Body Sense

Release, reset and revitalise for balance, harmony and flow

Body Sense is a combination of somatic movement and sensing, meditation, breath-work, energy exercises, sound therapy and neural and nervous system regulation.

Somatic sensing taps into your body’s innate intelligence to regulate and heal itself.

Body Sense can help you:

– reduce stress levels
– reduce body tension and pain
– sleep better
– have more energy
– think more clearly and find it easier to make decisions
– develop a stronger immune system
– increase your confidence
– feel more comfortable in your body
– feel sexier
– open more fully to love for yourself and others
– develop emotional awareness and emotional intelligence
– stimulate your lymphatic system to effectively remove wastes, balance fluid levels and transport immune cells for healing

“sensory awareness of how the body responds to our emotional way of being gives us an immediate insight into the nervous system state we are in without the story. Regulating state lies at the heart of wellbeing.

[It is] quicker to regulate state through the body than the mind alone, which is why Somatic practices are really effective at cultivating wellbeing.”
– Yasmin Lambat – Somatic Mindfulness coach and Somatic movement therapist/educator

To create these sessions, I draw on various modalities such as yoga, Qi Gong, Feldenkrais technique and lymphatic drainage and mobility exercises, and then overlay them where they have common elements to form multilayered, multi-activating practices. I then bring in conscious breathwork and the whole session is done to a soundtrack of carefully selected sound healing music.

Relaxing, releasing, playful, healing, uplifting and empowering, Body Sense is designed to:

release physical and emotional tension and blocks within your body and nervous system
allow the flow of positive energy throughout your body
integrate your mind and body and connect all parts of you into wholeness
find stillness and quiet within you
feel safe to express your creativity and energy
tune into your own innate wisdom and vibrance

Explore your body through sensation and touch

as if you are experiencing it for the first time;

embodied in it for the first time;

as if you had no preconceptions

that any part of it is shameful

or not enough or wrong

or too big or too small.

Notice how it moves,

notice how it feels good to move

Where Are Body Sense Sessions Held?

Body Sense Flow Christchurch

Tune into, and turn up, your body’s sensory awareness and inner wisdom to gain release, relaxation, clarity, and vitality.

Wednesdays 7-8pm

Cherish wellbeing centre

52 Bealy Ave (come in through the front gate on Bealy Ave)

Christchurch

$15 per class

For more info or to book in for a session email Janine at
info@janinelattimore.com

Guiding Ethos of Body Sense

There is no judgement here, no right or wrong, only awareness with curiosity which leads to expansion.

Foundational Understandings

Your body knows what it needs to align and heal
Acceptance creates the space necessary for energy and emotions to flow and resolve themselves
All your emotions are valid for you. Emotions are not good or bad, only comfortable or uncomfortable

Guiding Principles

Power, transformation and healing come from:

Being present in the present moment
Slow movement with conscious awareness of how your body feels
Flowing between contraction and expansion
Activating the body in new ways to stimulate neuron firings in both hemispheres of the brain
Facilitating a state of coherence within and between your heart and head (brain)
Awareness of how you are breathing and focusing on diaphragmatic breathing

What is the Nervous System?

Most of what we do in Body Sense sessions is based around facilitating the healthy functioning of your nervous system.

Your nervous system is your body’s key communication system.

It is the highly complex part of your body that coordinates your actions and sensory information by transmitting signals via neurons to and from different parts of your body. It consists of two main parts, the central nervous system (CNS) and the peripheral nervous system (PNS). The CNS consists of the brain and spinal cord. The PNS consists mainly of nerves, which are enclosed bundles of long fibers or axons, that connect the CNS to every other part of the body.

The PNS is divided into three separate subsystems, the somatic, autonomic, and enteric nervous systems. Somatic nerves mediate voluntary movement. The autonomic nervous system is further subdivided into the sympathetic and the parasympathetic nervous systems. The sympathetic nervous system is activated in situations of stress to mobilize energy e.g. for fight or flight, while the parasympathetic nervous system is activated when you are in a relaxed state (otherwise known as rest and digest mode). The enteric nervous system functions to control the gastrointestinal system.

There are neurons throughout your nervous system, and we have a cranial brain, a heart brain, and a gut brain.

In Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) the nervous system is referred to as your mind, and there are seen to be two aspects of your mind, the conscious mind and the sub-conscious/unconscious mind.

Whenever neurological tissue in the nervous system is activated it creates mind.

our nervous system is a bustling highway of sensation [which is] is constantly scanning the environment for both danger and safety. When danger is noted it takes priority. We take in the sensations from our environment in the form of sights, sounds, smells and feelings and then our defense mechanisms kicks in to mitigate threat. We go into fight , and if that’s not a workable option, we switch into flight, and if all else fails we go into freeze or shut down. When we are safe we go into digestion and restoration, this is when our healing capacity kicks in. It’s why we get sick when we go on holiday. These are purely physiological processes based upon what our nervous system reads from it’s environment. The physiological overrides the psychological and does whatever it needs to to ensure our survival. – The Nurture Foundation

Somatic Play for Children

While it is not exactly Body Sense for children, the activities which Bernadette Smith (In2hula) and I produced for the Creative Hoop Play book include similar elements of movement as exploration and play, and they use imagination to encourage an understanding and expression of emotions.

Imaginative and pretend play is an enjoyable and productive way to develop language and social skills, and emotional intelligence. The combination of whole-body movement and use of imagination facilitated by many of the activities in this book, effectively builds new neural connections, and stimulates cognitive and brain development.

Music and movement, and mindful and creative activities such as those described in this book also foster physical and emotional wellbeing.