Into the Tactile World
Somatic Self Care
My job as a parent is to invite my children into the tactile world.
This idea is to counteract two parallel trends:
Our lives are increasingly digital: more and more communication, commerce, work, and leisure happen through a screen.
Our lives are increasingly scary: fear of disease and violence trigger our nervous systems into contraction.
So I look for opportunities, not just to go outside, but to engage with the physical and natural world. I look for places that have specific smells and textures, somatic signatures if you will.
But it’s not just my 2.5 year old twin boys who benefit from lighting a candle “for Opa” in the Salzburg cathedral, or baking a loaf of bread. I feel the effects as well.
Engaging with the tactile world is somatic self care.
What’s the best thing you’ve smelled this week? Share!
And I’ll leave you with two recommendations:
This episode of the Huberman Lab Podcast discusses the neuroscience of sleep. It even mentions a “deep rest non-sleep protocol” called Yoga Nidra. Hurray!
I’m reading The Body Keeps the Score right now. It’s dense, so I’m moving slowly, but wow: so many “aha moments” about the dance between brain and body.
Talk soon,
Lizzie
My dog's blanket. She recently passed away and it is giving me such comfort to still smell her warmth and love. It's like she is here with me x
The smell of my 5yo grandson's head when getting a "snuffle" from him. I tell him he smells like love.