April 2025 | Dissolve

WritingSomatics

Jan 2

Written By MOSA

NOTE: This was originally published as part of my newsletter in April 2025. Subscribe to my newsletter to receive the next Om Letter direct to your inbox once a month.

A person reaches across still water to use their index finger to touch the water and create perfectly circular ripples.

You might know that before my life as a yoga teacher I worked within the creative industry. To some extent I was born into this field as both my parents were deeply involved in the Basel art world, which is home to the world’s largest art fair while also being a hub for Swiss design.

When I was born my parents were in the process of restoring a house in the middle of town that became the meeting point for their community. Our dinner table was always full, but there was an invisible partition. On one side you’d find my dad with his fine art pals. Usually dressed in black, sometimes smoking, often deep in secretive discussions. The designers (also dressed in black) were more likely to be found mulling around the kitchen while my mum prepared food, or playing hide and seek with me.

A man cups his hands to hold an ice cube in the shape of a hand smaller than his with the palm facing upwards.

As a child this divide was palpable and by the time I was a teenager I firmly sat on the ‘designers’ side of the table. Later in life, I came to realise that this divide wasn’t about job titles, nor was it about ‘high’ versus ‘low’ art, but rather this was a split between ‘thinkers’ and ‘doers.’ At some point along my academic track, I hit a proverbial brick wall and realised that there was a limit to where my thinking mind could take me. Some insights can only be gained by doing the thing you’re trying to better understand.

Part of accepting this shift in how I thought of myself meant reframing the body and its physicality as a significant knowledge-holder. It also meant giving equal weight to practice and theory. In my last two letters I elaborated on the idea of embodiment (read here and here in case you missed it) which became my focus along this new path, but today I’d like to look at the practical side of becoming more embodied.

A woman squats down and cups her hand to scoop up water from a puddle at the beach.

We’ve become quite skilful at tuning into the mind; its thoughts, ideas, and opinions often consume us. In turn, many of us have had little experience in listening to the body or learning to understand its subtle, non-verbal language. We can only learn what the body knows through an act of such deep listening that the boundaries between the body and mind dissolve; a meta-aware state in which we can attend to the feeling body without deconstructing it. I believe that this kind of somatic awareness goes hand in hand with mindfulness.

The mind is likely to resist the process of embodiment as it tends to view itself as being separate from the body, while also believing itself superior. So, for the body to teach the mind, the mind will need to surrender some of its control. And because practice is king, here are some ideas you might try on:

A person half-submerges themselves in the centre of a puddle in a grassy field, their body mimicking the shape of a rock.

Grounding. When you notice your thoughts leading you down a rabbit hole of overthinking, purposefully bring your attention to the way gravity is keeping you grounded. Notice the stability of your feet on the floor, the weight of your thighs on the chair, the imprint of your sit bones on the pillow. Now you are no longer spinning around in your thoughts, instead you are earth-bound.

Sensing. Your body lives in the present tense so when you take your mind for a ride along the wave of sensations that is your breath, when you notice the air shift around you, or you observe the temperature of your skin, your mind learns this simple truth: ‘if I live in the here and now I will not miss my life.’
Intuiting. Reconnecting to our most basic physical sensations eventually leads us towards a better connection with our bodily intuition. While the mind often deceives us, the body is like a radar that picks up the subtlest of signals. Start listening to these signals. Over time you’ll learn to decode them and eventually you might begin to trust them.
Receptivity. The body lives in an ever-present, open and receptive realm. It already knows all the deepest secrets of how to be the most conscious and present version of yourself. When you notice that this version of you already exists within you, you might allow your body to teach the mind how to let go of its self-imposed boundaries.

Two feet sticking out of the ocean's surface with the full moon pictured just above their right big toe.

More than anything I want embodiment to feel attainable in our everyday life. It’s not something that has to happen instantly, or something that only comes alive within the four corners of our yoga mat (although this is a perfectly good starting point). Instead, we can inch our way towards greater awareness at any given moment.

With love,

OM x