From Barcelona with Presence: What It Really Means to Be Somatic and Embodied
Slowing Down, Coming Home
I’m flying home tomorrow after a few full, humbling days at the Barcelona Yoga Conference.
It wasn’t all sunsets and stretchy poses — it was real. Deep practice. The kind that wakes something in your cells. That reminds you how much you’ve been doing without actually feeling. That asks you to stop, sit with yourself, and listen.
The theme that kept rising for me — in the classes, in the conversations, and in my own body — was this:
We’ve made “somatic” and “embodied” into catchphrases.
But these aren’t new ideas or spiritual trends.
They’re words to describe something we’ve always lived inside: the body.
What does somatic really mean?
At its root, somatic simply means “of the body.”
Not the theory of the body. Not the image of it. Not your idea of how it should look, or move, or behave.
The felt body. The one you live in. The one you might have been ignoring or fighting against.
Being somatic means starting to listen — to the tension in your jaw, the flutter in your gut, the pull in your chest.
It means feeling what’s already there without rushing to fix it.
This isn’t about turning everything into a project. It’s about learning how to be with yourself — as you are.
It’s not dramatic. It’s not glamorous.
It’s honest. And it’s where real healing begins.
And what about “embodied”?
To be embodied is to actually live in the body.
To stop hovering above it in thought, or performing wellness as a set of tasks.
It’s coming back down — into your skin, your bones, your breath.
It’s feeling your feet on the ground. Noticing when your shoulders creep up, when your breath disappears, when your jaw locks or your spine folds in on itself.
It’s a practice of being with yourself — in discomfort, in stillness, in aliveness.
It doesn’t mean you’re always regulated or flowing through life like some enlightened monk.
It means you’re present.
You’re paying attention.
You’re not abandoning yourself.
Slowing Down: The Gate to Inner Knowing
The only way we can begin to notice what’s happening inside is by slowing down.
When we stop rushing, pushing, or numbing — we start to feel.
And when we feel, we come into contact with something very powerful: interoception.
Interoception is the body’s ability to sense what’s going on internally — your heartbeat, your breathing, your hunger, your tension, your emotions.
It’s how we build self-awareness, how we regulate the nervous system, how we process old pain, and how we begin to trust ourselves again.
It’s not just a concept — it’s measurable. It’s neurological. The vagus nerve plays a big role, helping us shift between stress and safety, between fight-or-flight and rest-and-digest.
It’s also, in many ways, sacred.
Because when you learn to feel what’s going on inside — when you truly listen — you meet a deeper part of yourself.
Call it spirit.
Call it intuition.
Call it soul, self, source — it doesn’t matter what name you give it.
What matters is that you feel it.
The Bridge Between Science and Spirit
This is the intersection where I live and work — where neuroscience and spirituality meet in the human body.
Where we use tools like somatic therapy, SSP, IEMT, breath, movement, and stillness to return.
Not to some perfect version of ourselves — but to the part that’s already whole. Already wise.
Because your body doesn’t lie.
It carries everything you’ve lived.
And it also carries the capacity to soften, repair, and rebuild.
As I leave Barcelona, I’m not bringing home souvenirs.
I’m bringing home a deeper respect for my own body. Because I spent so many years ignoring it or trying to escape it.
And a reminder: you don’t have to keep pushing through.
Sometimes the most radical thing you can do is pause.
Feel your feet.
Take a breath.
And ask yourself what’s really going on inside.
That’s the work. That’s the practice.
And that’s where you’ll find your way back to yourself.
This is exactly why I created Rebalance and Rebuild.
It’s a four-week journey for women who are ready to come back to their bodies — gently, honestly, and with support.
Through nervous system education, somatic practices, breathwork, psychoeducation, but most of all deep rest and intention through Yoga Nidra, we build interoception — the ability to truly feel what’s going on inside.
Not in theory. In real time. In your real body.
We learn how to listen to the cues, to recognise what safety feels like, and to rebuild a relationship with the body that’s based on trust — not fear or force.
This work isn’t about fixing yourself. It’s about remembering what your body already knows.
How to settle. How to feel. How to come home.
If that speaks to you, you’ll find the details [here] — or reach out if you want to talk it through.
You don’t have to do it all alone.
[FOLLOW MY JOURNEY ON INSTAGRAM]
