The Sacred Within: An Introduction to Somatic Spirituality
What is somatic spirituality? Soma means “the living body,” and it refers to the practices of being in dialogue with the living body and the body as perceived from within the body. Somatics is also a field of study within bodywork and movement studies that emphasizes internal physical perception and experience and is practiced in bodywork, psychotherapy, dance, or spiritual practices. Somatic spirituality can be synonymous with embodied spirituality which means to manifest, to make visible, tangible, and real. Embodiment is a process of realizing each aspect of our self-feeling and experiencing its connection to the whole. As an unapologetic expression of that entire self, an embodiment can be understood as the antithesis of oppression. I have defined somatic spirituality as a field that acknowledges the wisdom of the individual’s lived experience in the body through inner-knowing and inner- experiencing to bring about healing and transformation. Somatics is not strongly aligned with any spiritual tradition. However, it tends to reject monotheistic systems such as Christianity and favors more non-western approaches to the sacred such as Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism, and various kinds of Shamanism. In her article on spirituality and somatics, William states, “The field of somatics tends to reject monotheistic systems which locate spiritual authority in an external hierarchy, instead of sacralizing the direct perception of an internal “life force.” The question arises, is somatic spirituality for those that identify with the Christian tradition? Does the Christian tradition embrace embodied spirituality? Is there any biblical support for this life flow inside of us?
It’s not surprising that the Christian tradition is known to devalue the body; we have over millennia of help,, starting with the writings of Paul. This pitting of the Spirit against the body is found in the writing of Paul when he says, “For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They conflict with each other so that you are not to do whatever you want.” Since the beginning of the first century, the body has been terrible because it was in the body where lust, illness,, and death happened. The body as bad created a transcendent idea of God that our flesh made us far from God because God was always in some far-off place, in some future timeline. Beyond Paul, we have Western Philosophy and gnostic religious thought that contributed to the disdain of the body. In her book, The Wisdom of Your Body, Dr. Hilary McBride, summarizes the history. She says,
“The soul and the mind are distinct from the body (that’s Plato). The mind is where truth is, but the body has needs, desires, and limitations (that’s Descartes and some translations of the Apostle Paul). Around the same time as Descartes lived, the Christian Reformation happened, emphasizing our mind’s ability to grasp God’s who and what; feminist and liberation theologians have written this put the body back in the straitjacket.”
It’s not hard to put the pieces together of how the Christian tradition has been anti-body. However, several other passages in scripture and theological ideas are in tension with anti-body rhetoric that points to a Divine that cares very deeply for the body. In the gospel of John, there is a story where Jesus is in dialogue with his disciples,, saying that he should go away because when he goes away, he will send a Helper that will be even better. The Helper was the first promise of the Holy Spirit. We learn in 1 Corinthians that this Holy Spirit will live inside the human body. Paul says that the Divine dwells inside the body, the the same as the God of the Old Testament used to reside or show up as Presence in the temple. The Divine is now embodied. God’s Presence in the temple is not the first time we see the Divine embodied. The first time is in Jesus, the incarnation of God in the human story. God sends His son Jesus, as a body, to earth. The Divine embodied in Jesus is now embodied among humanity, and then the Spirit is embodied in humans. The life of the Divine is in us, some other spiritual traditions call this Divine life a life force. It’s also noteworthy that the sacraments of baptism and communion are embodied practices.
God was brought near; this is the immanence of God. McBride defines the immanence of God as “seeing the world as permeated by the spiritual. Instead of the Divine being far away, the Divine is right here, at this moment, moving between us, through us, and within us as bodies.” McBride then quotes scholar Diana Butler Bass, “The biblical narrative is that of a God who comes close, compelled by a burning desire to make heaven on earth and occupy human hearts. The notion of spiritual intimacy is found not only in Abrahamic faith but also in Hinduism, Buddhism, and other indigenous spiritual practices through the human experience “God with us, God in the stars and sunrise, God as the face of their neighbor, God in the act of justice, or God as the wonder of love.”
The hidden benefit of immanence is that the healing work that is needed so desperately in our world is accessible today, right now. There’s not some future healing, but the Kingdom of God has come near now. There are significant consequences within the Western culture of divorcing our bodies from our Spirit. Mother Teresa, the Nobel Peace Prize recipient, observed that society knows, in general, what to do for the hungry, the naked, and the sick. But she sensed far more radical poverty, especially in the West. This healing is not just physical but emotional. It is subtle and more challenging to transform. Food, clothing, and all the bandages in the world can never touch the widespread frustration, anxiety, loneliness, anger, and depression that permeate our culture. Our faith must address our past traumas, burnout, anxiety, and inability to get along.
