch as all sorts of events have hit all at once. In meditation, we would focus on our breath. This is the absolute hardest when experiencing this glitch.

2. So, move your body in the breathing patterns I have shown you. This is where the body’s micro movement abilities can come in differently and play a big part in calming this glitch down. Right now, the glitch is telling you an elusive story that your body is letting you down, and it’s not your safe haven in the moment. So let’s change it. The body can be fluid or it can be rigid through the constraints conditioning it. Your body has gone into constraint due to circumstances. That’s all.

What do we know from past interactions?

The physical function is not isolated from the emotional reactions and thought stories in our mental process. It’s all one process, all stimulated together and interplaying off one another. Your glitch is your emotions reacting to the stories you are telling yourself. What you’re telling yourself is stimulated by the real felt patterns you are somatically aware of. The mantra above is what you tell yourself immediately upon catching yourself having these thought patterns that are not based upon the felt senses in the moment.

Why?

You can take care of yourself. You’ve done it before and have a historical pattern of it. You are identifying the past and what didn’t work, now identify what did. Balance it out. See number 3.

3. In meditation, we learn to create gaps between our thoughts to calm our thoughts that run together and create havoc in our emotional responses. We learn that thoughts in our mind run through in patterns that are not logical.

So we focus on our breath in sitting and watch these damn thoughts while attempting to become present in the moment. Soon, we notice that the thoughts slow down. I mean they, ….slooooowwwwwww down to the point of having significant spaces between them. That’s when the magic happens. That’s when somatically, the connection to what is really happening can be experienced. This is when you learn, the thoughts are the illusion. They have you spinning in circles, trying to catch your tail. In these gaps you see, hear, touch, smell and taste batter. All of a sudden, you can begin observing and taking in so much more information that is restricted by the thinking patterns you have learned. That all thinking is – learned patterns of thought. They are not real! They are your perspective based on old information and learning.

Let’s look at what’s real.

Your skeleton is real. It’s the strongest part in your body and lasts centuries after everything else is gone. Begin to adjust through the skeleton. However, if the pain and fear are too great, begin by focusing on your out breath.

As you breathe out, count, starting at one.

Each exhale will be different. Redirect your mental function by giving it this job. Count your breath.

Get a straw and exhale through the straw. Get your mental function to set a time for one minute and count the number of out breaths in that one minute.
Then continue to exhale through the straw without counting for another 2 minutes.
Come back and exhale while counting again, and notice if the number has changed from the first time. Notice if the breath out is slower, longer and if there are spaces in between.

Come back to it many, many times to train your brain with this pattern. Integrate it. Do it in times of non-fear to have it as a tool in your kit for when you are.

When you are in fear, focus on the exhalation, not the in breath.

Recap

We have a mantra, a perspective and a pattern of breathing. This will calm your nervous system and the glitch to create a new starting point. In this new starting point, your constraints, physically, mentally, and emotionally, can begin to limber up, increasing your windows of tolerance.

We have been through these cycles together before. You have this somatic experience, yet right now you are in a moment of old thinking that there is an acute care that will resolve this outside of you. It is an old pattern seeking relief and reassurance. That’s just one focus of attention that is decreasing the window of tolerance. Start by building the window of tolerance from inside. You’ve got this. I have witnessed it.

You’ve got a few people to sit in this with you to begin to build up your levels of tolerance. Recently, you’re strategies in bringing new people on board while in the acute stages didn’t support you rather added to deconstructing it.

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Copyright 2014 – 2025 Renee Lindstrom, GCFP,

Feldenkrais® Practitioner since 2007, Communication & Empathy Coach since 2004, Art of Placement since 2001

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Posted in Somatic Learning Integraton

Tagged Balance, Fear Management Somatically, Healing, Health, mental-health, Mindfulness, Movement, Pain Management Somatically, Somatice Learning Integration, Wellness

The Roots of ‘Somatic Archetypes in Goal Setting’

Posted on September 13, 2025 | Leave a comment

by Renee Lindstrom, Author of the Somatic Archetypes

_{Audio for listening, in Authors voice}

Here are some examples of the Author’s personal intentional goal-setting boards going back to ’14. Greater Victoria presented the community with free magazines and newpapers at pick up stations, whereby viewers could pick up copies each month. They were a treasure trove of topics, pictures and words to cut out for all genres for creating collages.

When this author began creating collages, the creativity was simple and lacked the in depth connection to the seeds of inspiration and skillset. Without giving up due to these lacks, they became more elaborate, skilled and creative. Unbeknownst to the Author, an organic integration occurred during this dedicated process. It translated into living actions and character, including the development of a more playful personality. It was a transforming life pattern.

This Author has what she calls a Somatic Heart expression and receptor, and it was covered by years of experiences with others who have no skill sets in recognizing this quality or in interacting with those who have this organic attribute.

Somatic Heart

Each seasonal or yearly intentional goal-setting activity reintegrated this inner connection to the warmth and playfulness of her heartfelt expressions and receptivity. It was a quiet and creative time to be thoughtful and take affirmative action for what she wanted and not for what she didn’t want. It was a subtle shift and possibly the most meaningful. This is not something she would have learned in a Tony Robbins or Jack Canfield program, as the approaches are completely different. One focuses on strategies and the external ego focus, while this is an active practice that leads into the depth of meaning in the core responses before expressing it outwardly to the world.

This approach is unique and individual and taps into core values, while there can only be one Tony Robbins and one Jack Canfield, with others duplicating them over and over. This approach presents the possibility for being authentically oneself and presenting the world with a face that shines from this alignment of self on the inside and expressed outwardly for others to connect to. This is what Tony Robbins did to become the person he is today. He is presenting as his authentic self and tapping into the needs of thousands. The problem is, it can only be done once to the levels of success he has experienced as he is the model, while this approach is an integrative learning model that each individual can integrate as a learned behaviour pattern that focuses on direction, making choices and decisions connected to an inner value system.

This pattern of goal setting begins with a target intention that is overall for a period of time. It expands into doable size chunks, breaking the goals down into logical personal steps for achieving success by taking actional value based movements forward. The difference in this approach is in the actions for checking inward to connect to one’s core values, before taking a socially conditioned assertive approach. This means the assertiveness in this approach connects to self-value and esteem that emanates a different type of assertiveness. It is assertiveness that is more naturally mindful, self-connected and trustworthy. The aggressiveness from a socially conditioned action has potential for disconnection of self and energetically presents with less trustworthiness. This seems to lead to a sales job that is followed by justification. The Somatic Heart expression of this Author then suggests that goal setting that begins with an inner self connection with a focus through trained mindfulness and focus of attention can tap into one’s inner strength and courage to have grounded ownership of their goals that are centered in core values. An individual system within one, and not the goals of someone else’s storyline.

In an earlier post titled Be the Master Creator of your 2026 experience the pattern for creating goals was introduced as is the Somatic Archetypes. These Archetypes are the perception filters that are individual for each person. Consideration of these Archetypes are missing in the earlier goals step patterns that was compared to this approach. This pattern of goal-setting begins with this consideration.

This Somatic Archetype Goal Setting program is an educational system of somatic learning:

sets an overall goal intention
breaks it down into logical and actionable steps over a period of time as an integratable pattern
taps into your Somatic Archetype for personal learning and integration of understanding of unique differences

The benefits of this Somatic Goalsetting program are:

integrative learning happens natural that creates new habits that are productive to personal lifestyle goals
action steps develop skills to increase personal courage and self-confidence naturally
introduces a core value system that is unique to the participant
creates new beneficial habits for taking self-connected and self-directed lifestyle actions

Feng Shui Relationships with the Fantastic Five Somatic Archetypes

Posted on September 12, 2025 | Leave a comment

by Renee Lindstrom, Author of the Somatic Archetypes

_{Follow along with Audio, or listen}

The responses of the Somatic Archetypes are triggered by the environment. The Fantastic Five, sight, sound, smell, touch and taste, motivate responses and actions influenced by the elusive and solid experiences in the environmental landscape. The focus of Feng Shui is to create a balance of yin and yang energies. (masculine and feminine) If there is too much yang, the somatic responses will be aggressive to match the energy. Too much yin will encourage depressed states to match the energies. Therefore, the purpose of Feng Shui is to create an environment that will support all the Archetype needs for balance, harmony and motivation.

It would be in the best interest to learn your dominant Archetype senses to provide articles, furniture, fabric, and sound to please your dominant senses. When you share a space, consider every person’s Archetype. This would improve relationships and benefit connections. The value in this suggestion is that each person will view the space through their own somatic lens and the needs that may accompany them. An artist’s dominant sense will be inspired by patterns, shapes, textures, pictures, colour schemes, etc. A Perfumeurs dominant sense of smell may be inspired by fragrance, flowering plants, herbs and spices in the home. Consideration of each person is as important as balancing the space to meet everyone’s needs.

Observing the environment from a Feng Shui perspective would also look at the alertness needed for each separate environment. The alertness levels would need to be higher at work, and lower at home, or in a meditation space. Each location would be viewed for the messages that are obvious in the landscape, and adjustments would be made to the overall environment that would support each Somatic Archetype. These Archetypes are:

Sight

Beauty

Smell

Fragrance

Touch

Textures

Sound

Sound

Taste

Flavours

The Somatic Archetypes are the senses of perception in the environment, where their stimulus will determine the tone of how the information is perceived. For example, if an environment is cold, empty and grey, and a person experiencing it has a dominant visual sense, these features would increase the chance that the tone would be a cool and disconnected state versus a warm connected one. This influence is elusive, and it shapes the emotional response that affects mental and physical responses. It is as potent as how someone communicates their responses in a dialogue with you. The environment, in essence, is communicating silently with your somatic senses.

I offer Feng Shui consultations that explore the environment. This focus of attention is woven into the personal and group somatic communication and movement sessions, classes and workshops. This topic pairs well for increasing the quality in relationships and functional movement.

Please investigate the classes and a personal session or consult:

Classes

Sessions

Consult

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Copyright 2014 – 2025 Renee Lindstrom, GCFP,

Feldenkrais® Practitioner since 2007, Communication & Empathy Coach since 2004, Art of Placement since 2001

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Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged Consciousness, Health, mental-health, philosophy, spirituality

The Somatic Archetypes in Functional Movement

Posted on September 11, 2025 | Leave a comment

by Renee Lindstrom, Author of The Somatic Archetypes – the Fantastic Five

_{Listen while reading, or listen to this companion audio}

Somatic functional movement patterns, using the Feldenkrais Method of Somatic Education, guide participants through patterns designed to refocus their attention away from pre-conditioned beliefs and pre-existing understanding of movement. In other words, what they already know. The patterns encourage exploration of movement by bringing their focus to their sensory awareness from the inside with these fantastic five core senses.

This picture demonstrates interpretive dance patterns of movement. The interpretation hints at sensing movement, yet the focus of the patterns these models are making could suggest they are focused outside themselves, versus from inside connections, as in contact dance. Functional Integration, and Awareness through Movement, the Feldenkrais Way focuses on the skeletal movements in connection to the contact with gravity and its responses through the joints that are unlocked and in a posture to invite gravity to travel through the whole skeleton. In the picture above, the models are not making solid contact with the floor to connect to the force of gravity moving up through their bones. It appears to me, as a Feldenkrais Practitioner specializing in this movement pattern, that they are using their soft tissue to support their weight.

When the skeleton is making full contact with gravity through the feet in standing, the sit bones in sitting, the hands in a posture of pushing off, or crawling on hands and knees, or in a prone position on the full skeleton on the front, back or side body on a hard surface the pressure thorugh the bones creates a weightlessness in the soft tissues in the body. The more one makes contact with gravity through skeletal movements, the more ease and freedom one has in their joints, vertebrae and ribs. This increases counter-balance and functional movement abilities.

The guidance patterns in the Feldenkrais Method use felt sensory words on the actual movement of the anatomy, with a focus on the potential for using the force of gravity. It is a powerful shift from analytical thinking that takes one out of a closed mindset function into the exploration of the experience itself, through the movements in connection with the force of gravity. The focus is on the felt sense of the bones and the discoveries through them to reconnect the body’s own elusive responsive connections to the intricacies of movement that are beyond the current comprehension of social conditioning. In essence, the movement is retraining the brain to expand and use more of the available functions in movement.

Why do I write reconnect?

When babies are born, they have the capabilities to use their full range of available learning potentials to guide them to come upright and participate in society. They do so without the educational encouragement of those surrounding them. Those surrounding do encourage them, yet they lack the understanding of how the function of the brain, body, felt senses, and mental is coming online to work in harmony that enables a baby to roll over, sit up, crawl, stand, walk and run while learning to speak and think. It is beyond the comprehension of the family members, as their own process was just that, a process. It wasn’t memorized, itemized or catalogued. It was learning through the experience.

With the focus of attention in society that seems to be focused on evaluative concepts and analytical statements, there has been a separation from the somatic patterns of functional learning that each of us was born with. When an adult speaks, it is through the evaluative expression of analytical thought patterns and statements that are far removed from the actual experience of functioning through the somatic experience. When speaking from an analytical perspective, it is a small interpretation of functional learning. It is like the difference between ballet and contact dance. One dance disconnects the artist from the ground and lacks the connection to the force of gravity, and the other pushes off the ground using the force of gravity. If you observe the two styles of dance separately, one stretches their muscles and holds their joints in a way that is different than the other. The contact dance method uses organic functional movement patterns. One dance appears to have effort with an intention to be interpreted as effortless, while the other one is effortless. This would describe the difference between mentally organized movement from strategies of thinking and spontaneous movement that includes all functioning components through the somatic felt sense as the origin. Basically, one is from the outside trying to define what can happen organically from the inside out.

The early learning patterns for movement are inherent within us as we are born. They evolve around the somatic senses of the fantastic five: sight, sound, touch, taste and smell. Each of the senses stimulate the others, and they are the inspiration to get up off the floor and walk, talk and become members of society. Each child will have one or two senses that will have the strongest response and will become the filter to the environmental stimuli surrounding them. I have begun to call these senses Somatic Archetypes.

I offer movement through group classes and individuals that support these dominant Somatic Archetypes in response to the guided patterns. These are called Awareness through Movement lessons that are group classes, and the other is a personal session or consultation called a Functional Integration.

Please investigate the classes and a personal session or consult:

Classes

Sessions

Consult

Read more about the Fantastic Five Stomatic Archetypes:

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Copyright 2014 – 2025 Renee Lindstrom, GCFP,

Feldenkrais® Practitioner since 2007, Communication & Empathy Coach since 2004, Art of Placement since 2001

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Tagged #exercise, #Fantastic Somatic Five, #somaticaction, #somaticementer, 3somaticeducator, Art, Functional Movement, Health, Movement, Renee Lindstrom, Somatic Archetypes, The Somatic Archetypes

The Original Somatic Archetypes

Posted on September 10, 2025 | Leave a comment

by Renee Lindstrom, Author of The Original Somatic Arcetypes

Companion Audio to article for listening and reading, or to listen

I introduced the concept of Somatic Archetypes in a pattern for setting goals in 2026 in a post this past week. As a somatic Practitioner, Mentor, and Educator, I have discovered these archetypes are the original ones and at the core of each individual’s perception and expression. An example is how each individual will set their goals. It will be through a different medium unless they are in a closed situation where there is only one choice.

I am suggesting that there is no one way forward for all people that is the exact same in life due to these differences. I have also discovered there is an expectation that all people are the same, or should be identical, without any intelligent conceptual understanding that there are differences among two or more people. This, my readers or listeners, is what I believe is at the core of most conflicts. This lack of understanding generates a lack of empathetic listening to others. It comes across as arrogance. Usually, arrogance is someone who engages with others with some form of false authority that has the attitude of power over which lacks the intelligence to understand that this inner mental conditioning is their sickness. It’s not entitled behaviour that gives someone a higher IQ or status. Yet, somewhere in their social development, these seeds were planted in their physiology. Usually, when generational, it is held together with ego and pride behind walls of secrecy and not wanting to be seen.

After years of engaging with individuals or groups in personal and social development sessions, I have begun to say quietly and with a strength that comes from this conditioning as a mentor, “You are not the Judge and jury. You do not have the credentials to go along with your statements.” I may switch it out and say title instead of credentials. This authoritarian way of expressing is conditioned in our Western Cultures through generational socialization skill development. It is habitual and unconscious. There can be retraining yet that needs its own form of social conditioning that requires recognition and acknowledgement. As a Somatic Practitioner, mentor and educator, I begin with learning the dominant sense a person uses to perceive. These would be through the five senses we are all born with and used to get up and walk, talk, think and generally function in our society. These are sight, sound, smell, touch and taste. These are the fantastic five core archetypes. Not labels or cute names, foundational attributes each of us needed to integrate functions. They are the forgotten ones!

These archetypes are at the core of intention and stimulate motivation. It’s an inside job in the moment that can be spontaneous due to our free will. It is the generational influences that restrict and shape our decisions. This generational behaviour that has been passed down can be transmuted into the here and now for making better and more logical choices that would be for the highest good of the individual and those surrounding them, yet this ability is rare. This suggests retraining the brain while adopting new patterns in our system that is shaping our generational experiences through social conditioning that is shaping our cultural conditioning.

What are these Somatic Archetypes?

Read more…………

The Somatic Archetypes

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Copyright 2014 – 2025 Renee Lindstrom, GCFP,

Feldenkrais® Practitioner since 2007, Communication & Empathy Coach since 2004, Art of Placement since 2001

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The Somatic Archetypes – The Fantastic Five

Posted on September 10, 2025 | Leave a comment

by Author Renee Lindstrom of The Somatic Archetypes

_{Audio above at link to listen or follow along while reading}

The Archetypes

This introduction to defining these five senses includes both the noun and verb uses of these identifiers. It begins with a noun to describe sight, sound, smell, hearing and touch using a pattern that refers to conscious awareness for the intention or purpose to perceive and regain their felt sense.

As a Feldenkrais Practitioner, teacher and mentor, I have experienced these fantastic five somatic triggers as the core receptors of environmental influences that stimulate inner functional responses. These receptors are the beginning of any and every response that travels through the body, back and middle brain, and finally to the prefrontal cortex last. It happens quicker than one can track and control. The only thing that can be controlled is mental function and the information going in. Even thoughts of memories can influence and activate these five senses, suggesting there are internal and external sources of environmental influences. These five Archetype patterns for functional integration of the environmental stimulus that triggers receptors are introduced below. An important point to consider is that these Archetypes stimulate each other’s sensory awareness prethought. They have their own expressive language.

The Artist

The Visionary

Most babies are born with the gift of sight. Sight is through the beautiful body design of vision that includes the lens that takes in the world. Artists take in the world and interpret it through their unique abilities. An example, developing the quality of one’s eyes that was present at birth, would be the experiences of meditation. Mediators have spent time and energy softening their eye habits from which to take in the world, to retrain their brains that have developed a harsh and critical focus looking at the world. A subtle yet profound shift in quality of life.

_{The eyes are located in the head in direct contact with the brain.}

The Musician

The Vocalist

A musician has developed their sense of hearing in an advanced way to differentiate musical sounds and notes. The universe is filled with musical tones that formed early music perspectives. There is a belief that primordial creation began with sound in some Eastern philosophies, such as Hinduism. This sense is as important as sight, touch, taste and smell. A sense that may be taken for granted until it is dimmed. It inspires and motivates action. For example, music. If a piece is playing, it will either heighten moods or it will create agitation. It can even inspire movement through dance spontaneously or provoke immediate frustration and annoyance. This is a hidden influence of behavioural responses. Hidden suggests unconscious awareness or taking this sense for granted. If sound is a dominant sense, the tone of voice or sounds a person will make will be another hidden environmental influence in controlled or spontaneous responses.

The skill to hear vibrations is a gift that translates into the health and well-being of individuals and relationships.

_{Sound is received through the ears that are directly connected to the brain.}

_{Sound is expressed through the mouth, yet originates from below the head in the voice box at the base of the neck in the front.}

The Somatic

The Toucher

A baby will be sensitive to the somatic touch of all the textures and levels of denseness of articles and items they come in contact with. Their skin is receptive and a source of information. The hands are known to make a larger map inside the brain of neuro-pathways as the baby gathers this intel through touch. The skin is an organ that covers the body. As a receiver, the skin responds to what the other senses are hearing, seeing, smelling and tasting. When these senses send signals to the brain, it sends signals to the skin that responds immediately. It happens faster than any identifying label or word in our common vocabulary to describe it. This somatic sense is at the core of function and integrates all the senses. The other senses influence one another similarly, yet the somatic sense of touch encompasses them all and is a source of awareness that can be conscious or unconscious. This is the Milky Way of our universal responsive experience to explore and investigate.

_{Touch encompasses the whole body through skin contact with solid surfaces, and elusive and unsolid influences like the wind, heat, cold, water, and emotional waves emanating from people and animals}

The Perfumeur

Scent Enthusiast

Dual Activation of Scent Responses

Digestion

The sense of smell is a powerful activator. It is how a baby senses their mom and begins to locate their food source. The connection continues through life as smell is what activates the taste buds to create the ability to taste flavours. Smell will activate taste buds to taste flavours and begin the function of processing and digesting foods even before it is put in one’s mouth. It activates the stomach to receive the food with the right digestive enzymes and stimulates the organs to prepare for processing it through the gut. Digestion begins before putting food in one’s mouth and chewing.

Attraction

Scents create attraction that is confirmed through generations of creating special perfume scents for both males and females. Scent is a silent expression of attraction and a powerful expression for mating. The sense of smell will be one of the first unconscious expressions that will attract a person to another. This personal scent will only attract a few matches. It will not attract the general population. It is like a mother who has a connection to the scent of their child. You will often see them smell their child’s head. It is a form of expression and affection.

_{Scent is through the nose, located between the eyes and mouth on the head and direct link in the brain}

The Taster

The Supertasters

The mouth function is the first dominant sense used at birth. Immediately, a baby begins to feed long before being able to focus their eyes on objects. The ability to suckle at birth is an inherent functional action of survival. When a baby begins to receive new foods to explore from three months on, their taste buds stimulate conscious awareness of different tastes. Some of these babies will have a stronger taste sense and be able to differentiate flavours. Many of those with this ability become tasters of fine wine and foods to classify them in the industry, or become critics of them for the benefit of others. However, it is the sense of smell that activates the taster buds.

_{The taste buds are in the mouth, on the surface of the tongue located in the head close to the brain}

Early Somatic Development

Most babies are born with the gift of training their mental patterns to process information to fit within their social structures. This suggests that they learned the conditioning of those in their surroundings. I call this an environmental influence. It is a lifelong influence that is passed down to future generations. It’s taken for granted. When this thinking behaviour is taken for granted, it doesn’t include insight, especially if the educational system guidance is using the same patterning. The person sitting in meditation is retraining themselves not to attach to the random pre-conditioned thoughts and reactions that are arising. This begins to create a gap between the thoughts that leaves space for silence. It is in the silence that recognition unfolds, and one begins to recognize who they are outside the social conditioning of their family, friends, peers, etc. It is a profound experience to tap into the real person inside the layers of trying to belong and be what others want you to be.

Through the practical development and experience of Feldenkrais, I have discovered that there is a similar experience, as described in meditation. The difference for me as a student, practitioner, teacher and mentor is that it takes this meditative experience to the next level. It is in living action while in the engagement with day-to-day interactions and actions.

It is through the:

freedom of eye movement patterns that are spontaneous
sounds in the environment and inside your functioning body and thinking brain
touch of solid objects for feedback, and the elusive waves in the environment
smell stimulates attraction or warning, and stimulates digestion
taste, a somatic receptor, like touch and starts digestive functions, like smell

_{Patterns that have been lost through reactions of a lifetime of social interactions and conditioning. It adds the component of awareness and spaciousness, which increases windows of tolerance in ongoing daily activities.}

The Thinker

The Intellect

Thinking is not a sense. Often, it is confused with the ability to hear, using the term auditory. However, thinking is a separate inner function for processing information that has been learned through social conditioning. Anyone using auditory to describe thinking is minimizing the ability to hear sounds separately from the ability to think and obtain memories from which to understand and process information.

Thinking is also a separate function from seeing, smelling, touching and tasting. However, thinking puts thought forms into statements that often reflect belief systems, opinions, and perspectives. These beliefs, opinions and perspectives are taken from long and short-term memories of past experiences and learned conditioning of our individual and unique social and cultural conditioning.

Mindfulness through thought patterns

_{coming out of the shadows of projections into the lighter qualities of present moment clarity}

Memories are the past that shapes thinking patterns in the present and future.

Thinking in the present through the experience of the fantastic five senses and expressed somatically, not thought projections, can be conscious awareness in the moment that redirects and retrains thought focus.

The fantastic five senses can be a focus of attention for determining the value needs for creating the future using intention to create motivation.

These fantastic five somatic archetypes are at the core of Inside Awareness Center’s Integrative Learning programs. These programs are somatic dialogues, somatic movement and function, somatic spaces with support programs that are environmental influences in relationships, behaviours and function.

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Feldenkrais® Practitioner since 2007, Communication & Empathy Coach since 2004, Art of Placement since 2001

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Tagged Consciousness, Health, mental-health, Mindfulness, Wellness

Community Bullying 101

Posted on September 8, 2025 | Leave a comment

Power over dynamics

As a mature woman, in a casual work and connected home environment, I found myself in an experience of being bullied by another mature business woman in a group of women that ranged in age from young with small children themselves, to those older than them. These women’s behaviour repeated the same patterns that small children demonstrate at the toddler stage when parents and early childhood educators are tasked with modelling how to navigate their triggers to process their reactive feelings and resolve them within themselves before lashing out and harming others. These mothers and grandmothers did not demonstrate the skills or ability to slow down their emotional escalation before focusing on resolving issues that led up to their reactions. It suggests that they had not integrated these skill sets themselves. Keep in mind that these were mothers, grandmothers and aunties of children who were the core educators modelling learned behaviours within their family and community units.

Let me introduce myself

My name is Renee Lindstrom, and I have been focused on educational programs for bullying since arriving in Victoria 35 years ago. This focus of attention has been from a somatic empathic perspective and not at the typical vantage point of strategies and analysis of the behaviours. This suggests the focus has been on the practical steps of integration at the core internalized behavioural level.

The two options:

Labelling the behaviours and speaking about them to create strategies with no inner accountability
Slowing down the emotional reaction on the inside first to identify the internal stimulus and connect to the causation of the trigger before responding (taking accountability)

More about these two options

These two bullet points suggest that one pattern has a focus of analysis while still in a triggered reactive state. This suggests attention is aimed outward at others without any self-connection first. This suggests it is a position of denial and lacks any personal responsibility. This leads to a projection that lacks logic and empathy in the responses.

The other option begins with an inside focus for checking into oneself first to connect to the internal source of the trigger to calm reactions down before connecting to outside solutions. This option contains self-empathy first to connect to the source of the trigger response before any outside actions are taken. This increases the potential for balanced fairness and equal opportunity in the outcomes.

Back to the introduction of Renee Lindstrom

The first educational choices for navigating experiential learning techniques for deeper clarity and understanding from a somatic empathic viewpoint came through movement and meditation. The mediation I engaged in opened an opportunity to study Feng Shui that aligned with the core syllabus of the meditation practice I was integrating. This led to an intensive dive into Nonviolent Communication guided patterns created by Dr. Marshall Rosenberg, Phd, and author of Nonviolent Communication.

My focus on teaching NVC began in 2007 after 7 years of personal study and integration with a focus on the areas of bullying and relationships. I taught, presented and organized events actively in our Greater Victoria Communities in Juan de Fuca, James Bay, Oak Bay, Greater Victoria, and Saanich. It included the focus of primary couple relationships, families, parenting, peers in the workplace and primary education.

Back to the experience

No Remuneration for time and effort where other employee/s were paid for

While this experience that will be described is one in a sea of many, it is a definable one that shifted my patterns of response and continues to demonstrate to me the value in the training patterns I create through my practice and personal studies. It has also been an event where I never received remuneration for my time, yet someone received payment for it, even though it was the time and effort I put in. This, together with my mail being opened without my permission, and a lack of meeting my request to have it forwarded to me, plus some other incidents, I share this event in my life for training purposes. I, like the universe. do not like the lack of energetic reciprocity. This is one way of meeting my needs and balancing this out energetically while sharing it as educational materials. It is paying it forward to others in a positive way.

Being Nudged By Spirit to use this as a pattern to create a model

I believe I am being nudged by spirit or the dream state to share the patterns of how I handled this experience on site and after, as it was either detached or a state of detaching from ego, status and fear. It demonstrated fearlessness and the growth of a higher state of self-confidence and empowerment. A state that bypasses the fight, flight, freeze or fonding states with conscious awareness. Even though I kept telling myself that I had already learned these lessons and questioned how I found myself in this placement now, in hindsight, it was exactly what I needed to go through and be able to integrate into the focus of attention I have held for the past 30 years.

Why? Working with others now, what took 30 years is transitioning in mere hours or days is now happening for others who have gone beyond looking for outside strategies to change, and have shifted into longing for change. When that choice is made, there is less effort in transforming obstacles, and it seems that they fall away with more ease.

Upcoming post points will focus on these types of issues from this experience and will include practical steps to hold both sides equally from a leadership perspective and support each side involved to get their needs met, instead of only one side, due to the leadership going into sympathy versus empathy. This will be an integrative pattern to transform these types of bullying behaviour for your home, office and institution

An example of what you can expect to read about:

Home/Business Environment
Observations and Pitfalls of institutionalized expectations of employees in a home environment for one person
Employees who lacked typical dedication and devotion to their scheduled hours, and their possible contributions to this (from a professional with a background in hotel and hospitality)
Bullying incidents
Getting Resident outside after being housebound for over two years and only going out to go to Doctor appts
Patterns I used to encourage going outdoors with ease and motivation
- Response of employees hearing about this, and aggressive responses
- Response of a family member upon hearing this achievement
The use of inappropriately timed texting that instigated conflict and aggression
No regular eating schedule and missing meals daily basis
Lack of routine and schedule, and wellness shift with changes by creating regular daily patterns
Harmful Gossip that crossed between family and employees, no boundaries
Food Cost concerns by Office Admin that resulted in hostile behaviours, confusion and lack of food for resident:
- The concern led to insufficient groceries in the home where I began feeding the resident my food daily
- This concern led to repeated surveillance of me eating my own food by casual employees who wouldn’t know whose food was whose
- My food was even used to make a meal for a family member by employees responsible for ordering food – there was a lack of consistent food supply
Business Partner/Friend who led a meeting to find out my concerns that led to employees changing all the points shared in the next days before our next meeting for resolution
Business Partner/Friends open hostility in a Professional Meeting
Sabatosh ofreputation in the community after being a whistleblower
Business Leader sabatoshing reputation with false accusations in the local community

Before exiting the property, I made some suggestions for the employee to implement. Some of these ideas were shared with a family member and business partner. I will do a detailed list of these points and recommendations and give an explanation of what inspired them. I believe they will be useful for other families who have employees working in a home with institutionalized training. I have successfully created other structured plans for families in need of this service in the local community. They are doable and work well.

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