by Renee Lindstrom, founder, Inside Awareness Center for Integrative Somatic Learning
Launching TMJ – Jaw Release #1 – Side to Side
TMJ Jaw Release Guided Pattern Audio #1/3
These guided patterns are from Feldenkrais workshop that Renee has held since 2007. The feedback after each workshop has been positive with appreciation expressed. Here is a recent comment from a ’26 workshop.
I always appreciate my sessions with you and the learning. The focus on the tongue, back of throat and head hinging as part of the jaw release has really made a difference. Some of what you shared was new for me so it is taking me awhile to get the hang of it but I’ve been exploring those movements further at home and it’s been good. J
These somatic patterns are called Awareness through Movement Lessons and this workshop series is the integration of of moving parts that enhance ease in the jaw function. The patterns cutivate awareness of the joint movement through micro movements that increase efficiency.
A student may become consciously aware of the individual parts inside their mouth and in their facial features, neck, and further down the torso. It is a wonderful way to find a deeper inner peacefulness, and experience the calming influence of mindfulness.
These lesson contribute to:
Reducing jaw and neck pain
Headache support through pain reduction
Increased jaw function
Lessen scienty, tension and stress
Improve Jaw Function
Enhance sleep and relaxation
Read more on the benefits of Somatic Body Mindfulness and research of Feldenkrais below
How to purchase and enjoy TJM Jaw Release – Side to Side
TMJ – Jaw Release Side to Side #1of 3
Explore the anatomy of the jaw using guided patterns and mindful exploration for cultivating awareness through the felt senses and the skeleton.
increase relaxation and windows of emotional tolerance and self-connection
improve sleep and sleep sounder
increase body functions, cognition and emotional responses of calm, mindfulness and joy
Exploring the body anatomy through the felt senses increases inner awareness and trust. This body exploration is a different type of strength training. The difference is the focus of attention on the body, mind and felt senses through guided patterns designed to expand conscious awareness of the body function. The strength of feeling one’s body through moving joints and bones deepens awareness of physical connections as postures change, like in the shifting transitions from sitting to standing and back to sitting. Movement is a series of shifting postures. The functioning healthy body is not stationary, nor poses. It is designed for a continuous flow of integrative movement patterns.
Feedback On Body Mindfulness Introduction
“I am excited!!! This is great! It is like you are there with me step by step. It’s what all of us are looking for, real Feldenkrais support” S
“That was great, Renee! You have such a calm and lovely voice. I’m happy to add this to my calming strategies.Thank you. ” H
“I really like this sort of thing and would welcome further “installments” in the series and/or a revised version of this one. I liked the pace at which you spoke, not too rushed and left enough time to do the exploration of the particular area of the body to which you were drawing attention.
I liked that you offered options re leg position (straight out or with bolster under knees) but wondered whether one position or the other is preferable. Or is it just that one would notice different things, depending on how the legs are positioned?” K
Feldenkrais®, Feldenkrais Method®, Awareness Through Movement®, and Functional Integration®, are registered service marks of the Feldenkrais Guild® of NorthAmerica
Inside Awareness Legacy Project for balancing transition in early childhood somatic learning to conceptualized intellectualized learning
While continuing to expand the Learning Center’s objectives for continued consulting, teaching, coaching and mentoring Mindful Lifestyle choices through education, a new goal was announced in late 2025 for creating a legacy impact through education for balancing the two learning streams of consciousness.
One way you can support this legacy project is by visiting and shopping at one or more of these creators. Each one of these online marketers offer products that align with the lifestyle area learning opportunities offered by Inside Awareness.
Please support the Educational Legacy Project at Inside Awareness
Remember, the only place to donate is on the Inside Awareness website – www.insideawareness.com under the legacy tab. This website will demonstrate years of work in blog posts and pages to confirm its authenticity. Authenticity can further be explored at http://www.reneelindstrom.com.
Feldenkrais®, Feldenkrais Method®, Awareness Through Movement®, and Functional Integration®, are registered service marks of the Feldenkrais Guild® of North
Here are the YouTube channels for Inside Awareness with playlists you can like and subscribe to if you are interested in supporting the Legacy Project of Inside Awareness. Each playlist has individual videos you can listen to, like and support. This objective is to monetize the channels and playlists to help finance this legacy.
Renee also has a podcast with interesting topics. For example, one that is relevant and has been discussed in mainstream media recently is on the incorrect use of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. The label of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs isn’t used, yet the points made in the article are the same. It identifies and demonstrates the inverted use of this pyramid to block and stop people from moving forward in their lives. This is currently playing out in the global experience that encourages us to develop the consciousness we need to change these behaviours, or at the very least call them out as we recognize them.
This Legacy project educational focus aligns with organic somatic learning in early childhood and can transition these early learning patterns to counterbalance socially conditioned ones. There are many lifestyle benefits to this objective, like aging well.
Remember, the only place to donate is on the Inside Awareness website – www.insideawareness.com under the legacy tab. This website will demonstrate years of work in blog posts and pages to confirm its authenticity. Authenticity can further be explored at http://www.reneelindstrom.com.
Here are the playlists on YouTube channel for Inside Awareness Center for Integrative Somatic Learning – Click individual pics to link to plalist
Here are the playlists on YouTube channel for Somatic Influencer
Here are some examples of podcasts on Renee’s YouTube channel
Feldenkrais®, Feldenkrais Method®, Awareness Through Movement®, and Functional Integration®, are registered service marks of the Feldenkrais Guild® of North
by Renee Lindstrom, founder, Inside Awareness Center for Integrative Somatic Learning
Launching Somatic Body Mindfulness Series on Audio Video
Guided Somatic Patterns for Centering
Listen on Youtube audio – Authors Voice
Cultivating Awareness & Grounding through Body Mindfulness
Somatic Body Mindfulness is a series of guided movement patterns based upon the Feldenkrais® Method of Somatic Education through the perspective of Renee Lindstrom, GCFP ’07 . Renee has been teaching Lifestyle Models in the community since the mid-nineties, which has expanded her perspective, clarity and understanding of learning and aging.
These Somatic Body Mindfulness audio videos will align body, mind and emotions. These patterns will calm the nervous system and increase inner peace. With an increase in the felt sense of inner quiet, there is an increase of clarity in the felt sense movement patterns in the shifting body parts as they transition postures. This mindful connection to the movement and physical response in transition increases conscious awareness and organically integrates the pattern into movement behaviours.
Somatic Body Mindful guided patterns reduce tension, stress, anxiety, fear, frustration and anger and increase inner calm, peace and relaxation. SBM guided patterns support an increase in the range of motion and can reduce constraints that restrict movement.
The positive mental and physical functional outcomes of these SBM guided patterns increase clarity, focus, inner calm, mindfulness, stability and physical balance. These patterns will create a balanced alignment between the mental, emotional and physical functions. This alignment improves flexibility and spontaneity. The positive emotional outcomes are an increase of inner peacefulness, contentment, groundedness, connection and belonging.
Some of the conditions that SBM guided patterns that Renee has observed improve are:
Anxiety and Depression
Artheritis
Back and Neck Pain
Loss of Balance
Bell’s Palsy
High Blood Pressure
Shallow Breathing
Chronic Pain
Eating Disorders
Fibromyalgia
Lack of Flexibility
Hip, Knee and Ankle Joint Pain
Injuries
Insomnia
Pulled Muscles
Multiple Sclerosis
Parkinsons
Locked Shoulders
Stroke
TMJ
Some of the Benefits that Research has shown are:
Improved:
proprioception
coordination and ease of movement
posture and stability
well-being
feeling of confidence
breathing
Decreased
pain
spasm
Research Evidence:
Improves:
body awareness: Multiple sclerosis, pain, stroke, able-bodied
mobility
stability
coordination
ease of movement
posture
balance confidence
mood
breathing
well-being and quality of life
sleep
self efficacy and health locus of control
self image
greater recruitment of the affected part of the motor cortex (stroke)
Reduces, decreases:
decreased pain
fatigue
anxiety and stress
medical costs
To learn more about this Research on the Benefits of Feldenkrais, go to the link in the description box and tap the link
How to purchase and enjoy this introduction to a grounding and centering somatic experience:
Introduction: Grounding thru Body Mindfulness
Experience Somatic Body Mindfulness by aligning felt sense observation and anatomy
Introduction to the anatomy using guided patterns and mindful exploration for cultivating awareness through the felt senses and the skeleton.
Use QR Code to Purchase or go below
Benefits:
reduce and reverse aging
increasing flexibility and resilience
develop body awareness
reduce body tension, pain, anxiety and effort
increase relaxation and windows of emotional tolerance and self-connection
improve sleep and sleep sounder
increase body functions, cognition and emotional responses of calm, mindfulness and joy
Exploring the body anatomy through the felt senses increases inner awareness and trust. This body exploration is a different type of strength training. The difference is the focus of attention on the body, mind and felt senses through guided patterns designed to expand conscious awareness of the body function. The strength of feeling one’s body through moving joints and bones deepens awareness of physical connections as postures change, like in the shifting transitions from sitting to standing and back to sitting. Movement is a series of shifting postures. The functioning healthy body is not stationary, nor poses. It is designed for a continuous flow of integrative movement patterns.
Feedback On Body Mindfulness Introduction
“I am excited!!! This is great! It is like you are there with me step by step. It’s what all of us are looking for, real Feldenkrais support” S
“That was great, Renee! You have such a calm and lovely voice. I’m happy to add this to my calming strategies.Thank you. ” H
“I really like this sort of thing and would welcome further “installments” in the series and/or a revised version of this one. I liked the pace at which you spoke, not too rushed and left enough time to do the exploration of the particular area of the body to which you were drawing attention.
I liked that you offered options re leg position (straight out or with bolster under knees) but wondered whether one position or the other is preferable. Or is it just that one would notice different things, depending on how the legs are positioned?” K
Feldenkrais®, Feldenkrais Method®, Awareness Through Movement®, and Functional Integration®, are registered service marks of the Feldenkrais Guild® of NorthAmerica
In the above post, Renee, founder of Inside Awareness Center for Integrative Somatic Learning, explains the origins of the seed intention at the core of the lifestyle learning programs. Since 1990, she has actively pursued clarity on the duality she was witnessing in people’s behaviour with themselves and others, and the influences of it in the environment and community. This behaviour has crossed all hierarchies and social conditioning. It expressed itself equally through opposing forces, for example, advocacy for environmental causes. The force of aggression was equal in the entitlement displayed on both sides of the table.
A choice to respond to life through the somatic sensory awareness while balancing thoughtful and mindful attention
In the personal post linked above, she shares a personal journey resulting from a year of transitioning through losses that triggered an activation in her stream of consciousness focus. Prior to that year of losses, there had been a heartbreak event called broken-heartedness in the Buddhist Teachings of the Shambhala Center. There is a heart opening in this state of being that is tender and soft. Combined with the shift into heightened levels of somatic sensory awareness and perception, there was an experience of expanded consciousness beyond the limitations of a socially conditioned and educated left-brain experience. She eventually identified this experience as the state of mindfulness one finds in a committed sitting meditation. The difference is that it was an active living experience, and not an organized practice of achievement. It was an obvious experience that could be defined as different than those around her. The shift into this somatic led state felt like spontaneous combustion was a four-year transitional period of little combustions leading up to the major eruption. The fifth year was dedicated to stepping back to fully immerse in the potential for understanding and finding answers. The answers didn’t come in a year, and it took years of commitment to tap into and explore patterns that could cultivate the awareness that was being sought out. This even meant entering educational programs where the mentors described themselves as having achieved what she was longing to learn, only to somatically discover they had not yet achieved it. The choice was always based upon the model of doable patterns that was being taught and integrated from someone else’s innovative teaching origins. The balance between the left brain and right brain had not been achieved yet, and they themselves didn’t know it. Why? They hadn’t experienced it yet. You can only know something when you have experienced it. This meant they were never offering their own system. It was only borrowed patterns where they assumed authority over with a sense of ownership. Even with many of these programs focused on somatic awareness and mindfulness, they did not recognize anything outside their closed perspectives. The only way she could know this is that for two years, she was in this creative connected state of being without any loss of her developed left-brain experience. The difference was that the left brain did not dominate in this experience and instead, collaborated.
They say all things happen for a reason, and now in hindsight, it may be fortunate that she experienced a mother’s emotional and mental absence, or abandonment, as a child. The basic physical needs were met, yet it lacked loving kindness. For her, it resulted in a continued state of early somatic learning that wasn’t corrupted by a shift in focus that didn’t encourage the same somatic awareness through the five senses. By corrupted, Renee is suggesting this means attention shifted to critical thinking and institutionalized learning.
Insight & recognition of the value in somatic sensory led mindfulness awareness for the aging process
Those early challenges now provide insight and recognition of their value. The clarity is a benefit for understanding the differences in socially conditioned behaviours. As a somatic empath experiencing the maturing students and their aged logical and analytical processors now, Renee finds they have difficult transitions into retirement and old age. They have long lost their connection to early somatic senses and continue trying to navigate through their focus of attention placed on outside strategies to fix their physical, mental and emotional functional losses. In their disconnection from engaging with their felt senses, she recognizes the loss in their abilities, mentally, emotionally and physically, for supporting themselves. They lack trust in their mental and physical abilities to support themselves. Without a connection to their five senses, they do not trust themselves and are fearful of their own bodies. As a practitioner who engages them in learning to connect through their five senses, Renee observes a shift in their levels of confidence and fear where their trust in themselves increases.
Learning gap in education is creating inner combat between critical thinking consciousness & felt sense consciousness
When a child enters into an adult-generated learning model, it becomes the dominant educational conditioning pattern, and the loss of connection to the five senses begins. The aging process lacks the conscious awareness of the five senses. At some point in early learning, the child is redirected from their inherent spontaneous early learning patterns using the five senses and into a focused structure of organized learning. Renee stresses that this is a significant challenge in the aging process. It also shows up as a challenge in processing emotions and throughout childhood development. If a lifetime is lived with no self-directed learning choices in behaviour, reactions will be childlike with no logic. When acting out it will be through the trigger of the somatic senses without control of it. The gap in learning from the adult-designed educational patterns is eliminating the maturation that comes from processing through the five senses and understanding how to process them. Instead of processing them through the stream of consciousness that is activated, those children are being spoken at from another stream of consciousness. effectively forcing the felt senses to be stymied and judged from a perspective of right and wrong thinking. Imagine for a moment having one stream of consciousness in conflict with the other within one’s operating system. Our education is setting individuals up to do battle within themselves, critical thinking versus somatic felt senses. Incredible!
Anger tantrums at 55, 65, 75, 85, 92……
Imagine being sixty-five and still reacting from the age of five somatically while in reaction. Imagine feeling so out of control at 65 and not being able to differentiate feeling reactions. This is serious at sixty-five, as one is considerably stronger physically than at five. If not outer aggression, consider the inner fear, panic and anger. By sixty five the smallest event will trigger survival. Remember, the logical left brain doesn’t feel emotions, and it is not spontaneous.
Perceiving through the five senses and using the left brain with more efficiency for cultivating mindfulness & awareness in the present moment
From a living experience and a focus as a somatic functional integration practitioner, Renee considers how a baby is born with the ability to learn somatically through the five senses and no verbal input. A baby has all the tools they need to begin shifting their weight to physically roll over, get up and function through walking, thinking and talking. There is a name in Buddhist Meditation that is called “Beginners mind.” This name is a pattern of someone starting a mindfulness meditation. This meditation is for engaging somatically in the environment while focusing the left brain abilities to calm down and become quiet enough to follow the somatic sensing. This pattern is not maintained by Western culture, and the pattern is reversed. The mind controls the somatic experience
Summary
Renee has recognized two streams of consciousness. She once differentiated it as left-brain and right-brain dominance. Expanding her programs to include the somatic five senses has increased her willingness to begin to articulate the two streams of confidence she observes. This ability to engage from the origins of the five senses first, as in early childhood, while harnessing cognitive function to follow the sensory input, versus leading from socially conditioned learned patterns, has been a game-changer in student abilities. This suggests increased mindfulness and empathic states of being are valuable qualities for supporting students through physical, mental and emotional constraints that are limiting. These limiting experiences often translate into pain, anger, sadness and an inability to support themselves. The student will have to choose which side of the fence they are going to lead with. There are three choices, believe it or not.
Perceive through socially conditioned critical thinking.
Perceive through the five senses, sight, sound, taste, smell and touch, in the filter of power and control of critical thinking.
Perceive through the five senses, sight, sound, taste, smell and touch and harness the thinking function beyond trained critical thinking, for balance and collaboration that creates living mindfulness.
Feldenkrais®, Feldenkrais Method®, Awareness Through Movement®, and Functional Integration®, are registered service marks of the Feldenkrais Guild® of North America. Feldenkrais Method®
Copyrighted Property posted on Renee’s authentic accounts only:
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.
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.
Inside Awareness Center for Integrative Somatic Learning 