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:

1. Our lives are increasingly digital: more and more communication, commerce, work, and leisure happen through a screen.

2. 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:

1. 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!

2. 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