Life is Sensational with Jupiter in Taurus
Six simple ways to bring expansive Taurean medicine to the realm of the soma.
As I prepare to hit publish on this post, we are on the cusp of the summer solstice in the North.
The Sun is at the 29th degree of Gemini, about to dive into zero degrees of Cancer.
How was Gemini Season for you?
Here’s my elemental mood board for the mutable air of Gemini (squeezing it in to the season while I still can!):
Gemini Season for me, bubbled and popped with lots of new ideas, insights, and rabbit holes - so many that it has taken me three weeks to finish this post I began writing at the end of May.
However, the primary focus of this post is Jupiter in Taurus; a transit that continues until the spring of 2024! Therefore, its relevance has greater longevity.
On Sunday, May 28th, Saturn squared the Sun and a gorgeous warm weekend in my region was suddenly interrupted by a devastating out-of-control wild fire.
This was a picture I took from my driveway just shortly after learning that no, those were not storm clouds moving in - it was smoke:
In astrology, the purpose of the Sun is to shine, while Saturn’s function is to “block” or inhibit.
For me, this image seemed startlingly symbolic of Saturn attempting to block the Sun.
I also heard this symbolism reflected in frequent discussion around efforts to contain (Saturn) the blaze (Sun) that was described as out of control and “wind-driven” (Sun in Gemini).
Wildfires occur during numerous astrological configurations, but on this particular weekend, I saw its cosmic reflection in the Sun and Saturn.
Tragically, over 150 homes were lost in less then 24 hours, but thankfully there was no loss of human life.
My nervous system was certainly vicariously experiencing the urgency of evacuation in the face of imminent threat while listening to other people’s heartbreaking stories - those who had to flee their homes just 10 - 25 kilometers away.
We were never seriously at risk of needing to evacuate in the area where I live. Nevertheless, I leaned into Saturn by printing off some checklists of what should be packed in a grab-and-go bag just in case. I reflected on what I would consider most worth saving if my personal possessions were at risk.
Even if I never have to follow through on this planning, Saturn is reminding me that it is good to be prepared for emergencies and know what your priorities are.
As I’ve written about a few times, I recently renovated my bedroom. An act that felt radical for me after years of avoiding investing in my physical spaces. This avoidance, I believe, was a trauma response.
It’s a risk, to invest in material reality. It’s risky to build and grow things with perishable materials in a harsh unpredictable world. Years of effort, time and money can be destroyed in an instant. Saturn reminds us of mortality, transience, and the limits of earthly realities.
Let’s face it, it’s risky to be human. We may also perish along with our material things… well, actually we will die at some point. Guaranteed. Saturn reminds us of this too.
I’ve had conversations recently about how over-investing in our physical reality (e.g., bodily health, clothing, money, resources, living spaces…) and getting overly attached, as well as under-investing (i.e. being very detached, dissociated, not giving a fuck about physical reality) are both coping strategies that arguably have long-term consequences.
I think the sweet spot is somewhere in between these two extremes. Saturn would probably agree.
Loving and respecting material reality while holding it with an open hand is to be in right relationship with the earth.
Saturn in Pisces continues to maintain a square to my natal Moon in Gemini (a signifier of home), and as someone who has had long-term fears about house fires, the feeling of Saturnian constriction on my moon was palpable that week.
The Moon is not only a signifier of “home,” but it is also a reflection of how we emotionally process and how we seek an internal sense of safety.
With my Moon in Gemini, my internal emotional processing unit typically operates on this assumption:
If I collect ALL the data, and KNOW all the information, and COMMUNICATE this knowledge with others, I will be emotionally and physically SAFE.
Right? Right.
Saturn also opposes my Moon natally so this ups the ante: I need to know all the things, OR ELSE…
My mom tells me that when I was a baby, as long as I had a literal (protective, Saturnian) wall of books surrounding me in my crib, I was peaceful and content.
My biggest tantrums and breakdowns would be rooted in the frustrated cry: “I DON’T KNOW THE WORDS!!!”
My compulsive book collecting isn’t the worst emotional management tool one could have, but I could do without my frenzied information addiction during a crisis, which, in the age of social media, exacerbates this tendency X a million.
So of course during this wildfire crisis, I was glued to every online news source.
Finally, after about five jarring and tense days of Nova Scotian cell phones blaring multiple times a day, notifying us of yet another fire outbreak, the rains arrived.
Multiple days of sweet sweet rain.
(unfortunately this is not the case in other parts of Canada that are still burning, sending forth clouds of toxic wildfire smoke throughout the continent)
Saturn-Moon combo people often need to (and/or are compelled to) invest a lot of “work” into learning how to navigate the emotional realm. While the internal emotional processing center may feel some what “underdeveloped” early in life, I don’t begrudge Saturn for its opposition to my tender Moon, because this placement has propelled me forward toward some deeply fulfilling study and exploration of lunar realms.
A Gemini Moon is naturally inclined to talk out (or write out) its emotional issues, and indeed, I’ve frequently dumped a monologue or rant on a poor unsuspecting person in an effort to empty myself of the distressing sensations and feelings through words, and find the relief that was eluding me. Alternatively, I’ve dumped a bazillion words onto the pages of journals, emails, and blogs over the years in an attempt to process my feelings.
My other strategy is to research everything I can about an emotional state or situation that seems to be emerging. For example, I seem to be experiencing depression? Ok, time to download every podcast, watch every YouTube video, and read every book or blog post on the topic of depression.
While these approaches to my emotional life have often been enormously helpful at times, heeding the magnetic call of my natal North Node in Taurus has brought this process into better balance.
Jupiter, Uranus, & the North Node in Taurus
We currently have a significant line up of cosmic players in Taurus. There is a lot - and has been a lot - happening in the zodiac sign of fixed earth. It certainly is a sign to pay close attention to in your birth chart since there surely has been a great deal of change and personal growth occurring in that area of life for you.
As I’ve previously mentioned, I completed my Somatic Experiencing (SE) Advanced module as Mercury was stationing direct in Taurus, and Jupiter was entering Taurus (May 15th/16th, 2023).
Embarking on this Somatic Experiencing training journey has been a big part of my Taurean story of growth and change beginning in 2019.
With these two forward-oriented shifts occurring in the sign of body-focused Taurus as I completed the module, I felt a sense of cosmic blessing land in my life, and the encouragement to keep going deeper in this work.
I want to share six simple ways I try to consistently apply a Taurean, somatically-focused approach to navigating the lunar realm (i.e., the feeling-oriented, emotional and subconscious realm) in my daily life.
Perhaps there will be something in here that is useful for you as Jupiter invites us all into greater present-moment awareness and deeper sensate, somatic experiences throughout the next year.
Jupiter is traveling through Taurus from May 16, 2023 until May 25th, 2024.
Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system, offers opportunities to grow, stretch and expand. While in Taurus for twelve months, Jupiter may be encouraging some of us to grow, stretch and expand our capacity to truly be with, be in, our bodies and all the mysteries they hold.
Together in this sign with Uranus, there is great potential for experiencing transformative liberation through deepening our relationship to our body and the physical world we inhabit.
P.S. I still have a Gemini Moon! Which I love even if it drives me up the wall sometimes! But I often feel like I do Gemini in excess to compensate for being deficient in the earth element. Leaning into Taurus allows me to found a counter balance; an earthy anchor if you will. Also, by WRITING in detail about applying a somatically-focused approach to emotions, I’m combining some Gemini with some Taurus.
[Note: due to the length of this essay it may be cut off by your email provider. Click here to read the full post on Substack.]
Step #1 /6: slowing down
My previous SE facilitator used to talk very slowly in front of the class. Her way of communicating was notably slow, with long pauses.
Some people found this very irritating, especially if their nervous systems were more familiar with the sympathetic charge that accompanies speed.
I grew accustomed to it over time. I began to really appreciate her slow way of talking as a very effective strategy of sloooowing down the energy in the room, slowing down nervous systems, and making more space for us to be with the present moment.
SE is a somatic trauma resolution tool. If traumatic wounding is created by experiences that are “too fast, too much, too soon” for the body to fully process, digest and metabolize, then slowing down to allow for what wanted to happen (or be felt, witnessed, supported) in that moment but was not able to, is healing.
I began to try it myself. I noticed that when I intentionally slowed down my rate of talking, I felt my body settle - and typically other people around me would begin to match my speed and relax a bit as well.
Jupiter makes more of something. Therefore, honestly, sometimes a Jupiter transit can feel like “too fast, too much, too soon,” because Jupiter is a lot. However, in the sign of Taurus, Jupiter invites us into more slowness and more present moment spaciousness.
What a beautiful opportunity for healing!
And yet! Just like some of the other participants in the training were feeling irritated and on edge because of the facilitator’s slow way of talking, sometimes slowing down can be intensely confronting and triggering.
It is incredibly common to be super busy, craving a vacation, and then the second you clear your plate to allow for rest and relaxation, boom! Anxiety sky rockets or depression-like symptoms envelop you. This can be a very confusing experience, but if this sounds like you, you are in very good company.
Just this past week I came across two Instagram posts that spoke directly to this phenomenon: “Going slow takes time”, by @dianamayyoga, and this post by @drscottlyons.
[click on the links above to read more if the embedded IG posts do not appear below]
“When we begin to slow down we actually become more aware. We are faced with our own thoughts, feelings, sensation, beliefs… It ain’t always pretty…
Yet it is in slowness where we have time, space, and support to be with our full experience. To create lasting change.” ~ Diana
“Slowing down for some feels dangerous, triggering a deep sense that they would be unprepared and vulnerable for the next potential threat… One of the signs of unprocessed trauma is that your body still responds to a real or imagined threat even when the stressors are no longer there. Hyper-vigilance is born out of the anticipation that something will happen again, and we need to be prepared; in this way, hyper-vigilance, tracking what could and will go wrong, becomes a form of preservation…
Asking someone to slow down is asking someone to give up their sense of preservation.” ~Dr. Scott Lyons
At the beginning of this post I described being on edge as nearby wildfires consumed homes and evaded containment. Was I able to hold to my daily commitment to slow down and spend intentional time in the present moment with my body?
No.
I was hyper-vigilant, printing off evacuation checklists and responding like any normal person would when faced with an urgent, fast-moving, erratic situation. My sympathetic nervous system was activated for valid reasons and was at high speed in order to protect me. Sure my response to the fires may have been exacerbated by subconscious memories of ancestors losing their homes to fire that continues to live on in my cells (a hypothesis I hold), but nevertheless it was a legitimately dangerous situation in the present moment.
Attempting to slow down that week felt vulnerable and dangerous to my system. Instead, I tried to take breaks from my phone and channel that energy through indoor exercise and cleaning the house.
The other thing that I find challenging about intentionally slowing down, is that it increases the risk that I will move from sympathetic nervous system activation (SNS - ready to flee or fight), to a dorsal vagal state (DVC - freezing, collapsing, shutting down).
The dorsal vagal state is one of energy conservation in contrast to the sympathetic nervous system state which is one of energy mobilization.
Most of the time I want to go UP the ladder toward a calm ventral vagal state, but this is no guarantee!
The up-and-down path between SNS and DVC is a very familiar well-worn neural groove in my system as it is for many of us who frequently flip flop between SNS (ahhh!! so stressed!) and DVC (i’m so exhausted and overwhelmed I can’t get out of bed) without ever really landing in the present moment with capacity to truly hang out there in a ventral vagal state.
Since dorsal vagal and ventral vagal are both slow states of being that exist in contrast to the speedy, wired, and fired-up sympathetic nervous system state, where will I land if I invest intentional effort into pressing down on my brakes? In ventral vagal, I would hope…
Back to the wildfire example: am I more prepared in a state of high energy, ready to grab my possessions and run (SNS)? Or am I better off curled up on the couch scrolling my phone unable to move and feeling hopeless (DVC)?
Option A is the option that appears to better support survival in this particular situation, and thus it would be my preference when faced with a threat that requires a quick response, but I don’t always have control over my body’s nervous system choices.
A SNS state may feel physically uncomfortable (e.g., tense muscles, faster heart rate, poor concentration and sleep), but at least in this state I feel like my body is ready to mobilize and respond. Therefore, if I am already in an SNS state, trying to intentionally slow down may seem like too big a risk to my survival physiology since I may end up going down the ladder instead of up (see image above).
After the wildfire threat had passed, I was better able to use different strategies to slow down and orient to the present moment in ways that felt safe.
However, for so many of us living in this wild world, our bodies can be neurocepting danger everywhere, all the time, whether we are consciously aware of this or not (see Dr. Scott Lyon’s reference to hyper-vigilance above).
Consequently, slowing down may always feel too risky.
My ongoing Jupiter in Taurus work is to build capacity to slow-down and shift into a calm and centered ventral vagal state while cultivating trust in myself that I can be present with the emotions and sensations that arise when I slow down - without numbing out and collapsing into a DVC shut-down state.
Another other trust-building question for the body is: if I allow my body to return to a calm ventral vagal baseline, will I still be ready and able to shift quickly into a protective SNS state if I am suddenly faced with a threat that demands my quick response (to flee or fight)?
If my body-mind can trust the answer is YES, then slowing down will be much easier.
Trusting that the answer is yes, I can be present with emotions and sensations that arise when I slow down, and yes, I can stay in a ventral vagal state without collapsing into a dorsal vagal state, and yes, my body will still be able to shift into SNS if it needs to protect itself, takes time!
Building trust, in general, takes time. And the body is no exception.
This is why both Diana and Scott Lyons in their posts above, recommending going slow, with going slow. Begin with stepping into slowness for brief moments - especially if a SNS state is your nervous system’s home away from home!
As a side note, if a DVC nervous system state is someone’s consistent home away from home (e.g., someone who struggles with chronic, immobilizing depression), then moving up the polyvagal nervous system ladder by engaging in any activity with a faster speed - including exercising and experiences of excitement - can feel threatening to their body. Polyvagal theory asserts that people in a DVC state need to move up through some SNS activation on the nervous system ladder, in order to reach ventral vagal.
Therefore, people can have very different emotional, cognitive and somatic relationships to “slowing down.”
With Jupiter in Taurus, it could be a good time to reflect on what “slowing down” means for you!
Step #2 /6: orienting to the environment and the present moment
If we’ve managed to press pause and slow-down, then what? What do we do now?
How do we anchor into the present moment?
Developing a mindfulness practice is one answer that has become popular in recent years. Mindfulness is described as a “practice of gently focusing your awareness on the present moment over and over again.”
This can be quite difficult since one Harvard study indicated that “people spend 46.9 percent of their waking hours thinking about something other than what they’re doing, and this mind-wandering typically makes them unhappy.”
Healthline describes mindfulness practices as “a way to gently retrain the mind to settle into the present moment. It’s kind of like becoming a parent to your mind rather than letting it control you.”
Taurus is the sign with the most affinity to the somatic experience of being in the present moment. With Jupiter now in Taurus, we have extra support for retraining the mind to be with the present moment, if we so wish to.
Mindfulness is a big umbrella category that can often include more structured practices like types of meditation and sensory body scans, for example.
One very simple mindfulness practice that we do a lot of in Somatic Experiencing, is orienting to our physical environments.
After being surrounded by the concept of orienting via different SE trainings, literature resources and podcasts, I went on a linguistic search to find out more about this word (which is pronounced as “orient” in the US, and “orientate” in the UK).
The root origin of orient is the Latin word oriens, which means “rising” and “east”, referring to the rising sun.
Orient has also been used historically as a noun to refer to Asian countries in the East: i.e., the Orient. The outdated antonym to the orient is the Occident, meaning western countries. This is rooted in the Latin word occidens, which refers to the West; the place where the sun sets.
Technically then, to orient yourself means to align yourself with the East and the rising sun, but it now means generally “to discover your position in relation to what is around you…”
I really love this definition from the Cambridge Dictionary. I think relationally, so I appreciate this reference to being in relationship (with what is around you).
Therefore, when we speak of someone’s sexual orientation, we are talking about the way they have discovered their position or alignment in relation to other people.
When we speak of job orientation, we are referring to a process in which people discover their position, their role, in relation to the work environment around them.
When we speak of disorientation, we are speaking of an experience where there is…
Loss of one's sense of direction, position, or relationship with one's surroundings.
Mental confusion or impaired awareness, especially regarding place, time, or personal identity. (source)
So if disorientation is an experience where we lose relationship to the present moment and space/time/self (a common experience with Pisces and Neptune), then to orient is to come into relationship with the present moment and your environment.
Have you ever witnessed someone (or yourself) being super stressed and panicky about something (or perhaps in a depressed fog), and then after they are given enough support to allow their nervous system to settle, suddenly their perspective widens and they take notice of their surroundings?
They might say, “Oh my goodness, I just noticed you dyed your hair purple!”
Or: “Oh wow, I didn’t even notice there are huge windows behind you.”
Or: “Has that loud music been playing this whole time? I only just noticed it.”
Nervous system dysregulation tends to make people loose relationship with the present moment and their surroundings. They can be completely unaware of otherwise very obvious changes around them. This can potentially be dangerous, like in situations where someone is driving a car.
When working with Somatic Experiencing it is a big clue that someone’s nervous system is settling and recalibrating when they have capacity to notice and comment on details in their environment.
SE practitioners or other somatically-trained therapists often intentionally decorate their office spaces with interesting pictures and objects in order to support a person’s orientation process. They may frequently make small changes to their decor or use sensory-based therapeutic objects to offer prompts and portals for people trying to come into relationship with the present moment and their environment.
On a similar note, have you heard of the classic 5-4-3-2-1 grounding technique for stopping panic attacks?
It looks like this:
Find and focus on 5 things you can see
Find and focus on 4 things you can touch
Find and focus on 3 things you can hear
Find and focus on 2 things you can smell
Find and focus on 1 thing you can taste
Taurus is the sign of physical senses.
Although Jupiter is into doing a lot of the things pertaining to the sign he is traveling through, personally I think these instructions are a bit too much! If I’m having a panic attack, working through a list like this and trying to remember each instruction for all five senses is the last thing I’m going to want to do!
That said, people differ in their sensory preferences (and the senses they have access to), and it’s worth experimenting with which sensory channel most effectively opens up a portal to come back into the present moment, for you.
Whatever your preferred sensory channel is, turning up the volume on it and focusing intently (but gently) on the incoming nuances and details, will likely strengthen your present moment relationship more so than trying to focus on every single sensory system all at once.
Two other sensory systems include proprioception and vestibular processing. These senses are engaged through movement and through interacting with the environment with your whole body (e.g., sitting, standing, stretching, swinging, walking…).
You can make this orientation process even more grounding and Taurean if you have the opportunity to do it in nature! In this context you might orient by finding East and West and locating the position of the sun in the sky, by identifying some of the plants or living creatures that surround you, or by listening to the trees sway in the wind.
Orienting to the Moon was one of the most healing and grounding things I did for myself each night during an extremely difficult chapter in life. Tracking the Moon’s ever-changing position and phase was both an anchor to the present moment for me, and a symbol of hope for the future.
Since the root of the word orient refers to the eastern horizon, another way to orient to the present moment would be to check what zodiac sign is currently rising in the east, and then to turn and face that direction while greeting that energy as you take in your physical environment. You will be looking at the region of the 12th house when you do so!
All of these practices may seem incredibly simple, and maybe even boring to consider. And in a way, they are.
Taurus is all about simplicity and basic grounding practices that are repeated over and over again in ways that give us comfort and pleasure. I think that key to understanding this sign, is to not underestimate the power and magic of simplicity.
Simplifying complexity is one of Taurus’ superpowers. It’s also why the Universe placed Taurus opposite Scorpio; to balance out the intricate, layered webs of complexity that fixed water contains.
I’ve been discussing orienting as an intentional mindfulness practice, but orienting is also something that human beings are continuously doing on an automatic level.
As soon as our brains have registered that something new has entered our environment, or something has shifted or changed state around us, we (typically) automatically engage in an orientation process.
Somatic Experiencing describes this process as occurring in the following order (referred to as the threat response cycle):
Preparatory orienting: When there is novelty in the environment, we redirect our attention and take note. Our bodies use neuroception to automatically assess whether this new stimulus is a threat or not.
And if our bodies indeed, sense some kind threat (including social and emotional threats), steps 2-5 may take place…
Startle response: This can happen simultaneously with preparatory orienting, where a sense of threat registers in our body and begins to mobilize our nervous system and hormonal resources (e.g., adrenalin) to respond.
Defensive orienting response: If the potential for threat continues to be assessed by our bodies as being high, we now begin to orient to the source of the threat in a more focused way to obtain a more detailed assessment on what we need to do to protect ourself.
Specific defenses: This is when some expression of fight, flight, fawn or freeze may occur, although they may not be as literal as we imagine them to be.
For example, getting extremely busy all of a sudden and frantically cleaning up, can be an expression of a flight response. Shifting our attention away from our environment, slumping in our chair and becoming completely absorbed in phone scrolling, could be an expression of a freeze response.
Completion: If the threat we perceived does not materialize, (ideally) our physiology returns to its resting state. If the threat does materialize, then we engage in one of the specific defenses described above - which (ideally) is successfully completed and leads to the discharge of high activation energy, thus allowing our physiology to now naturally return to equilibrium; its resting state.
Exploratory orienting response: In contrast to the preparatory orienting we engage in when there is something new in our environment that we need to assess, the exploratory orienting response is described as “relaxed alertness.” We are open and curious about our internal and external environment without anticipating threats, and we are able to collect information through our sensory systems while existing in the ventral vagal state with a low level of physical activation.
Unfortunately, during extremely stressful events, this threat response cycle can be interrupted before it arrives at #5 or #6. The point at which the threat response cycle is interrupted is the same point where healing may be required at a later date in order to restore a person’s natural ability to complete the full cycle and return to a healthy resting state.
Oftentimes in trauma work the focus is on completing fight/flight/freeze defensive responses that were were unable to successfully resolve at the time of the high stress event(s).
However, the “interruption” may have arrived while a person was still in the initial stage of preparatory or defensive orienting! A classic example of this is a car accident that happens so quickly we don’t have time to fully orient to what is happening.
All this is to say, in the same way that “slowing down” can be really challenging for some people… something as simple as “orienting to the present moment and your environment” may actually be pretty difficult for many of us if we have an unresolved, extremely stressful past experience that interrupted us at the “orienting” stage.
Orienting practices in this case, could actually increase nervous system dysregulation and take a person further away from the present moment!
Living with the imprint of an interrupted orienting response can also create some mystifying, chronic balance and spatial awareness issues.
If this happens to resonate for you, you may want to consider working with a Somatic Experiencing practitioner to restore your capacity for a healthy orienting response.
If you want to establish an orienting practice on your own, you could narrow your focus. Instead of coming into relationship with the present moment through orienting to the expanse of space around you, you may find it easier to work your way toward present moment awareness by mindfully looking at some beautiful photos in a picture book, taking in the tactile details of a single object you are holding, or paying exquisite attention to the taste of some delicious food or beverage you are consuming.
Unfortunately many of us may find ourselves continually orienting to threat, whether because we are living with unresolved past experiences, or because our current situation is legitimately threatening.
Overtime, as we intentionally practice orienting to sources of okayness, safety, and pleasure in our environments, our relationship to the present moment will be strengthened, and our bodies will be grateful.
Step #3/6: orienting to the felt sense
My guiding word for 2023 is Courage, with a focus on cultivating the courage to commit (to my goals, to making my dreams manifest), and cultivating the courage to nonjudgmentally be present with all my emergent felt senses and emotions on a daily basis.
Tending to the second part of this goal involves showing up for my body for at least 15 minutes, with no agenda and no structure.
I can move with my impulses, but I’m intentionally not filling this time with exercise, yoga, meditation, breathwork, or any other body-based practice. These can all be very beneficial and helpful practices, but they can also be a distraction - a way of “managing” intense sensations in the body without truly giving them the space and time to be deeply felt, and deeply alchemized.
I’m trying to just show up to witness, to offer myself compassion, and to build a better relationship with the miraculous body I inhabit.
Not gonna lie, it’s been hard to do this!
It most definitely has taken a Jupiter-in-Taurus level of courage.
But on the days when I’m able to truly be with intense sensation and witness these sensations/emotions transform with my (self)compassionate presence, I’m left with a sense of awe that makes the effort to show up for myself, well worth it.
One of the foundational practices of Somatic Experiencing is to first orient to the external environment (as discussed), and then to orient to the internal environment. This back-and-forth process is then repeated as many times as necessary.
Generally speaking, for many people, orienting to the external environment will be more stabilizing than orienting to the internal environment. Coming into relationship with the present moment and the relative safety of the external environment, establishes a foundation for going inward toward the felt senses - a process that be activating and disorienting, yet ultimately healing when done with care.
Orienting first toward sources of okayness, safety and pleasure in our environments is a way of resourcing ourselves for the more challenging work of orienting to our internal environment.
But what exactly are we looking for when we shift our attention inward? And why is it a worthwhile thing to do?
In SE, as with many somatically-based therapeutic modalities, we are paying attention to the felt sense.
Not emotions per se, but the sensations beneath the emotions (or beneath the thought, the movement, the behavior, the mental image, or the impulse…).
What we call emotions are typically experienced as a network of various internal sensations that we attach to a story with our minds.
If this sounds a bit weird, there is research to support it.
For example, a 2013 study used a body sensation mapping tool with over 700 participants in five different experiments. The study report finishes with the following conclusion:
“We conclude that emotional feelings are associated with discrete, yet partially overlapping maps of bodily sensations, which could be at the core of the emotional experience. These results thus support models assuming that somatosensation and embodiment play critical roles in emotional processing.” ~Lauri Nummenmaa, Enrico Glerean, Riitta Hari, & Jari K. Hietanen
The visual results of their body sensation mapping experiments looked like this:
Okay, so it looks like when people are angry they have a lot of activation in their head and arms, and when people are experiencing depression, they have less sensory activation in their limbs.
This is a helpful visual, but the question remains, what exactly is the felt sense?
Because the felt sense is preverbal, it doesn’t translate easily to language, nor does it lend itself to concrete definitions.
Recently I’ve begun researching the roots of Somatic Experiencing because I think it’s important to know the lineages of the modalities I’m working with. Earlier this year I was fascinated to discover that Eugene Gendlin, a philosopher and the creator of Focusing, had a significant influence on Peter Levine and the development of Somatic Experiencing® in the 1970s.
In fact, it was Gendlin who coined the phrase, “the felt sense”, which has served as a bedrock concept in numerous somatic approaches to psychotherapy.
Peter directly gives Gendlin credit here (or see video below) when asked: What is the felt sense?
I also came across a wonderful and fascinating tribute to Eugene Gendlin, written by his student Ann Weiser Cornell, which clearly documents the history of Gendlin’s work. Her tribute does a pretty good job describing the “felt sense.”
If you, as a reader, have any interest in somatic psychotherapy and/or the Taurean concept of the felt sense, I think her tribute is worth reading. Here is an excerpt:
“One of the most important and influential figures in somatic psychology is… a philosopher. Odd? Actually not. Because the more we learn about Eugene Gendlin’s revolutionary philosophy of the body, the more it makes sense that he is known as one of the originators of modern bodyoriented psychotherapy.
Gendlin’s influence is well-documented. In October 2010, when Peter Levine received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the U.S. Association for Body Psychotherapy, he recommended Gene Gendlin from the stage to be the next recipient of the award, citing Gendlin’s seminal contributions to his work, Somatic Experiencing.
Gendlin’s Focusing was incorporated by Ron Kurtz into his Hakomi Method (1997), and both SE and Hakomi led to Sensorimotor Therapy (Ogden et al, 2006). Bessel van der Kolk (in his foreward to Ogden et al, 2006) lists Gendlin’s Focusing as one of the primary ways to help traumatized individuals feel safe with feelings and sensations.
In fact, anyone working somatically today owes a debt to Gendlin’s paradigm-shifting discovery of the bodily “felt sense” as a source of meaning and change.
In 1952, as a philosophy graduate student at the University of Chicago, young Gene joined Carl Rogers’ psychotherapy training program and began a collaboration with Rogers that ultimately transformed both of them.
What Gendlin brought to Rogers in the psychology department was a question he had been wrestling with in the philosophy department: how an experience that comes before words becomes an idea framed in words. We know more than we can say . . . and the place where we know it seems to be, remarkably, the body.
Gendlin and Rogers collaborated (along with others) on important early research on psychotherapy outcomes. The research showed that clients who “freshly referred to ongoing felt experiencing” during the therapy sessions tended to have significantly more positive therapy outcomes than clients who merely talked about their problems or their emotions. The raters, listening to the tapes, could tell from how the clients spoke – “Uh . . . I’m not sure how to say this . . . It’s right here . . . It’s not exactly anger . . . ” – that they were in touch with something immediate, real, and hard to describe. Furthermore, these clients often gestured towards their bodies when saying things like “it’s right here.” The key to successful psychotherapy outcomes was in the body.
Focusing was Gendlin’s name for what these clients were doing naturally, and also the name he gave to the method of facilitating this process in anyone. He gave the name “felt sense” to the bodily experience of something immediately felt and hard to describe.
For Gendlin, a felt sense is actually the organism forming its next step in the situation the person is living in.
A felt sense is like a doorway that opens in the wall of frozen structure. When a felt sense forms there is always some kind of pausing, some kind of turning toward “something.” What we then find may be murky, unclear, vague, and not feel like much – but the fact that it formed is already the beginning of our life moving forward in new and fresh ways.
So what Gendlin found in his research with the famous psychologist Carl Rogers, was that it wasn’t the therapeutic modality practiced, nor the skill of the therapist or the quality of the rapport between therapist and client, but it was “the ability to connect with and speak from a nonconceptual, bodily felt experience of the issues that were troubling them” that was the key variable among clients who were successful with reaching their therapeutic goals (David Rome, 2014).
Whoa.
This is not to say that talking about emotions or problems in your life is ineffective. I mean, the folks who Gendlin studied in the 1950s/1960s were presumably doing “talk therapy”, not somatically-focused therapy. He simply observed that those who had greater therapeutic success seemed to be independently and spontaneously connecting with their felt sense - without necessarily being prompted to do so by the therapist.
Therapeutic dialogue can increase one’s insight into issues, assist with meaning-making, offer the healing experience of having your story be heard, and it can help with navigating relationships with others and pressing situations that need solutions (as a few examples).
However, talking about feelings is certainly not the same as actually feeling them. We can get stuck circling around and around the same issues in life if we are so good at intellectualizing our feelings that we never leave the cognitive realm.
Just even the act of bringing your curious and open attention to a somatic sensation underlying an emotion or a life situation, can begin to change your experience and allow some metabolization or alchemy to occur.
Working with the felt sense, for most people these days, is a skill that needs consistent practice in order to develop. In certain places in the world (and at certain points in history), working with the felt sense may be as natural as breathing and there is no need to “learn somatics.”
SE practitioner Veronica Rottman’s Instagram posts @WakingWomb, have been resonating deeply for me lately. Here’s another one:
Unfortunately, these days, many of us live “from the neck up” so to speak. We need to consciously, intentionally, relearn how to relate to the body and how to understand its preverbal language.
Conversation in an SE session can sound a little strange to someone unaccustomed to working with the felt sense. For example:
There is this kind of…. pressure on my chest… like there are weights on me… now, I’m getting an image of an elephant sitting on me… and feeling like I can’t move… but when I shift my attention to my feet… hey! I notice there is this tingly sensation… kind of like pins and needles… no, maybe more like electricity… it’s now moving out to my toes like little squirts… like darts… zaps… I think my toes want to move??
Translating the felt sense into words is an awkward process, and that’s okay. When we rush to describe and label the felt sense with more definitive language, we often miss its subtleties.
David Rome, author of Your Body Knows the Answer: Using Your Felt Sense to Solve Problems, Effect Change, and Liberate Creativity, notes that when clients are trying to describe the felt sense, “instead of speaking in fully formed, logically consistent sentences, the […] clients expressed themselves in a more tentative, uncertain, groping manner.”
When we are working with the felt sense we are working with a preverbal (or nonverbal) language, and we are also working with the subconscious. The body is a doorway, a portal to the subconscious.
Any attempt to describe the felt sense is going to be incomplete - yet the very act of combining deep listening with a translation attempt, helps bridge the gap between our conscious minds and the subconscious realm that lives in our soma.
David Rome describes this process through a Focusing lens, as such:
“Felt senses are unclear somatic sensations that for the most part go unnoticed, yet they are not wholly unconscious. They can be “found” by bringing a special quality of gentle mindfulness to the zone of subtle bodily experiencing in which they form. When attended to with friendly but dispassionate attention, felt senses that start out vague and indescribable can show up with greater clarity and presence. A felt sense can come alive and offer what it already knows about life situations that you - the conscious, conceptualizing you - don’t yet know.
Entering into a process of inquiry with the felt sense invites spontaneous flashes of intuitive insight that generate novel perceptions and understandings, leading to fresh solutions to life’s challenges.” ~ David Rome
Although I wouldn’t recommend listening to your body while reading a list of adjectives, sometimes reviewing sensation words (like those included on this hand-out) can ease the journey toward developing your own sensation-based vocabulary.
As the Art of Focusing recommends, sometimes we have to “try on” a descriptive word to see if it fits the felt sense. Is there resonance? We’ll only know by listening deeply. If there is not resonance, we can try another word.
Listening and tracking the felt sense is a messier and less defined process in contrast to identifying and labelling emotions like fear, shame, anger, happiness, etc.
A probing felt sense question when presented with an emotion like anger, would sound something like:
“Where does this anger show up in your body? How do you know you are angry? What sensations tell you, you are angry? When you bring your attention to that angry sensation, does it have a shape? A color? A temperature? Is it moving or changing as you continue to bring your attention to that area? Are you noticing any impulse to move a certain way as you focus on that sensation?
Emotions - like imagery, thoughts, and movements - can be portals that take you inward toward the realm of the felt sense.
Focusing instructor, David Rome, refers to these more common modes of experience as “gateways” to the felt sense.
SE uses the acronym SIBAM to describe the different elements of life experience that can be anchored or connected to the felt sense - Sensation, Image/Impression, Behavior, Affect/Emotions, and Meaning-making.
SE practitioner, Kimberly Ann Johnson, uses the similar acronym, TIMES - Thoughts, Images, Movement, Emotion, Sensation.
I think astrology can be another gateway or portal to the felt sense!
One simple way to use astrology as a portal to the felt sense, would be to bring your attention to the parts of the body that are ruled by a certain sign that is somehow relevant in your life right now.
The concept of The Zodiac Man (i.e., Homo Signorum; Man of Signs), which assigns zodiacal signs to parts of the body beginning with Aries at the head and ending with Pisces at the feet, dates back thousands of years. The earliest written record of The Zodiac Man is found in a series of five books by a Roman author, called Astronomica, circa 20 CE / AD. However, it is believed that the concept dates back at least a few centuries prior. There is evidence of The Zodiac Man being used in many different countries all over the world in ancient times.
“Unlike many ancient and early modern esoteric practices, it is difficult to delimit the zodiac man to a specific region, religion, or civilization.
…In Europe, images of the zodiac man formed part of a larger medieval episteme or constellation of knowledge. Humans were microcosms, whose health was influenced by the motion of celestial spheres, an idea that found analogues in Babylonian, Egyptian, Chinese, Vedic, Mayan, and Aztec cosmologies. In a subgenre of zodiac man images, he is enclosed in an egg-like shell, encircled by astrological creatures. The zodiac man was a reflection of his firmament.”
A fascinating collection of ancient Zodiac Man illustrations can be found here. I included a few of the images below…
The Zodiac Man is still referenced in the practice of medical astrology today, with a few updates. Here’s a great updated version from Worts + Cunning:
So maybe you look at what sign the Moon is transiting right now, or what sign is on the eastern horizon currently. Or maybe you choose a sign based on what placements you want to explore in your natal chart.
Whatever sign you choose, you can enter into a meditative reflection or a movement impulse related to that sign’s symbology, and then ask yourself:
How does that zodiac sign express itself in my body? What am I noticing as I allow the imagery of the zodiac sign to draw me inward?
You could also release the concept of the Astrological Body with its signs assigned to body parts, and simply ask yourself:
When I bring my attention to the moment of the summer solstice, how does my body respond? When I connect with this Saturn transit I’m experiencing, what sensations do I notice in my body?
As with slowing down and orienting to the external environment of the present moment, tapping into the felt sense can be scary for some of us - or can feel nearly impossible. We may consistently feel WAY too much intensity when we go onward, or we may feel… “nothing.”
In terms of feeling numb to the felt sense, I thought Ann Cornell (a Focusing teacher) provided a beautiful response in her newsletter to a reader’s recent struggle:
“Sometimes I can sense a resistance to feeling, which of course I could try to focus on, gently, but often I just can't find any felt sensations at all, or if I can then the feeling is really fleeting — like a momentary flash which vanishes as soon as I focus upon it.”
Dear Krys:
One thing I've learned over my years with Focusing is that feelings don't come in a vacuum. Feelings come in a context, and they are sensitive to how they are being treated. They can be shy, or wary, or cautious.
If you wanted to make friends with a shy animal, and if the animal ran away as soon as you reached toward it, what would you think?
I'd think: The animal doesn't feel safe yet. I need to move very slowly, and be very patient and accepting. I need to make sure my body is a safe place for feelings to come.
Here's a tip for you. Rather than thinking of a felt sensation as something that you "find," think of it as something that develops.
Start by bringing awareness to your body, and then give an invitation. "Maybe there's something in me that doesn't feel safe," for example. Then wait. Imagine you are at the edge of the woods, willing to make contact with something alive in there that you don't yet see. Be patient. Take your time.
When you begin to be aware of something, slow down even more. No sudden moves! Let it develop. Let it come to you.
I hope you can feel as you read this, how this kind of attitude brings more safety. Good luck! (via Ann Cornell’s weekly newsletter)
This analogy of trying to make friends with a shy animal is a beautiful, relational way to guide people toward patiently cultivating safety with the felt senses over time.
If you are one of those people where sensations are overwhelmingly intense when you tune into your internal world, you could try focusing on small sensations right at the periphery - such as where your back meets the chair or where your feet meet the floor.
You could try finding the “edge” of the intense sensation, and then hanging out there for a bit if that’s doable. So for example, if your chest feels really constricted and tight, you can follow that sensation out until you find its “edge.” Maybe it starts feeling better about midway down your arm.
You could focus your attention on a part of your body that feels comfortable or at least “okay.” You could also try moving back and forth between orienting to pleasant aspects of the external environment, back to the internal sensation, and then back out again.
As David Rome aptly says, “finding and working with the felt sense is not flashy and is not a quick fix; it takes time and commitment to learn; it can and will bring you up against uncomfortable places in yourself.”
Step #4 /6: creating internal spaciousness by self-parenting parts in pain
Parts-work refers to a vast field that includes several well-known different therapeutic approaches such as tending to one’s “inner child” and well established modalities like Internal Family Systems.
Parts-work is based on the belief that we all have multiple parts inside; our psyche is composed of multiple parts that hold different fears, desires and roles. Kinda like in the Inside-Out film.
Ann Cornell, creator of Inner Relationship Focusing (a parts-based approach to the felt sense), created a free email series called: Get Bigger than what’s Bugging You.
The title caught my eye as I was reflecting on Jupiter in Taurus, because I think expansive Jupiter can offer exactly that - the opportunity to get bigger than what’s bugging you.
One way to do this is to speak directly and compassionately (preferably out loud, perhaps with a hand on your heart) to a part of you that is distressed, as if you were a kind parent speaking to a child.
It sounds and feels soooo weird, but I swear, it is powerful and effective.
This practice can very quickly help you go from being this overwhelmed character, feeling very small…
…to feeling more capable, more at peace, and prepared to take on your challenges (while feeling tender care toward the parts of you that are feeling intense sensations).
Miraculously this approach can quickly propel us from a place of nervous system dysregulation, to a place of relative calm. It helps you get bigger than what’s bugging you and creates more spaciousness in your body/psyche.
I’m going to quote a passage from Britt Frank’s Science of Stuck here, because she described this process so well:
“Critical self-talk is ineffective and keeps you stuck… There’s a secret to self-talk that makes it work for you rather than against you. Ready?
The secret to effective self-talk is to turn your inner monologue into an inner dialogue.
How? The way to turn your inner monologue into an inner dialogue is to use your name (or your pronouns) when you talk to yourself. Research indicates that changing your self-talk from first person (using the word I) to third person (using your name or pronouns) is a powerful way to shift your system. For example:
First Person: “I’m so overwhelmed with everything on my plate.”
Third-Person Name: “Britt is really overwhelmed with everything on her plate.”
Third-Person Pronoun: “She’s really overwhelmed with everything on her plate.”
You can also use second-person language and talk to your parts using the word you.
When you first start using second- and third-person self-talk, you’ll likely feel ridiculous and embarrassed. Why should you even bother with this practice? […] When you have psychological space between you and your stressors, you are less likely to get stuck. Second- and third-person self-talk helps to create psychological space.
Per an article in Scientific Reports, “[Recent] findings indicate that the language [people] use to refer to the self when they engage in [self-talk] influences self-control. Specifically, using one’s own name to refer to the self during introspection, rather than the first-person pronoun ‘I’, increases people’s ability to control their thoughts, feelings, and behavior under stress.”
[The study Britt Frank references, is titled “Third-person self-talk facilitates emotion regulation without engaging cognitive control: Converging evidence from ERP and fMRI.”]
Why does this practice work? We are generally nicer to other people than we are to ourselves. Talking in third [or second] person allows us space to provide the same compassion and kindness to ourselves that we’d extend to others.
Disclaimer: it’s not enough to simply switch your thoughts from I to he/she/they/you. Many people continue to beat themselves up using this format. In order to maximize the effectiveness of second- and third-person self-talk, you’ll need to apply the principles of Self-parenting to your inner dialogue.
[…] When we outsource the job of Self-parenting, we abdicate control of our lives. Without Self-parenting, we stay dependent on external sources for internal well-being.” ~ Britt Frank
We often speak of therapists and healers “holding space” for us and “being a witness” to our experiences.
If you have had someone skillfully hold space for you when you were going through something difficult, you may know how grounding that feels. You may have noticed how you were better able to gain access to sensations, emotions and thoughts in a way that felt safe and anchored, as opposed to times when you are on your own and distressing sensations, emotions and thoughts threaten to overwhelm you.
By consistently practicing compassionate self-parenting and self-witnessing through a parts-work lens and by dialoguing with different parts of self via second or third person speech, I really believe that people can create and hold a quality of “space” for themselves similar to what a therapist would offer.
This isn’t to say everyone should just become their own therapist since there is so much powerful potential for change that can activate within a relational container with another human being, but the reality is that good therapy is inaccessible for many people and generally isn’t available on an on-call basis whenever you need it (although granted, some texting and online services are trying to provide this).
I do think that with practice, by exercising this muscle, we can deeply claim and integrate our internal space-creating Jupiter and our internal self-parenting Saturn.
Ann Cornell offers some of the best, accessible guidance on this topic with a felt-sense focus. When witnessing and meeting a felt sense, Ann suggests saying something like… “I’m sensing something in me feels_____, and I’m saying hello to that.”
And after bringing gentle touch to the part of the body holding the sensation, Ann suggests saying something like: “I’m here with you. No wonder you feel that way… that makes sense.”
Like Britt says, it can feel ridiculous and weird, but don’t knock it before you try it! Personally I’ve noticed huge somatic shifts rapidly occur when I’m able to dialogue with hurting parts of myself via second-person as if I was my own compassionate parent.
Step #5 /6: following the impulse
You’ve slowed down. You’ve oriented to the external environment and the present moment. You’ve connected with the internal felt sense and dialogued with it like a compassionate parent-figure. Then what?
I like to ask, what does my body need and want right now? Is there an impulse arising through my felt sense into consciousness?
Maybe it’s an impulse that I would normally override and ignore. Maybe my body wants sleep, maybe it wants to cry, maybe it wants food, maybe it wants sensate pleasure, maybe it wants to curl up in the fetal position, maybe it wants to move.
Jupiter in Taurus encourages us to pay attention to these bodily impulses and heed their messages.
The body’s needs and desires are prioritized with Jupiter in Taurus.
Instagram is a great source of gold nuggets of therapeutic wisdom and suggestions when under a time limit - or at least my Moon in Gemini thinks so. (I’m sure TikTok is as well, but I keep my distance from that app!)
If your body has an impulse to move, @JonathanMead has made a bunch of great reels of simple movement prompts through a felt sense lens.
I also appreciate @lexyflorentina, @holistic.life.navigation, and of course @wakingwomb, for their movement ideas and body-based wisdom.
Step #6 /6: extending compassion with Tonglen
My last suggestion continues to vibe with Jupiter’s theme of expansion, abundance and generosity.
After a really powerful somatic experience with myself where I was able to deeply metabolize intense distress in my body, I was so overflowing with gratitude for that experience, gratitude for being alive, that I began a meditation and visualization practice inspired by Tonglen.
I reached out with my imagination to all those in the world who were experiencing a similar type of pain and distress. I breathed in their pain along with my own… and then I breathed out, sending compassion, healing, and relief to all those suffering in the same way.
I’m nowhere near being an expert in this type of meditation practice, so I encourage you to find other sources if you’d like to try it!
For example, The Om Collective offers this 30 minute guided meditation inspired by Tonglen, that they call the Extending Compassion Meditation.
So concludes my list of six simple ways to bring expansive Taurean medicine to the realm of the soma with Jupiter’s support. I hope there is something here for you!
P.S. I just returned from an evening walk where I joyously oriented to Venus and the waxing crescent Moon, together in Leo - sooooo beautiful!
Look up after sunset and find Venus while you still can! She’ll soon drift beneath the horizon as she heads toward her summer retrograde…