Somatic Insight: Steps to Sense Nature's Waves in the Stillness

In the stillness of winter, I can feel my own soul without expectation from outside forces. 

As I walk in the quiet fog, I sense the underpinnings of the universe in the subtle shifts of cold air. I inhale this vast nothingness, let it swirl deep in my lungs, and exhale my own mix of me-ness back as a response. 

This ambling season is a time to nest in the glorious depths of non-doing. Here, I’m not required to bloom. Here, I can feel the sensations and movements of my own being in the slowness of winter's language. Here, my cells are given the chance to dance around the fire of life instead of showing up for anyone or anything. 

The magic of winter lies (surprise surprise) out in nature. Where the crunch of frozen leaves beneath your feet tickles your eardrum, where a drift of snow reaches with goddess arms to the sunlight. Where the body can settle in to hearing it's own rhythms.

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Sensing the Wave in the Stillness

Everything comes in waves… from your breath, to the cycles of the Earth, to the sensations in your body. It all comes in waves. Once you’re tuned into the movement of waves, then you can, with grace, allow for the shift in your own being.

Winter is the perfect time to sense nature’s waves because the movement is so slow. Here’s a winter outdoor somatic practice to help learn your own body and soul’s “winter language.”

Steps to Sense Nature's Waves in the Stillness of Winter

1. Bundle up and head outside to a quiet forest path or frozen meadow.

2. Walk slowly; imagining yourself as part of this connected, hibernating wonderland.

3. Breathe the cool air deep into your lungs with a slow inhale. Pause for a few seconds to let the air be warmed by the furnace of your flowing body system.

4. Exhale and watch the particles of you mix with the natural world around you.

5. Find a place to sit in silence outside.

6. Observe—with your animal ears, your wild eyes, your native soul. 

7. Track the sounds, sights, and sensations you experience. Are birdsongs getting louder and then fading? Is there a tree branch waving in the wind and then stopping? Do you feel a flush of warmth in your heart and then the settling coolness again? These are all waves.

8. Imagine looking at yourself in this place from far above and seeing your body and spirit as part of these little waves. Expand out and see yourself melding into nature’s rhythms, the small ones, the large cycles of existence, and the universe as a whole. 

9. Give thanks for your role in nature’s waves. Your energy is a contribution to the magic of the vast, flowing waves of life. 

   
   

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Be in Relationship With the Waves of Your Nervous System

This winter language exercise teaches us that nature is the key regulator to the waves in you. Your nervous system is wired to be in a state of synchronicity with waves. One obvious way that waves show up in the body is our breathing: each inhale is sympathetic and each exhale is parasympathetic. When you breathe in, the wave is moving up (surge in energy = upregulation). When you breathe out, the wave is moving down (relaxation = downregulation).

Breathing is a wave that happens all day in ultradian rhythms. But, there are so many more waves our bodies experience! Like, menstrual cycles and seasonal changes—i.e. slow winter language vs. the fast growing spree of spring. These waves that happen outside of the 24-hour cycle are called infradian rhythms. 

Our innate animal biointelligence can masterfully ride these waves so we can live a connected, embodied life; however, in our fast-paced culture of doing, it’s all too easy to ignore the guiding rhythm within our bodies. In fact, we’ve become super skillful at telling our body’s signals to hit the road, because we just don’t have time to deal with it!

Somatic work brings us back into our felt sense—to honor these body signals as ways to return to ourselves and live a meaningful life. Through resourcing our own power and intimately knowing our internal wiring, we can yield to nature and our body’s innate wisdom.

A Wave Wants to Fall, Or “Complete”

Just as the natural winter world moves had an upswing and downswing, as our breath waves surge up and then fall down, and as our infradian rhythms slowly rise and then peter out, trauma responses also move in waves. 

If a wild animal experiences trauma, it will fight, flee, or freeze. In fight or flight mode, its animal body discharges the trauma response in the action of movement. In freeze, the animal will shake to melt away the trauma response. It’s very much the same for humans…except, when we freeze, we don’t complete the wave by discharging the energy. Instead, the wave doesn’t complete and the freeze response is trapped in the body. Somatic practices help complete the trauma response wave so the energy of the experience no longer lives in the body. 

If this freeze response energy doesn’t discharge in the downregulation part of a wave, it can cause somatic symptoms in the body. Energy needs a job to do, so it will find a way to ping around in the body’s tissues or organs until the response can complete. 

Once the release can find its way down the wave, the body can return to feeling and living in unity with nature’s powerful flow of regulating cycles. So: you, in tune with your body and spirit, without all the gunk.