photography | Inside Awareness Center for Integrative Somatic Learning

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.