What is Somatics? A Body-Based Approach to Meaningful Change
What is Somatics? A Body-Based Approach to Meaningful Change
Somatics: The Basics
Somatics, as articulated by the Strozzi Institute, is a holistic approach that places the body at the center of our capacity for change, learning, and growth. It teaches that transformation isn't something that happens just in the mind—it requires our full presence, including the body. By working with the body's patterns, postures, and sensations, somatics supports deep, sustainable change.
Unlike approaches that prioritize analysis or mindset alone, somatics recognizes that our physical body—the soma—is where our history, values, and habits live. Somatic practices help us uncover and reshape the embodied patterns that guide our choices, often unconsciously. This work invites us to notice how we hold ourselves under pressure, how we move through conflict, and how our bodies respond to opportunity or fear.
Understanding the Soma
In the somatic tradition, "soma" refers to the living body as experienced from within. This concept goes beyond the mechanical view of the body as a collection of parts. The soma includes sensations, emotions, gestures, breath patterns, and even how we use language. It reflects the totality of who we are in any given moment.
The soma is shaped over time—by culture, family, trauma, training, and personal history. It is both personal and social. When we work somatically, we aren't just addressing surface-level behaviors. We're engaging the full complexity of the human experience, starting with the body as the most immediate and honest source of information
Core Components of Somatics
Somatics rests on three foundational components that work together to support meaningful, embodied transformation. These principles are present in every somatic session and shape how change is cultivated over time.
The three core components are:
- Somatic Awareness: This is the ability to sense and interpret what is happening in the body in real time. Through awareness, we begin to see our habits, reactions, and default responses—giving us the power to choose something new.
- Somatic Practices: These are exercises and movements designed to cultivate new embodied patterns. Practices might involve breathwork, centering, grounding, or shaping new postures that align with leadership, care, or boundaries. Over time, these build capacity and choice.
- Somatic Opening: This involves softening or shifting the layers of defense and tension that limit expression. It supports the release of old patterns—often ones shaped by trauma or survival—and creates space for new ways of being to emerge.
Together, these elements offer a pathway toward embodied change—change that lasts because it's practiced through the nervous system and lived experience.
Distinction from Traditional Coaching
Somatic coaching is often confused with somatic therapy, but the two serve distinct purposes. Somatic therapy is a clinical practice performed by licensed mental health professionals who are trained to diagnose and treat psychological disorders. It often focuses on trauma recovery, emotional processing, and therapeutic healing.
Somatic coaching, by contrast, is not therapy. It is a non-clinical, body-based approach to personal and professional development. As somatic coaches, we do not diagnose, treat, or provide therapy—we partner with clients to build awareness, increase resilience, and align their actions with their values using somatic practices. Our work focuses on leadership, growth, clarity, and sustainable change, not clinical outcomes.
Traditional coaching often emphasizes mindset, accountability, and performance. These tools can be helpful, especially when clients are already well-resourced. But they sometimes overlook the underlying nervous system patterns that drive behavior—particularly under stress.
Somatic coaching works from the inside out. Instead of asking clients to will themselves into change, it helps them shift how they are being. That includes how they breathe, stand, speak, and relate to others. This kind of work supports deeper transformation because it meets people where they are: in their bodies, not just their thoughts.
If you've tried mindset coaching and still feel stuck, somatics offers a next layer of insight. It helps you build the internal structure needed to take aligned action without burning out.
Application in Leadership and Personal Development
Somatics has been widely adopted in leadership development, where presence, relational intelligence, and trustworthiness are essential. It helps leaders show up with more authenticity, regulate in the face of stress, and embody their values even when the stakes are high.
In personal growth, somatics supports individuals in recovering from burnout, rebuilding confidence, and navigating transitions. The work often starts small—with a breath, a pause, a shift in posture—but over time, these embodied practices reshape how people move through the world. It helps clients act with integrity, not just intention.
This work is especially relevant for founders, change-makers, and those who lead others. Leadership is relational. And the quality of your leadership begins with the quality of your relationship to yourself.
Experience Somatics
You don’t need to be a yoga expert or trauma scholar to begin. You simply need curiosity, a body, and a desire to lead or live with more presence. Working somatically might start with noticing your breath before a big meeting. Or practicing standing in your full height when setting a boundary. Or staying grounded when your inner critic flares up.
However you use it, Somatics reconnects you to the wisdom you already carry. And from that place, new action becomes possible.