A focus I have, as a somatic empathic practitioner, is the power and control through function. The lens or viewpoint is through functional movement, functional processing of information internally of the environment that stimulates action, reactions and expression.
This lens includes the past, present and future potential. It is also not exclusive to one function or another as my view is on the effects and potential for whole functional integration learned through social conditioning. The conditioning of the functioning movement, language process and relationships to emotions that are responses to thinking patterns and the felt senses that are spontaneous to actual experiences happening in the moment. The patterns I use are to retrain the brain through functional guidance that easily expands the conditions holding someone in a belief system constraining their potential for increasing mobility and flexibility. This includes the thinking constraints in functional movement or relationship interactions, internal or external.
A core function that is the power and control system of human function is breathing. This morning I have a workshop introducing movement patterns through the skeleton to expand the individual consciousness of each participant. They will all be starting from their own unique social conditioned experience. This suggests there isn’t a set pattern that will integrate a full range of functional movement that will be the exact same. Often, I will run into comments like, ‘that’s not the way I was taught in …………. ‘ You can fill in the blanks from your own experience. It seems other modalities focus on telling students that there is only one way you can breathe, meaning I hear it from those who have gone into agreement with that limited clarity of facilitators who believe what they are sharing with their students, until they themselves advance their functional body awareness of full mobility. Our social conditioning is such a right and wrong culture. I had a Pilates instructor participate as a student in a class, sit up from the lesson and began to have a disagreement. Four years later, they advertised the same workshop from my perspective and patterns. They were not ready to take in the patterns to explore and expand their consciousness at the time of my workshop, yet 100 percent believed they were right and I was wrong. This is a pattern that I now recognize as social conditioning. Each modality is locked into a belief system of right or wrong ways of functioning until challenged. Unfortunately, it’s also the instructor’s ability to integrate what they are hearing and how they interpret it that shifts the original clarity of the method and conforms it into a lesser consciousness.
This is on my mind as I enter the workshop today. I recently did a series on rolling with the ribs, and I ran into someone whose fear skyrocketed with the shift in how they were breathing. It interfered with an activity they had been doing that was locked in. The fear was so great and behaviour so locked in, they couldn’t be spontaneous. Instead of self-reflection to question their limiting belief to free up their fear, they believed any other movement patterns had to be wrong. They wanted to tell me that twenty years of practical application of Feldenkrais was wrong, as they had a Yoga instructor teach them that this was the way to breathe, and from what I heard is they believed it to be the only way in every activity. Breathing is life. Literally. There is no one way. It depends upon the activity. It also depends upon available skeletal movement function. This person was hyper-focused on the diaphragm and lacked internal felt sense, or image of the skeleton, nor the relationship to the other bones in the body that counterbalance the rib movements. Afterall, the diaphragm could not possibly counterbalance the weight of the skull nor support the mild fluctuations through the vertebra. Let’s get real here for a moment. So here’s my answer. Back to the basics and begin with the skeleton. That’s a joke, as that’s the only thing I do.
I will focus on the connection between the skull and pelvis, which is: the spine, rib cage, shoulder blades, breast bone and clavicles. I asked Ai for an image, and they can’t provide an accurate one. Even the earlier anatomy images are disappearing online and being replaced with terrible ones that aren’t necessarily correct. This is not a good sign for future learning.
Renee is a Certified Feldenkrais Practitioner – since 2007
by Renee Lindstrom, Founder of Inside Awareness Center for Integrative Somatic Learning
Audio to listen along in the author’s voice
Integrating Awareness through Feng Shui,
Feldenkrais & Communication
3 Signature Programs at Inside Awareness Center for Integrative Somatic Learning
First edition – 2013
The cover picture of this book demonstrates the elements of fire and water. Fire is the action that bursts up through the mindfulness qualities from a state of contemplation and reflection. This goal program is a design that is a perfect blend of the fire and water qualities.
Read more or listen to the audio, or listen to the audio and follow along with this explanation.
Before getting started, Fire and Water Somatic Goal Setting will be released on November 19, ’25. In time to begin using the tips after the hustle and bustle of this holiday season. A couple of options for enjoying the program will be offered. These will include purchasing the book and reading it independently, or following along with the author in an online group reading. The third way is to join a workshop that will explore the daily contemplations and actions in depth.
*The January Fire and Water Workshop will be a fundraiser for building and sharing an Educational System with Culture of Values as the core focus. More below post *
Now, let’s get to the audio and written article explaining the program.
Actions for grounding & motivation through intention
Integrating mindful focus of attention with actions
Support turning your goals and intentions into reality with tips designed to develop your conscious awareness. Increase the likelihood of success with techniques to stay on track and move towards your goals to replace disappointment. Learn how to replace letting yourself down with building yourself up somatically.
One way you can bring your goals into reality is to consider these daily awareness techniques and actions to define your intention. Bring them alive by making time to manifest physical change in your living/working space. It takes a few minutes a day. Designed for slowing down and consciously pausing to reflect, notice and take actions. It is for creating your dreams and taking actions to make them happen that combines mindfulness and physical action to create your space of ‘success’. Each day, follow one action tip to support the changes you seek!
If you are following these steps in January, imagine taking this time to clear your space and set your intention for the coming year. “Clear the old to make way for the new.” These steps have been written with this concept in mind. This program can be started at any time. The focus is on goal setting for personal change and growth.
It is recommended to integrate these or similar techniques before making any major changes in your current life experience. Life experiences such as getting married, moving to a new city, looking for new employment, changing your personal relationships or health challenges.
In her book, ‘Willpower Instinct’, Dr. Kelly Mcgonigal, PhD., stresses the highest rate of success for changing behaviour that has become automatic is if you pay attention to it first before going cold turkey. She suggests that there is less chance for success with cold turkey resolutions. If you develop a conscious awareness of your behaviour your brain has a better chance of controlling it. Paying attention to it is noticing your triggers and the feelings attached to them. Her tip is that once you become familiar with your behaviour begin to delay whatever action you would like to change for a few minutes to disrupt the habitual behaviour to develop new willpower muscles consciously. She strongly recommends that you know your behaviour, know what you want, and know what the change will give you and the feelings you hope to replace blame, shame and/or guilt. Those practicing getting InTouch communication methods will recognize these suggestions!
Taking this time for your goals over a period of time allows you to develop clarity. It develops focus with a pattern to shift attention mindfully with a repeated pattern each day that guides an action for the intention of devoting time to you and your success. The action is focused on developing a healthy connection with the environment to increase conscious awareness of the influences of environmental stimulus. For example, by clearing clutter, an environment of support makes room for something new to enter. With one change per day, it becomes doable and not overwhelming. Unlike New Year’s Eve resolutions spoken at the last minute and that were not well thought out, and lacked any preparation for success ahead of time. Anywhere from 80 to 92 percent of those making New Year’s Resolutions quit within 8 weeks!
Somatic Goal Integration
This model of guided patterns incorporates Awareness through Feng Shui Principles, Awareness of Feldenkrais from the perspective of Functional Integration of the mental, emotional and physical responses and action and Awareness through Communication from the perspective of core triggers to reactions that shift them into mindful actions.
This goal program suggests a mindfulness action each day for 31 days. It takes two weeks or 14 days to create new habitual behaviours. These patterns are designed as actionable steps for changing the inner filter that receives information through the five senses and processes it to enhance conscious awareness. Imagine creating habits to become consciously aware of the intentions behind your actions?
Fundraiser for building a Culture of Values through educational components and integrating them into educational institutions and organizations.
Remember, a Culture of Values from this perspective is not a religion. It is a model of integrative learning to enhance organized learning in institutions, organizations, parenting and childcare. It is not exclusive to one demographic. Rather is designed for all functioning people of all ages.
This first workshop for the Inside Awareness Center for Somatic Learning will be a fundraiser for building the Culture of Values educational programming to bring focus to the needs for maintaining the early learning patterns and partnering them with the current system that is oriented from the perspectives of adults contained within an institutionalized system. These early learning patterns here are not the typical strategies from an adult perspective of coming up with strategies to implement into a system. It is the actual patterns of integration for developing the inner processing capabilities for a child to develop into a healthy functioning adult in society. Education currently has a focus on memorization, solving puzzles with strategies and debate conversation entrainment. These educational programs will introduce the needs of the students who have retained their dominant sensory input as a form of viewing and processing incoming worldly information, and will strive to balance out those who are dominant analytical thinkers. These learning patterns will focus on developing a healthy inner and outer understanding of behavioural relationships between the elusive inner body responses in functional responses to any stimuli. This will be through transparent guided patterns designed in the same model of early learning in babies who have no input from adults intellectually in learning how to roll over, sit, stand, walk and talk. These abilities are inherent and not transmitted through an adult’s outside influence. These programs will integrate seamlessly into existing programs designed to increase recognition of inner responses for the ability to self-monitor and process reactions. This model has been initiated by a somatic empath who has recognized a gap in social conditioning while in a journey of self-discovery to find clarity and learn how to navigate in a world that has been educated to project outward from a dominant thinking behaviour, instead of having increased clarity and understanding of their inner process for creating healthy habits for good relationships and lifestyles later on. The intent for the educational patterns will be to create a healthier relationship and lifestyles that have less conflict and increased shared values.
Participation & Contribution
Renee Lindstrom, Founder of Inside Awareness Center for Integrative Somatic Learning, is seeking business partners, sponsors and those interested in supporting a model of education that will redefine behaviour through clarity, understanding that retraining the brain along with the subtle inner body responses that are one. At some point in history, the body systems became isolated and separated in people’s minds. The compartmentalization has fractured full function and understanding of the inter-relationships between felt senses, physical transitions, emotional responses, and finally the inner process for creating thoughts. For those who would be inspired to join this project, please express your interest and how or what you would like to contribute. Email is the best form of connection due to personal obligations to long periods of time with the phone turned off.
Contact to express interest or Donate
Let’s build a Culture of Values Educational system together
Link will go to Conscious Learning for Health. Due to Renee’s name not being available she has spelled it Reene.
*Please note that there will be a component of training the trainers and mentorship available in the mix later on that you may have interest in if you’re an existing practitioner. This could be your entry point into this amazing project. If you’re a seasoned veteran, you may be valued as an advisor if you can connect to the potential through your experience. At this point, the essence of the material is at a stage of not be reinvented by new strategies that haven’t been through the apprenticeship of application.
Fire and Water Somatic Goal Integration is in the Awareness through Future Life area of the Inside Awareness Center for Integrative Somatic Learning. Follow the News, Articles and Tips on the webpages for Cultivating Life through Goals. Click picture link:
Feldenkrais®, Feldenkrais Method®, Awareness Through Movement®, and Functional Integration® are registered service marks of the Feldenkrais Guild® of North America. Feldenkrais Method®
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.
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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
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:
Shared with participants at Star of Peace, A Sacred Dance weekend with Fridel Kloke-eibl:
A future is coming,
when not only a few, but most will realize
the value of caring for the inner being,
that has been neglected for too long.
There the bottom line will not be financial
but the health of the soul.
Profits will take the backseat to personal growth
and security will be measured in meaningful relationships
and not in retirement income.
Let us put our value where life takes place
and open up to each other,
to the unfolding of what might be possible
to the spread of healing in body, soul and spirit,
to the miracle of the expansion of god in our life.
There is no substitute for being truly alive.
Let us reject the offers
that expect us to relinquish
what we have known to be true, deep inside.
This is our life,
the only one we have to steer and guide.
Inside Awareness Center for Integrative Somatic Learning 