by Renee Lindstrom, Certified Feldenkrais Practitioner,’07
Cultivting awareness through felt sense movement guidance
Before an Awareness through Movement workshop yesterday that had a focus on the jaw joints, I wrote a short blog post to put myself into the mindset of the intention for the upcoming lesson being introduced. I write spontaneously as though through some elusive inner direction. This simply means I do not have an outcome in mind when in free writing mode.
Arriving at the workshop space and while setting up the room, I was approached by someone ahead of time who inquired if this workshop would benefit them. They mentioned their jaw experiences that I was able to confirm it would be, all the while thanking whatever inspiration it was to have me free write on it before coming. It seems the statement from that post about creating a safe environment was going to be the dominant theme of the workshop! It was the intention, only I didn’t know it at the time of writing that statement. I did my best to create a deeper opportunity for the experience of safety so that the participants could release their habitual holding behaviour in their jaws they have patterned to protect themselves and their jaws. By this point, it is their protection!
I slowed my roll down (flow of words) and began to guide participants with more words than usual to give functional reassurance. Needless to say, it was a powerful workshop for many. I wondered partway through if everyone was benefitting, or not, due to the wordiness in the verbal guidance. Remember that the guidance is not focused on cognitive strategy thinking patterns. Rather, it is all practical micro movements, yet the focus is on the somatic senses. Basically, it is helping people to tap into their felt sense awareness using some of the five somatic senses we all have, yet ignore.
While I was focusing on creating a safe environment and the patterns, the participants did experience something as beneficial takeaways. I heard about this after that reassured me that everyone benefited from my decision to use words to support a deeper inner reassurance for them to test out the patterns I was talking them through. It was a reminder that Awareness through Movement is just that, ‘awareness.’ It is not rule-oriented, which shuts the door on one’s expanding conscious awareness, no matter what way you look at it. It is open exploration with a curious mind. That is what I heard as feedback. Many responses of how much people took in that they had no connection with before the workshop. That is what brings me joy. To hear the feedback that the participants discovered something new within, increasing their potential. It’s called self-discovery. In a nutshell, that’s what I facilitate, a practice of self-discovery.
For information on the next class series or workshop, hit link below.
I wanted to share some updates with you that I may not have brought up outside of our focused integrations sessions, whether in movement, communication/relationships or spatial awareness and placements. For the past ten to 15 years years I have been integrating the interplay between these areas with a deeper focus on habitual or automatic behaviours and choices. For the past two year’s this has shifted to writing it out in an organized way. Beginning with the Learning Center Topics, starting with separating the nine life areas with an eye on behaviour and interactions. There are somatic programs in each of these nine life areas to support the topic they are categorized under. Many of you may have participated in.
In 2026, I will be launching a new system of interactive patterns in expressive communication where this separation of life areas will be a core focal point in the model. These practical and actional patterns support an authentic somatic and empathic perspective. As written by an actual somatic empath living within their interactive experiences 24/7. Trust me, somatic and empathic expression in behaviour is not based upon the outside strategies of someone trying to describe them. It is one of the influences towards developing a somatic learning system that goes beyond what is being described in current social conditioning trends.
A companion book titled ‘Somatic Archetypes’ will be available. This will be a foundation pattern to support a practical reference to core reactive responses. Practical in that they will focus on actionable somatic understanding and not have any focus on evaluative expressions or right or wrong thinking. The intention is to marry this understanding in active interactions in the moment. The shift includes somatic engagement, versus old thinking patterns of social conditioning that shifted focus away from it in organized institutionalized education.
A new understanding of social conditioning has emerged with a powerful influence to cut through a term I learned in meditation, spiritual materialism. This is a result of the practices of functional integration and mentoring in how to speak authentically and with integrity that began in 2002. Spiritual materialism is an evaluative expression for the ego self-image. In Feldenkrais, there is an understanding of an inner felt self-image that supports a new defining inner experience of it that isn’t built up through socially conditioned learned reactions that are focused on materialism through strategies. Rather, it has a focus on being present from within and sensing from the inside first before outward actions of functional movement or spoken words. This means leading through the felt senses consciously to replace leading through thinking.
Renee Lindstrom @somaticlifestyleinnovator Channel on YouTube
To support this upcoming launch, I have put my YouTube playlists in order. I have three channels. One has playlists to support the topics of the Inside Awareness Center for Integrative Somatic Learning. (Pictured above). This includes the nine life areas broken into separate playlists. ie. Feldenkrais is in the Health Center. It is joined by Communication and Eating Plans. In these playlists, you will see early attempts to engage people to shift their focus of attention. For example, the #yyj Nature Walks, which is under the playlist of knowledge. There is also the Culture of Value program for early childhood development in that playlist that demonstrates the first stages of its development. The other channel is in my name, and it is for somatic innovation. The focus was to connect to the environmental triggers that stimulate types of behaviour to educate.
Podcast
Finally, the third just started this past summer and fall, is my podcast. Currently, it is voice audios of articles I have written to lay a foundation. It will evolve and expand to include lives and interviews.
As a dominant somatic empathic learner myself, I have first-hand experience in the alienation of children and adults with these learning styles. There is very little consideration given to the value of these learning styles and in fact, they are categorized, labelled and diagnosed as conditions, with an aim to drug and eradicate the differences they display to the expectation in the tightly defined patterns of Institutionalized education. Patterns that were designed for learning concepts with ease and little variance in the organized structure. This cognitive focus included debate-style communication development that lacked empathy training. In this context, empathy training is the skill development for good listening patterns where the core inner response is an interactive, flexible, and open-minded process, versus the closed-mindedness that results from judging the context of what is being heard as right and wrong based upon personal judgment and understanding.
The programs at the Inside Awareness Center for Integrative Somatic Learning are focused on a mindfulness that balances both sets of needs of the cognitive style interpretation, and the somatic and empathic. It harnesses all components through functional integration of the physical body working in partnership with the emotional responses that generate the filter for thinking.
The intention for these YouTube platforms is to build an audience and to develop financial opportunities that will support this focus on somatic education.. Until now, I have funded it with my time and energy. I look forward to taking it to the next level. I am hoping you will consider viewing my channels, liking and subscribing to help build this lofty goal. If the content appeals to you, I hope you will share it to support getting a buzz going on these topics.
The following are the links to the YouTube channels. Please keep in mind, these are early developments that have been a learning process and for the process to grow a level of comfort and ease in being on stage. The last link is to a page on the Inside Awareness Center for Integrative Somatic learning explaining the nine life areas that are the core foundation in my perspective of functional integration, somatic dialogue and spatial awareness.
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.
Follow Renee’s podcast and stay up to date on somatic learning, from the inside out.
The energies of 2026 will influence career, and the focus is on new beginnings at the core level. I suggest it will not be superficial rather connected to your root values. This is the year to definitely begin planning if you are not in the habit of it.
Audio for article:
Begin exploring change instead of forcing it through strategies.
Becoming your own Master Creator of your experience
Turning Intentions into Goals
starts with a vision
Breaking 2026 Goals into Seasons
becomes more achievable broken into segments for checking in on progress
2026 Goal Template Pattern of action and accountability begins
guided patterns of action to achieve seasonal goals and monitor overall progress for 2026 goals
Turning intentions into doable goals in 5 easy, integrative steps
These are 5 fun and easy steps to activating the integration of intention and action in a meaningful way using a novel pattern to stimulate right and left brain functions with activities that can create life-enriching experiences and relationships. Each step can be life-changing and integrative. Commit to spending time on each step before moving to the next one.
STEP #1 – THE FOUNDATION
Book time with yourself to focus your attention on your creative nature. This step can be a private experience, shared with a friend group, or spent privately with a mentor. It can take up to two hours to lay out the image. Additional time to gather materials beforehand will be needed.
This initial step will be stimulating.
Let it digest for a minimum of three days before moving to step two.
What is stopping you from moving to a life of more joy?
Check out the archetypes below and find out what dominant pattern is yours
The thinker
The Thinker
If you hesitate, or if you believe you are not creative, go beyond this thought and gather together some magazines, glue, scissors and some paper and begin creating. Your thoughts are your learned behaviour from years of conditioning.
Create a collage mixing pictures and words that speak to you.
If you cannot devote this time, pause and make a commitment and do it anyway. This is as important as eating, sleeping, and socializing. Perhaps even more important is the point of clarity and balance in our natures. It is invaluable learning and guidance that comes from within.
Create with abandon
The artist
The Visionary
Gather the medium you wish to create with: such as water colours, oil, charcoal, etc.
Create a vision of your dreams
Create with abandon
The musician
The Musician
Gather music sheets, pencil/pen or instrument.
Create music for your dreams
Write a song reflecting your deepest desire for 2026.
Create with abandon
The physical
The Somatic Touch
Gather pen & paper and locate a place in nature that you can walk ALONE under and surrounded by trees.
Let this forest bath of smells, sounds & movement calm and slow down to connect to your inner desires for the coming year
Listening inside is a place one can go in nature easily when slowing down to create the space for it. Listening from inside can give you your best guidance. Use this time to become quiet and let your inner desires be heard. Remember to make notes afterwards so this experience isn’t fleeting.
Finding out your archetype is the first step towards knowing and understanding your inner behaviour preferences and habits. Some of us will be thinkers, and our first response will be thought. We’ll speak from our memory, while others will be visionaries and their expression will be through images and creating picture stories. Some of us will be listeners, and we’ll hear the music. As we observe and consider our goals for 2026. While others of us will be physical and we will choose nature dance, exercise or running as a way to connect. Each of us is uniquely different in our makeup. So take a moment and do this pattern I’ve suggested, and that is guided to find out your archetype. This is the first step to creating a connected future that is connected from the inside out, versus being stimulated by the outside world and trends. Take time to enjoy the process. Breathe, and enjoy the process.
This connection to intention can then easily be turned into doable guided patterns incorporating universal values, characteristics and qualities in a novel and uncluttered way by creating new habits through the months and seasons. The ease of learning is integrated through the experience from a simple guided pattern. Awareness through creation that uses intention before focused action.
by Renee Lndstrom, founder of Inside Awareness Center for Integrative Somatic Learning
What does the #1 mean personally and as a society in numerology philosophy?
The number 1 in numerology reflects independence, leadership and new beginnings. It is associated with unity and the origins of all things. 2020 was all about a new operating code, laying a foundation,and creating stability, followed by 2021. which was all about being present in the moment, discovery, and exploration, while 2022 was about unconditional love and healing. 2023 was about finding harmony between the conscious and unconscious mind, and 2024 was all about ego and the balance between the spiritual and materialistic states of being. 2025 has been about prosperity, happiness, and good luck in life
9-year cycle
Grid used @ Inside Awareness for clarity & understanding behaviour through goal setting
WHAT IS 2026’S #1 ABOUT?
The number 1 brings new ventures, projects, personal growth, self-discovery, new beginnings, opportunities and charting new territory.
The qualities of a #1 are:
Leadership
Courage
Boldness
Uniqueness
Originality
Passion
Confident
Self Reliant
Pioneering
Determination
Innovation
The areas of influence of a #1 are:
Creativity
Will Power
Self Discovery
Individualism
Primal Power
Pureness
Goals
independence
Support #1 needs
For this writer, coach, and mentor, 2026 numerology reflects the career area of the Nine Life Areas grid. The career segment of the nine life areas reflects the work one does to support themselves and their contribution to the community. The qualities and influence of a number 1 seem to align with the leadership qualities needed for the new beginnings and vision for 2026.
Coaching, support, and mentoring will be important in 2026 due to the new vision and changes that will be required to rebuild globally. The border relationships and trade agreements have shifted with the consequences of changing economies for many. It is going to be a time for innovation, courage, determination and fearlessness for tapping into a pioneering spirit.
The number one has an association with goal setting for setting vision intentions. The era for manifesting through the laws of assumption is becoming stronger as more and more people tap into using them.
Concrete planning will create the focus for integrating balance, harmony, and success for living one’s hopes and dreams.
Co-creating with the universal laws of manifestation through setting intentions into goals creates confidence, direction, and purpose.
A goal plan lays a foundation that is reassuring and increases ease in the journey.
Influences to manifesting through intention to goals with the Inside Awareness Center for integrative somatic learning
Elusive becomes obvious
The book titled The Elusive Obvious by Dr. Feldenkrais
Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais wrote a book, The Elusive Obvious, The Convergence of Movement, Neuroplasticity, and Health. Moshe founded The Feldenkrais Method of Somatic Education. The focus of attention in this learning system is to cultivate awareness of the unconscious behavioural reactions that are taken for granted and habitual, therefore unknown.
Please like and subscribe if you enjoyed this educational content. This somatic and empathic author is laying a foundation for exploring an active somatic pattern of communication that balances out the dominant focus on analytical and debate ways of communicating to achieve more connection within and with others.
Feldenkrais® Practitioner since 2007, Communication & Empathy Coach since 2004, Art of Placement since 2001
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For transparency, I have begun posting a link to my paypal, for those inspired by my posts that have been for learning purposes. I am not sponsored other than by myself at this time. My focus has been on the development of an interconnected and integrated system that is apparent in all my efforts shared. The focus of this body of work is on somatic connections that is completely misunderstood by most. The mainstream focus talks at it with strategies in mind while my focus is on the practical aspects of living it. It matters in understanding how to support somatic empathic children from early childhood and shifting a social conditioning that could benefit from more from this focus of learning and understanding. This focus is on a well-functioning body, improved relationships and communication, and connections to food, nature and environment to support healthier social and cultural conditioning. If you would like to buy me a coffee or support this effort for further development, please go to paypal.me/reenelindstrom – you will notice Renee is spelled Reene on this link – that is me, it is not a mistake. You will see this link on my YouTube Channel and educational web materials, fyi.
Relationship, Health & Wellbeing, Community, Fame, Wealth & Abundance
I wrote a blog post with the following paragraph that I want to highlight and bring attention to. It is in an article on aging. Through the experience of working with an age range focused on the interconnectedness of mental, emotional and physical behaviours with the intent to increase functions this topic plays out in one’s abilities for tolerance and flexibility. When people age it is presented in one’s appearance to those who have a trained eye. Whether the victim or perpetrator, objectification in one’s history is identifiable in functional responses observable through touch, sight and sound. (felt-sense, visually, or words spoken)
Here it is:
Anyone who attacks another person through words and actions, in the light or the dark, lacks self-esteem, self-confidence, skill sets, maturity and finesse. Their life may be a pursuit of trying to fill the void of loneliness, love and self-love, connection and self-connection, beauty and inner beauty, peace and inner peace, confidence from within that is courageous and outwardly to take right action and more. This imbalance that creates a void has the potential pattern for acquiring things, people, status and lustful deceit to manipulate. It lacks the inner sense of abundance. I witness a lack of connection to the value and quality they place in their acquisitions in these circumstances. There is a disconnect and this is the point that corruption can enter.
This perspective is included in the focus on patterns guided through integrative studies in learning groups and sessions. it will be a topic featured more in-depth through the mentoring programs @ Inside Awareness and in conversations and articles. Subscribe to stay InTouch and connect to new material and opportunities, or follow Renee on social media. Hit like if you enjoy content.
Feldenkrais®, Feldenkrais Method®, Awareness Through Movement®, Functional Integration®, are registered service marks of the Feldenkrais Guild® of North America. Feldenkrais Method®
Inside Awareness Center for Integrative Somatic Learning 