Your body has incredible potential! As the home of your consciousness and somatic experience, there is much to be discovered and unlocked in your human vessel. Seiji has been on a mission to help others become connected and whole through somatic education, emotional healing, menswork and embracing their authentic self-expression. He shares his personal story of growing up in Germany and contending with cultural notions of masculinity. We talk about Hanna Somatics, Trauma as it relates to Karma, the power of Mentorship, Creating Freedom and Peace with others through Nervous System Regulation and much much more! Seiji Oshenza is a certified Hanna Somatic Educator and an Authenticity Coach, he helps men and women find and embrace their true nature and discover healthy emotional self-expression.
Connect with him on Instagram @oshenzaseiji
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A: Every day there is a forgetting and every moment there is the possibility of remembering. Remembering who you truly are, awakening to your body, to the inner world and experience of being alive. Here is where you find the beauty, the joy. Today here is where you free your Soma. Welcome everybody to Free Your Soma podcast. I have a very special guest with me today. This is my cousin, Seiji Oshenza, who is also a somatic educator, a Hanna Somatic educator and a somatic emotional coach as well. He works with men. He's done a lot of really amazing men's work and a lot of personal transformation that has brought him to be the person he is today who can really help other people through some very murky, intense spaces. So welcome. I'm so glad that you're here with me today. Hey, and maybe you can just start by saying a little bit about, you know, what's your mission? Like what's as a coach out there, working with people, helping people like what is your mission?
S: So it's something that I've kind of like worked on for many, many years. And what always keeps coming back to me is that I think most people feel a certain level of disconnection in their lives, right? Like it's so commonplace. People don't even think that there's anything wrong with it. But I mean, we all know something is wrong when we're depressed or I'm happy or that we can tell the world isn't functioning in the way that we would want it to be or the way it needs to be functioning. I think everybody kind of now realizes that we're on some kind of ecological train that if we don't change the direction or don't switch over to a different track, that we're going to have a hard time.
And so throughout my life, I've just been kind of like feeling into researching, talking, doing lots of personal development and really just searching for like why is it that we live in such a dysfunctional world and what can actually be done about it? Because like pumping money into something or investing into something doesn't really seem to be working, right? We have all these investments and whatever, crazy social media and stuff like that. But our people's lives actually better. People are actually happier. People are actually like living the lives they want to live. And so my mission is to help people unlock themselves. My mission is to help people to actually feel emotionally free again, to feel the possibility that they actually live in a magical vessel that can do very magical, amazing things and that this life is stranger and more amazing than we could ever imagine.
And so when I coach people, I want to help them get tools that they can use to heal themselves and that could have a variety of different forms, depending on like what their problem is. But what I tell people is I just help people overcome emotional and physical trauma. And so I use somatics for that. I use somatics to help them heal the emotional or the physical trauma. But then a lot of the men's work or personal development work that I've done is to help people actually feel free, feel emotionally clear. Like they know who they are and they feel authentic being who they are. And don't need to hold themselves back because of the conditionings that their trauma isn't forming them with. Right.
A: Yeah. And I mean, we grew up together. I saw you, you know, your whole life and I've definitely seen you go through your own incredible transformation process over the years. And so like when you're saying all of this, I just I hear that it's very personal to you because you have unlocked yourself and you've had assistance from other people, other men in the world in unlocking Seiji Oshienza and like the, you know, bounty that you have inside.
And, you know, that's really, really important. I think in a teacher and a coach is that they're really taking you along a journey that they themselves have been on. But they're guiding you with respect to the fact that you are just fundamentally a different person than they are with a different set of traumas, with a different history. Right. But that you are this kind of guiding light that is showing them the way because you've been down at yourself. Right. Totally. Yeah.
S: And it's something that's what I was talking about with one of my clients the other week was that like he's at the beginning of his life. He's in his early twenties and he's already feeling behind. Like emotionally he feels behind in a communication, his communication he feels behind. And I just look at him like, wow, like you're only just beginning. And like there's just, I don't feel like he's behind at all because he's just like already here trying to work through whatever is coming up for him. But he was just saying like, oh man, this is going to take forever for me to work through all this shit. And then I told him, well, when I first came to the States, I hung out with your dad actually, William, who's been my mentor for like the entire time I've been living in the US. And he went through decades of emotional strife, difficulty expressing himself and difficulty actually being the man that he wanted to be.
A: You're talking about my dad here. Yeah.
S: I'm talking about your dad. Oh yeah. Very different man now than the one who raised me. Yeah, totally. And I got to see him at the end of it where like he already did all his personal work and I basically got the result of 40, 50 years of him doing personal development work and was able to shorten that time for me within just a few years. You know, I hung out with him for maybe like two or three years very intensely and learned a whole lot from him. And he got to model a lot of mature masculine behaviors for me. But you know, like, as you know, like he had to go through all kinds of shit to get to where he was. And then in just a very short amount of time was able to transfer that to me. And so now I'm working with an even younger client and I learned all this stuff that, you know, my uncle, your dad taught me over three years and I'm going to teach him in three months. Yeah. Well, you know, and what's incrementally shortening this development time.
A: It's true. I mean, I've experienced similar things. That's what the power of, you know, mentorship is and that real like one on one connection that you build with somebody is you can really make these deep changes quite fast. But the other thing here that is fascinating to look at is that younger people like yourself, you say, you know, how old were you when you came to the states?
S: I was like 21. Yeah. And 2021.
A: 2021. So someone who's 20, 21 years old, just, you know, even if they've had like a really hard life, their nervous system just generally has less decades of conditioning that it's contending with. It just does. They have had less time than say someone who's 45 or 65 has had more decades of physical, you know, we could talk about it in their muscular system, more muscular conditioning of just living life or whatever they've done with their body, sitting, standing, walking, you know, repetitive activity, sports or whatever. Someone who's 21 doesn't have that same kind of accumulation going on. And so in some ways, their nervous system may be more malleable or more receptive to rapid change because it's not as fixed. Right.
Yeah. You know, and that's the impact, you know, of being 21 and having that mentorship with my dad, you know, that made changes for you, not just because of all of his wisdom, but because of your youth, really, and your willingness, you know what I mean? Because that's another thing that I think they've studied this. I don't know the exact study, but that people's minds tend to be more flexible when they're younger and that as we get older, the tendency is for a lot of people to come and become more and more fixed in their way of thinking.
Right. It doesn't have to be true. Our brain is plastic. But I remember reading about this at one point and it's kind of, you know, something, if you say that, it's like people are like, oh, yeah, that makes sense. You know, people get stuck in their ways. Right. So when you're younger, you know, with this young client that you're working with, like, is a real opportunity to make huge substantial changes in the way his nervous system is functioning, like going forward in life. That's exciting.
S: Yeah, totally. And I'm, I'm, I'm already seeing a lot of like really incredible changes in him. And the relationships in his life are transforming. Yeah. So like, I think he's, he's onto a very exciting adventure. And I think what bogs him down the most is just like his own self down and just like himself comparing his life to, to other people that he judges are further along than him. But, you know, you can only just live your life. And I keep bringing him back to that and keep letting him appreciate the things that he does have and the achievable.
A: Right. Yeah. And then when you do that, when you focus on like what's actually going well, you like invite more of like what's actually working in, right? When you focus on what's not working, suddenly you see all of the things that aren't working. You see all of the ways that like, you know, there are challenges. Right. It's like this, um, this quote that I love is like sing or laugh. You can do sing laugh and the whole world laughs with you. Cry and the whole world cries with you. It's like the power of our perception of what we're focusing on to actually create a feeling of like momentum or togetherness or like suddenly it feels like the whole world is, is that way. Right. Well, yeah, totally.
S: It's yeah, it's interesting that the power that each individual has of shaping the world and just by their willingness and choice. And the unfortunate thing is like a lot of people don't think they have a choice. They, their choice is just going with whatever their mind is used to thinking, um, which comes from again, they're like programming and trauma, you know, early childhood trauma. Right. And, uh, once you can kind of step outside or like lift your head above that pond, then you actually know that you have a choice.
And that you can totally like look at every single thing that's happening, um, from a different kind of perspective. Right. Being a car accident thinking, oh, well, that sucks. Too bad for that driver, too bad for that car. But maybe, you know, we don't know, like maybe that person was going to come home in that car and then be shocked by somebody that was going to come in. He survived having a car accident, but had he come home, somebody would have shot him, you know, in a drive by or something like that. You know, just as an example. But there's always some blessing to count. There's always like an everything that seems like a misfortune. There's something to be learned. There's some blessing in it.
And if you're able to, um, engineer your mind to be able to look at things in that way, then you're actually going to be feeling really good. Even when terrible things, quote unquote, terrible things happen. Right.
A: Yeah. And, and so much of that, what you're talking about to me is about being able to like self-regulate enough to not be like automatically in a panic. I think a lot of people are living in low level panic, like all the time. And this was true for myself for many years that I was just living with a certain level of stress that was uncomfortable and was not supporting. Like my digestion was not supporting like my, you know, anything in my body was a level of stress that was not really sustainable, but that I was sustaining. Right. And I would find these different ways to like, like let off the steam, you know, but I, my, my baseline was just not low enough is basically what I'm saying. It was like too elevated.
My baseline of what homeostasis was was a certain level of stress that actually wasn't sustainable for my body. You know, and so what, what often, you know, I feel this too, what we're doing with somatic education, you know, in various forms and also with the men's work or the emotional work that you do is we're just inviting people to create a new baseline that is significantly more relaxed and more integrated than what they're used to. Right.
S: Absolutely. And it's like, when people actually realize that there is a lower baseline, their whole life changes. They don't, they didn't actually realize how much they were holding on to and how much heaviness there really was. And everybody know, oh yeah, I get anxiety. All right. What are you anxious about? Oh, oh, and then they started thinking like, well, like everything. I'm anxious about everything. Okay, well, you want to talk about it? You want to unpack that? And then, you know, there'll be the people be like, I don't know, I don't want to touch that. Right. And then that's the baseline to where they're going to stay.
And then there's the people were like, yeah, actually, you know, this thing happened. And then we start talking about it. And maybe there's an emotional release. And then the bar goes lower because, I don't know. I think there's like an ocean of grief in all of us. It could be grief, it could be anger, it could be some kind of upset, but we can call it grief. And each time that you do some release work, some personal development, it's like you pull out the plug and drain some of it out. And there's still going to be a lot left. But if you never drain it out, well, then you're just drowning in your own like grief and trauma and suffering. And if you can't get outside of it, maybe you'll need somebody to help pull you out. Yeah.
A: Yeah. You know, as you were talking about that ocean of emotion that we all carry within us, it, you know, it made me think like, perhaps maybe it's more of a collective ocean, you know, like that these stresses and these feelings and these traumas and experiences, like there's someone out there who went through something really similar, you know, who had similar reactions or similar feelings, you know, like these experiences that we have that are painful are often like, the core nature, very universal, right? And it's about whether or not we are totally unconscious to how they're impacting us or whether we start to, like you say, drain out a little bit of like what we're holding, you know, and look at it and go, oh, there it is.
And then we actually have this process of being able to like integrate it or let it go, whatever kind of language, you know, because I feel like it's kind of both sometimes, you know, some things like actually just get integrated. into like a fabric of who we are. And then some things are really meant to like be left behind and no longer like part of us, right? So then there's kind of that process of like this feeling, this thing, this experience, like, is this time for me to like make this part of me and like bring it in and just like, you know, let it really be here consciously? Or is this time for me to like actually like let it drain away, right? Totally.
S: And there's lots of ways of doing that, right? I mean, people have been going to therapists for years now. And it's mostly just about like letting the client figure it out himself by talking about the issue. And that's great and all. Except what I'm also like now starting to hear is that it's not all just mental. It's in the body. Yeah. And I don't think a lot of therapists are at least like conventional therapists are working with the body in that way. And that was something that came very natural to me. When I was a kid, first of all, people always liked coming to me and talking about their troubles. My mom did it, but also like my friends did it.
And I just had this capacity to listen. And then further on, I also noticed I had a capacity for just wanting to hold space and touch people. And so I think through all of that kind of came what I'm doing now because I started doing men's work. I learned the hand-themed training. I learned a whole bunch of other different kinds of healing modalities. And it really all just came down to the body, your emotions, and your mind. And if you can work with all three of those, then you have the best chance of healing yourself through whatever it is. If you're having communication issues with people in your life, if you're having difficulty getting over a certain kind of habit that is holding you back from actually being who you want to be. Or if you are bogged down by addictions or other dysfunctional kinds of behaviors.
Or if you're unhealthy in your body in some way, your body is always giving you signals. Your spirit or your higher self is always giving you signals. And also your own mind, your subconscious is giving you signals and giving you little breadcrumbs of what to follow so you can actually get back to self-regulation, back to homeostasis, as you said.
A: Yeah, totally. Like the amount of incoming stimuli and information that's coming in for most people. Like, I mean, for me, I can tell a big difference because I went from living in a very dense, highly populated area outside Los Angeles to living up in the mountains. And just the amount of stimulation that I have to deal with on a regular basis when I come down the hill, right? I come down the mountain. It's like, oh, wow, there's a lot of information that's now my body's having to deal with, like contend with, like organize, you know, and I'm getting, you know, bombarded in a way.
It's a little harder sometimes to hear my subtle body when I come down here. But I feel like it's really good practice for like what I'm up to because, you know, as they say, you can be a monk on the mountain. But actually to be in the world, right? What is that phrase? In the world, but not of the world, to be able to be like in the mix of it all. Like that really starts to show you what the practice can do of like listening and being present inside your body, you know? And of course, how do we learn by trial and error a lot? Like by becoming overwhelmed or overcome and then finding our way back to that baseline that we've created, right?
So there's that process. We're not going to be like perfectly calm all the time. Like even as a somatic educator, you can speak to this, you probably get dysregulated, you get, you know, nervous. You get frustrated, you know, it's not like you, you recover this like low baseline and you just stay there. It's like, no, there's still like an undulation. There's still that, you know, emotional like wave that we're all riding, you know? And like, yeah, this skill is just coming back to that like baseline. And when it, when the baseline is consistently, you know, a little too high, like how do we get lower? How do we get a little lower? You know, what is it I need to be able to actually go to sleep tonight and get a good night's sleep?
Because that's going to help me feel, you know, more calm tomorrow. What is it that I need to say or express in order to feel clear around this person that I'm around? You know, that's going to help bring my baseline lower, you know? All these tools, all these things, you know, it's really, really powerful. And that, you know, what you are doing specifically, I think with men is really needed. It's really needed. And I am like really just so glad that you're doing it because there's a lot of especially young men out there that feel really overwhelmed and feel really lost, you know, and haven't had role models like mature male role models to show them how to model how to behave in the world and how to interact with people in a functional way.
So maybe you can say a little bit about, you know, how that journey has been for you from, you know, what was modeled for you. You know, you mentioned that you came to the United States. Like where did you grow up for the people who haven't been like accustomed to hearing about you yet? Tell us a little bit about all that.
S: Okay, so first of all, I would like to clarify, I do work with men and I think working with men is really, really important because men need to support men. And I also work with women. And I also know that women need to be connected to themselves somatically and also emotionally. And for some people, it's more difficult than others. But particularly for men, it's difficult just because of the culture that we live in that maintains a certain kind of belief set around how men are supposed to behave. But yeah, I grew up in Germany. And so the generals there are, I mean, there is a standard as you could guess from any Western country that men are supposed to be strong, right? And never need any help.
And you're supposed to figure it all out yourself, you're supposed to be perfect. You're not allowed to be angry, you're not allowed to be sad, you're not allowed to be scared. And being happy is probably not cool either. So yeah, like, what are you? Yeah, like, if you watch, I mean, the stereotypes about German people is that they are very stoic, unemotional, and have no sense of humor. And those are all stereotypes, of course. And it's not necessarily true. But like, a part of that is true, because like, yeah, men are supposed to be breadwinners, they're supposed to be very serious, and supposed to do everything they're told perfectly. Right? This is the very German kind of mentality that everything needs to work well, and everything needs to be perfect, and everybody needs to be on time.
And so there's like a big feeling of inadequacy within the population. And it was living in me as well. Like, I could never perform as well as even the girls did in school, like girls somehow academically performed way better than most guys did. So I think on a subconscious level, a lot of us felt already inferior to women.
But it's not necessarily about women either. It's just about like, men not letting men actually be themselves. You know, it's like men checking on each other, and you're like, oh, you're gonna cry pussy? You know, that kind of language exists in almost every men culture or all over the world. Like, you're gonna be pussy about it? You know, you're gonna cry? Like, doing like, stuff like that, where like, every man is already hurt. And because he's hurt, he doesn't want to show that he's hurt. And so he's gonna belittle other men, make them hurt, and continue on this culture of just like puckering up your butthole and not letting anything out. Right?
A: Well, just not really allowing people, it's you know, it's more than just themselves. It's you're like, not allowing a certain level of humanity to exist within you. You're denying that. And you're saying you've got to be perfect. Well, humans aren't perfect, you know, we're not and we're messy. And we're learning all the time, we're in this process of developing and shifting and changing and evolving. And so that's not a perfect, you know, perfect process. And so as you're growing up, it's really, you know, it's really difficult to have that standard held in front of you. And like, basically, you're going to be inferior to that, like always, like, we're if we if we expect perfection, we're all going to fail at that. You know, totally. So to be set up with that kind of failures really disheartening.
S: It was and it also really made me think about like, man, our school systems need to change because, I mean, this isn't just about men. This is also about anybody feeling inadequate in life, and that we are placed into the society with all these demands on us. And, you know, the more you do research and learn about the education system, you kind of also know that it was designed to create people who are workers, not necessarily thinkers or people that are thinking for themselves. It was really more an industry that would develop people that could work well in factories and make more money for bigger companies.
I think that's like what our schooling system kind of evolved from. But over time, you know, we've kind of learned where the corners are that we kind of need to go around in order to actually like, educate our students better. But something that really helped me back from really performing higher was just that I was already already made to feel that I was inferior. And already, it already looked like I wasn't going to be a very high achiever. And so, I kind of lived with this, this giant pressure of, you're not going to do it anyway. One example, one example I can give, I was in fourth grade, and back in the time in Germany, in fourth grade, up until that point, you were observed by the teachers. And based on your performance, they would then decide which kind of high school you went to.
And so in Germany, they had three different kinds of high schools, one for low achievers, middle achievers, and high achievers. There's a fourth one, but that one is if you're like really, like, really academically challenged, or behaviorally challenged, you know, they had a special school for that. And that was like a threat. Like, if you don't do this grade, you're going to go to that school, you know, but I remember like, in fourth grade, we're all going to be told which school we were recommended to go to, and I was recommended for the middle, right, the middle academic school. And I already knew like, I don't want to go to that one, I want to go to the high achieving higher school, right.
Also, the girl I had a crush on was going to the school, like, I don't want to go there. And so my mom took me to the school that I wanted to go to when we talked to the director, and he had a little talk with me, and he was really friendly. And at some point he was like, All right, yeah, if you want to come here, you can come. You know, you're going to have to work a little bit harder, but you can come. And so I'm like, Great, awesome. Like, so in fourth grade, the next day, one of our substitute teachers came in, was one of the main teacher, and she asked the students, Oh, which school did you get recommended to, you know, I'm like, Oh, it's like a thing, everybody, you know, gets to share about it, because it's the last year, everybody's going to go to a different school the next year.
And when it came my turn, I said, I'm going to go to the gymnasium, the high achieving school, and she's like, you, I don't believe it. It was like that, basically, what she said, no, just go with me. I don't believe that. You know, and then the next kid came, who was also recommended for the middle school. And, but somehow she liked him more. And she was like, he said, I'm going to go to the middle school. And she's like, what, you, you should have gone to the high achieving school. Yeah. And yeah, and that one stuck with me. I had never forgot that she said that, you know, and like, just like, immediately just totally crushed me with doubt. Right. And yeah, it hurt. It hurt. And so, yeah, maybe like the years after that, I wanted to maybe prove it to her, but never knew I could. So I was living with a very, very crushing self doubt. And, and so I wasn't interested in going to school after going to school, because I just felt like it traumatized me and made me feel inadequate.
And so for the rest of my life, I basically avoided regular kind of school settings, and instead went into personal development. You know, most people at my age would have just gone to a new university and study further. And for me, that was out of the question. I did not want to sit in some kind of stuffy classroom listening to some person that didn't actually care about me and, and learn for something that I didn't even care for. Right. For me, it was very clear. I wanted to live a life of freedom. I want to actually help people. I wanted to be like a Jedi Jesus level healer. That's kind of like the idea that I had in my mind.
A: You wanted to use the gifts that you have. You didn't want to be like trying to fit yourself into some other mode. You wanted the gifts that you have and the things that you're here to do to be primary, you know, and not like, you know, have to force them aside for the time being so you can focus on this thing that isn't even interesting to you. Right. Totally.
S: And that's when I left Germany and went, came to the States. And I think it was the right choice for me because say what you want about the United States. And there's a lot of negative things we can say about it. But one of the things I really, really appreciated about living in the States is that it's a new country. And in a new country, you're able to reinvent yourself. And so you would find all different kinds of communities all over the United States that you wouldn't necessarily find in Europe where everything has already been deep seated, reestablished and already set up in a certain way where the belief systems are the way they are, the buildings are old and they are the way they are.
In the United States, everything is kind of new, you know, and so all the towns, the communities could kind of invent themselves from the ground up. That's why we have like a lot of cities that are in towns and communities that are like hippie villages, you know, actual hippie villages. Like, it doesn't exist like that in Germany or, you know, in places of Europe. I'm sure there's places where there's, you know, where people like hippie people congregate or, you know, whatever.
A: It's like communes are places that they've developed something, but you're talking about like cities and actually municipalities and places like that.
S: Yeah, you know, if you go to a place like in California, there's several of them, but you go to a place like um, Manchester or you go to Ojai or you go to Santa Barbara or, you know, somewhere along the coast, you'll often find places where people are all about being spiritual, all about being conscious and aware. And I found it in, in every state, I found at least one town that I've gone to where there would be people like that and you'd go into the town, there'd be really cool like street art, there'll be crystal shops, there'll be like things catering toward this kind of demographic.
And in Germany, I don't know, like you have to fight through a whole lot of skepticism and you kind of need to know who to talk to and you can't talk to anybody just about anything and it's very different. And I didn't have access to those kinds of communities necessarily when I was still living in Germany. And the ones that did have access to, they were all old. There were no young people actually wanting to do liver cleanses or, you know, figure out how to get the best efficiency out of their bodies. Like no young person was interested in that. You know, they're interested in getting drunk, watching soccer, getting their driver's licenses and going to school.
I'm like, all those things were boring to me. No. And yeah, so coming to the States, I was like able to be in these communities where I was really able to discover myself and really learn a whole lot of things about the human system, right? Because this human vessel that we live in has capacities and potentials and and abilities that we don't usually utilize. And that was another thing that really like drove me was like, what if we're actually secretly kind of like Superman, you know, like Superman for a while didn't know he was like from another planet. I didn't know he could fly and didn't know he could shoot laser beams out of his eyes and you know, whatnot.
And I kind of think that humans are in a way similar that we have abilities that we only hear about in like myths or stories or, you know, or don't hear about at all. Or it comes back in popular fiction where people can do things, have superpowers or have telekinetic or healing abilities, things like that, but we wish we had, but we actually do, but we just don't know how to use them.
A: Wow, you just really opened up like an appreciation for like Marvel and like superhero stuff. Oh my God. Because I don't like watch those movies to be completely honest, like I'm not super interested into that. But like what you just said made me think about it in the way that that's why so many people are attracted to hearing those stories and watching those movies is that we're representing like the superhuman because we all sort of know like deep down inside somewhere, there's like a cellular reality of like that's actually true. Like we're actually super.
S: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And like, you know, like in human being has limits. I guess, I don't know, when it comes to consciousness and being in the realms of consciousness, it doesn't seem like very limitations, but yeah, it's not like that we can be like one of those mutants from like X men and like, I don't know, grow claws out of our arms or something like that. But I don't know, I think we have very overlooked abilities that if we actually utilize them, it would be a total game changer, you know, and I think somatics is one of those where we can teach people a very simple method that allows them to relax their nervous system creates an ideal environment to restore, rest the body, help and digestion even, correct their posture, make them feel better and turn off pain. Right.
And that's to me, sounds like a superpower. If you're able to do that on command, right. And I don't know if we really have a lot of that. Right. We have with sports, with yoga, right. And yoga is wonderful. And it's a great healing tool. But I don't think people totally understand what it is even. Right. And what it was meant to be. And other than that, there's martial arts, which could be a form of superpower, you know, you heightened, you heightened your reflexes, you develop your body and your your nervous system to be able to take care of yourself in whatever kind of situation and be a formidable formidable force and knowing how to use that power. Right. Martial arts is very much on that level.
But then you see, I don't know if they're real, but I've seen videos of like these old Chinese guys on YouTube. And they're like doing like this stuff with their arms. And then they like make a piece of paper burn by like holding their hand up against it, you know. And I'm thinking like, yeah, we could probably do something like that. If you really practice it, if you really develop it and understood the skill, you can probably set paper on fire with your mind alone and doing something fancy with your hands. I want to teach people something that's a lot more accessible, a lot more easy to do. And it's going to allow them to live a very full life.
We don't have to like start, you know, setting things on fire or like freezing water on command. But yeah, just being able to live a decent life without all the worry of having chronic pain without the worry of growing old too fast. I think it's a big fear for a lot of people, especially the older we get, we're going to more and more fear becoming immobile and not being able to take care of ourselves. And there is just being conscious and aware in a crowd of people is a huge advantage.
A: Oh, yeah. Yeah, I mean, as I've, you know, gone through my own transformation process with this modality, I mean, I used to live with a lot of chronic tension and pain. You know, most of my life I had my gate was off my feet turned inward. And then I got into yoga and then I did a lot of yoga and then I had a lot of yoga conditioning in my body that was also part of like the pain that I was in. But like now that I've unwound so much of that, and I'm free of that, and I'm not stuck in these muscular patterns that I lived with my whole life, right? I look around and I recognize that most people are not experiencing this level of freedom in their bodies.
Most people are experiencing a certain level of accumulation of tension and stress that like I said before, I was in as well, and it wasn't sustainable. And people can feel that. And I think that alone actually like continues to fuel like the feedback loop of anxiety is that they know that something is off. They know that their life is feeling so much harder than it should be. Like they're looking around going like, I feel like there's like 30 fucking tigers about to like rip my throat out, but I know I'm just sitting in my bedroom and it's like 10 30 at night.
Do you know what I mean? Like people know that they're tuned up their nervous system is like way toned up and that that they can't figure out why this is exactly happening. And so it can be very like disorienting. It can be very like stressful when we don't know how to come out of that state of like tension in our bodies, right? Whether it's muscular tension, whether it's mental tension, whether it's emotional tension, and just how do we find that way of like leveling out? Well, that's exactly what this practice that both you and I teach offer, you know, is a way to do that a really practical way to do that. That like most people just aren't aware of and most people are not experiencing. And that's something to actually tell my clients as they're developing this, they're like, wow, look, I have this movement in my shoulders that I didn't have before. Oh, look, I can do this.
And they're, they're feeling into this like new body that they've created, right, that they've accessed. And I like to remind them, I'm like, you're doing something extraordinary. And if you look around at your friends and your family, you will see that most people are not having this experience, unfortunately. And when you realize that when you feel that like what did you say in the beginning, you said, free yourself or unlock yourself.
S: Yes, when you've unlocked your body in this way, it's like they're first of all, there's no going back because as the tension starts to accumulate again, you're like, no, I'm gonna do something about this, right, because you have something to do about it. Right. But then also you look around and you want this for other people, you want this liberation for other human beings.
A: Because it's, it's like you have this feeling of like, oh, this is what it was supposed to be like, like this feeling of ease at freedom, like that's what it was supposed to be like. And what, what I was in before, it didn't feel good. It didn't feel like that's what I meant to do here is just sustain a certain level of pressure for my life. Right.
S: And one thing that's coming up for me is just also people aren't used to actually paying attention. And the effect it has is they're very much dulled in their senses. And there are people that when I'm in a crowd or when I'm out like dancing some night, and I'm around different kinds of people, and I'm, I'm always observing, I'm always aware of people around me. I'm also an experienced dancer. So I like being kind of in the flow. I don't like bumping into people. I, I like to give people their own personal bubble. And so I dance around their personal bubble, because I'm so aware of my own body that I can't, at a, a second's notice, maneuver myself around them and continue the energy of motion without ever bumping or causing a blockage in the flow.
And I think most people that aren't aware somatically in this way, they're gonna have very dull senses. They are gonna bump into people. They are gonna be clumsy. And also, something I've noticed in myself at times where I accumulated a lot of tension in my body, it made me more dull. It made me less sensitive and it made me more clumsy. Like, if my back is full of tension and tightness, bending over and getting on my hands and feet is not easy, right? And most people don't even do that, trying to get on their hands and feet and crawl around like a spider monkey. But I like doing that because it makes me feel connected to my body. And then the result of that is, I don't get into these weird situations where I could harm myself or harm other people because I'm insensitive.
And can't feel myself and can't feel myself in the crowd of other people. And so that's something I also want to give people attention to is that once you start doing somatics, you develop this new sense. You become more sensitive to your environment. You have these ninja reflexes. You have more awareness. Sometimes you feel like a bright candle among very, very dimmed out low candles. You just see everything from a higher perspective can respond better to people. You're just calm and present. If something bad happened, like there's a fire that broke out and people are running and panicking. And then here I am in my state of awareness.
I can choose to be in panic or I could do what I need to do to get myself into safety and help other people along the way. Right. And so becoming conscious isn't just about yourself and making sure you don't get bumped into. You become more able to help other people around you. And you're going to want to because it's boring being the only person that is aware and conscious.
A: Yeah, yeah. Oh man, you know, well, you just said so great because I have lived it like both of those things. I've been the clumsy person like not knowing where my feet are going. And I was actually thinking about this in terms of our, you know, the sense that you're developing. It's called proprioceptive awareness, right? Like that's the technical term for this sort of knowing where your body is. And when we have not developed that, or when there's been some kind of like specific trauma that like, you know, blocks an area of our body off and we don't feel it anymore, then we don't really know like where we end and like the world begins. If you don't know like where you are like literally physically you don't know where your feet and your legs and your knees are it's like you know where they are you can look down and see them but can you feel them like can you sense them how alive are they how you know connected are they to your sentience right.
You're not going to know like what, what's you and then what's not you. It's going to be very disorienting. Right. And I think that a lot of people who have sensory disorders are struggling with this not knowing like where they end in the world begins and one very simple thing that I used to do that I didn't realize I was doing but we have all these really clever ways that people are trying to negotiate with this like discomfort in their bodies right. Wearing tight clothing. Wearing tight clothing actually like gave me feet. Right now. So wearing tight clothing like gives you like this tactile feedback that says like, that's where my legs end. Like that's where like my container of my body, like is right. And it was actually when I was in this was when I was into yoga, you know, so all the tight clothes and tight clothes and yoga. I've tried practicing yoga for the first time in India with baggy clothes on because you know they don't want the tight clothes because it's revealing and sexual and da da da da da. So there's a modesty thing. So I had like baggy clothes on for the first time doing yoga. I had no idea, like where my stomach was or how to use my abdominals. because I didn't have tight pants pushing into my belly to tell me there are your belly muscles. And I realized there was this disconnection that had been going on in like the middle of my body for a long time that I was compensating for by wearing tight clothing. Right? But then it was a combination of things because when you're wearing tight clothing, you know, and you're a woman, like you're maybe worried about like, oh, I'm on my period. So now I'm bloated. My belly's hanging out. Well, now you're going to suck your stomach in so that you don't, you know, look chubby in the tight clothing. And then you're adding another layer of like discomfort to like what's already going on. Do you see what I mean? Which is visible.
S: Which is visible that like, you can tell if somebody's trying to like hold something in to present some perfect picture. Right? Right. And that in of itself is somewhat unattractive.
A: Some people, I think some people actually kind of like it. They're kind of like the, it's like kind of like wearing a mask or something, you know.
S: Yeah, to each their own. Totally. I mean, like, I guess also like a like attracts like, there are a lot of people out there that are, you know, all about just putting up the front and not showing them their, their inner world. And they might attract other people to do the same. Right. Right. That's all fine and dandy. But if you want to live a life of depth, I don't know if that's the way to go.
A: Right. Well, here's another revelation I had about the whole stomach thing in India was that I realized that I had been unconsciously holding my stomach in. So back to this idea that it wasn't a choice. Like, I didn't even totally realize I was doing it. Like I had been so entrained in me from such a young age to like hold my stomach in, you know, that like it, it was like, when I actually like released my stomach, it was like, there were like several layers of release before it was like, okay, now I'm actually relaxed. Or is that relaxed? Or no, there's more.
Like, oh, my stomach could be even more full. Like there was layers of it because the conditioning was in so many layers. And what I realized when I was like, you know, I have been holding my stomach in because like I have somehow equated that when I was a child to like, that's what I need to do to be loved is I need to like not have a big stomach as a woman. I need to have a flat small stomach. And that's what I need to do to be loved. So okay, I'm going to suck my stomach in. But then if I want to be loved for who I am, when I'm not sucking my stomach in, that means that in order for that person who wants to love me with my stomach hanging out for who I really am, I have to let my stomach hang out to find that person. Because they're not going to know who I am if I'm holding in, you know, so there was a couple layers of it was recognizing that it was 99% unconscious, you know, and that I didn't even like realize I was doing it, that it was part of like the tension and the disconnection that I had in my body, you know, that like holding in.
And that there was that relationship also with like the the tight clothes, like knowing where the boundaries of my body were, you know, and to let my stomach hang out wearing like super tight yoga pants was a little bit more uncomfortable than like wearing something more flowy or something more loose fitting was more forgiving, you could say, or more like literally comfortable, you know. So it was almost like the tight clothing almost lended itself more easily to like that restriction of like holding myself in versus expanding, expanding my stomach, expanding my body, like expansive clothing made more sense, right. And now I feel a certain level of freedom that like it doesn't really matter what I'm wearing, I know where my stomach is. I know where my body is now, you know, but the case, you know, these years ago.
S: Right. Yeah, it's really interesting when I work with some like elderly folks, and I asked them to do certain kinds of movements, sometimes I can't do them at all. Right. That for me now, I mean, I've been doing somatics for many years now. And so some of the movements that we do are just so second nature for me that there are moments where like, oh, wait, you can't actually do that. Wow.
Okay. And then I have to devise a way of wording the movement so that they can find an area of their life where they've used those muscles and then reignite that consciousness around that part of the body. Right. For some elderly folks, it is the stomach or it is their lower back and their back is so stiff because they're used to holding that tension there that they don't actually know how pliable it is and how to move it and how to actually arch it. That was a problem I had with one client once. He didn't know how to arch his back. I said, like, imagine you're standing up and you're trying to stick out your butt. Yeah.
He still couldn't do it, you know? And I had to like actually do something else because he couldn't actually do the movement that I wanted him to do. And so we just found a workaround and did something else that would trigger those muscles. But yeah, it took a little bit of time to actually get him to feel that part of his body and to awaken it for himself. Right. And that can be for everybody. So one instance, like I taught myself this movement.
A: For those of you who are listening, he's raising one eyebrow and then the other, he's bouncing his eyebrows back and forth. It's quite right.
S: I wasn't I wasn't born knowing how to do that. I had to train myself to move my eyebrows up and down on each side. And most people can't do it either. Right. It's only people that have practiced it. But those muscles are there. And you use them all the time with your facial expressions. But to do it in a very targeted way, in a specific way, is difficult because you don't have the neural pathways that are connected to that kind of movement pattern. Right. And as soon as you practice a movement pattern, you start to develop the neural pathways for it. And then over time, it gets easier and easier to do it. So now I can do it like this.
At first, it started with me like manually lifting and moving my eyebrows for myself so that my body could feel or my brain could feel the location of each eyebrow whenever I moved it. And then I just like start controlling the movement. And then over time, I could isolate it to the other. And then I could do them both. Right. Yeah, yeah. Practice and you can develop awareness around different parts of your body. And then it's like, like gaining a new muscle. Like you had it, you were already using it. But then to actually isolate that muscle group and contract only that muscle group. Right. To differentiate. Yeah, to differentiate. And that's challenging for people. But if you can develop that, then you can start developing all different kinds of skills. And you can start mastering your body in a very, yeah, very fun way. Right.
A: And your body is like your world. You know, it's like what you're interacting with all of your environment with. It's what, you know, is processing all of your life experiences. And so the amazing shifts when we start to be more in our bodies and have this sense of control and differentiation in our bodies. Like maybe you can speak to this. What do you think that means for like the direction that people take their lives?
S: Well, a lot of people are used to controlling their environment around them but to actually control their own bodies is very, very difficult. Like people want to control other people so that they have control over their own addictions. Don't let me, don't let me buy that cake. Right. And like, I mean, nobody else is going to put that cake in your mouth besides you. Right. But it could also be something that I do with people is like breath work. Or even in somatics itself, we're teaching people how to let go. And there's this weird kind of like dichotomy or not really dichotomy, but it's like, it's, it almost seems counterproductive. But because we're teaching people to let go, because that's what actually gives them control. Right. If, for example, if I lifted up your leg and not saying you, but anybody, and I moved your leg around for you, your brain would be like, well, normally that's my job. So I'm going to help you with that movement. So when I lift somebody's leg up and move it for them, they're going to start doing contractions with that leg because they think they need to be controlling because they feel the movement.
A: The involuntary contractions of the part of their brain that just automatically, yeah, tries to control. Right. Right.
S: And it may come from like the traumatized place where like, they're just trying to gain control. They don't want anything else to move them because maybe something happened. Right. And what I keep inviting people to do, and this is what you do also in your sessions with when you work one-on-one with people is keep letting go. Try not to help me. Keep letting go. Right. And we move their leg around and it'll like, you know, it'll stutter or jiggle or move around because they're so used to moving it. But over time of just slowly moving that leg around, they started getting used to letting go. And when they let go, the leg drops and gets really heavy. And then I can easily move it around. Right.
And move it in all its different vectors and angles. And what this does neurologically, it activates some kind of switch. It strengthens this muscle in the brain of letting go. If letting go was a muscle, you can train it by receiving some of the sessions where people are invited to drop, not help, not try to make any movements and then let somebody else move it for you. And so it seems like a counter indicator like, let go and you'll be in control. But actually, you're surrendering control to the other person. But actually, you vying for control and resisting them is no control at all because it's involuntary for you. Right. It's involuntary, it's reflexive that you try to cling and hold on and help this other person. And it's not necessarily about helping. It's about feeling unsafe if they were to drop you. Right. And to surrender this, even this thought that they're going to drop me and just totally relaxing and surrendering, that is the ultimate form of control. When you can do that, you can let go of any conditioning that might come into you. You could be in any kind of environment or situation where something is happening and you notice your nervous system wanting to react. But if you're at this place of self-awareness, self-consciousness, you can drop that and you can respond any way you want and you actually use your mind to figure out a situation much more effectively than if you just reacted. Right.
A: These kind of pre-programmed responses of trying to control or use a strategy to manipulate. And manipulation gets such a bad rap in terms of the word. But literally, if you look it up, it's like skillfully handle. Right. So there's an aspect of manipulation that's not sinister, but merely just this figuring out how to skillfully handle something or someone or some situation. Right. And that can be an advanced thing, but people also get a lot of manipulative skill sets that are mostly unconscious, that are based on traumas, that are based on past experiences, and they're actually defense mechanisms. They're not really part of their consciousness as a person who's fully present. They're part of conditioning.
They're part of what I did once upon a time when somebody did this, oh, I'm going to do that again. Right. And I'm going to do it really well because I've learned how to handle this kind of situation. But what kind of freedom is that? And this is what you're pointing to, I think, is when we have this pre-programmed response to life, we're not really free to make a choice that's actually truly resonant with the particular situation that we're in. We're reacting to things around us based on the past, not based on what's actually going on now. Right. And that's where we can get really lost in ourselves is even if we're doing all this personal development work, but we don't have this piece of really having that sense of being able to let go to feel that sense of control in our bodies. Right. We do all this mindset work or emotional work and we don't have that somatic piece. It's like you feel like you're running in circles or something. You feel like you're running up against all these pre-programmed responses to life that you thought you were beyond. Do you kind of know what I mean? Like I was going through that at the beginning.
It's like, as I do all these different things, it's like, but these programs keep coming up. These programs keep coming up. And what I've noticed with my clients is that as they become more somatically aware and as I have learned in my own life to let go more, I have more freedom to actually make responses rather than reactions. I actually have space to do that in my body and not just be like in the trigger like so fully that I can't find my way out of it. Right.
S: And situations where it becomes a disadvantage is where people kind of adopt this like mob mentality and they lose themselves. They lose their individuality. So as an example, we could use any kind of like current social dilemma that is happening. Right. We could say like, I could say something very triggering like blue lives matter, police lives matter, something like that. That like for some people instantly, they would have some kind of reaction for it. Right. Because there's all this history behind it and means this thing. And so as soon as you hear this thing, there's retaliation. How could you say that, you know, well, like police people do this and this and this and this to underprivileged people.
Right. But if I invited you to hear a very triggering statement and then before responding or reacting, just listen to your body, breathe into your body, notice the sensations that are going on in you. Then you're creating space between reaction and response. You can respond in a very conscious way. If somebody very ignorantly says like blue lives matter, fuck you, whatever. And then the retaliation would be or the reaction would be a retaliation of like anger and accusation and all the heinous things you could imagine. How is that interaction actually going to turn out? Is anybody actually going to get their needs met? Is anybody actually going to feel better after the interaction? Is their nervous system going to feel better firing a whole lot of stress hormones through the system?
Or if you can take a deep breath, listen to the sensations in your body and then respond, how would the situation turn out? Would you actually recognize the other person coming from their own point of view feeling justified in what they're saying and then being able to honor them in their own justification without having to defend your own point of view? And once you're able to do that, that person seeing that you're not meeting their very triggering statement with animosity and aggression would actually feel like, oh, they're not attacking me back.
And they could actually see that person for being a person as well. So the whole social interaction could be very different if people knew how to just, create space before reacting and instead respond to a situation. And it all comes down to being somatically aware. If you, you can have a whole bunch of facts in your head, but if your emotional body is always triggered and is on a defensive, then your interactions are going to be defensive and you're going to trigger other people's trauma as well. And so how can we as a society develop ourselves to cause less trauma and understand each other and have all our needs met?
A: Yeah, I mean so powerful what you laid out there because this is really conflict resolution comes from like intelligent response and by intelligent, I don't just mean your mind, I mean your somatic intelligence, your full beingness of intelligence, right? In the response that you give to someone versus your painful, hurt, triggered reaction that simply perpetuates wounds from the past and creates them, makes them born again in the now. And you know to use like the the kind of yogic terminology here or the sankaras, the karmic patterns that we continue to perpetuate unconsciously is part of this. And so what you're really talking about is just breaking those karmic patterns through having a somatic response rather than an unconscious reaction.
S: Exactly. He's powerful. He's huge. He's super powerful and that's, I mean maybe it took this whole episode to come to this point, but that's my main thing. That's your thing. They help develop people into conscious responders, right? And that can live in this world responsibly, still have fun and create a society and a world where we actually can look seven generations ahead of ourselves. Right. Yeah, beautiful.
A: I mean so much similar to like my mission too as well as a somatic educator, you know, wishing this freedom for everybody and wanting people to be more balanced in and at home in their bodies so they can do the amazing things that they're here to do that they can get out of their own way and actually show up as the magical, badass, amazing, glorious human that they are, right? And at the same time also not be continuing to perpetuate the pain that happened to them out into the world, right? That there's this fortification of themselves where they're no longer, yeah, pulled into that same karmic rhythm that they've been in. And I gotta say, like we're making this sound so utopian and beautiful right now, but it is a practice and it is like a day in, day out practice, right? Like we can initiate someone in these somatic ways, but then it's really up to that person to continue to apply it, right? To continue to use that muscle that they've developed during their time with one of us, right? Totally.
S: Yeah, otherwise it's all for nothing, right? I mean, you can have, wait, it's almost like, it's, I like to tell this to my clients is treating somatics kind of like brushing your teeth, right? You can go to the dentist once and get a nice deep clean, right? And then after that, I'm fine. Did my dental work? I'm good. Don't need to floss. Don't need to brush. See you next year. Right? See you next year. And like we all know that that does not work, that you actually need to daily maintain your teeth. Some people don't, that's all up to them. But if you want to have teeth for a large majority of your life, you're going to have to take care of them. It's the same way with your body and your nervous system. If you go to a somatic educator once and get a session or go to a class once, that's great, right? But if you're like, did my one session for life, all right,
I'm good. OK, now all my pains are healed. But you're diluting yourself. That's not how it works. Right. And the encouragement is that once you learn this ability, use this ability, right? Once you learn how to brush your teeth, we'll do it every day. Do it as often as you can, right? Totally. And right. And then at some point, you're going to get really good brushing teeth and your teeth are going to look great. And this is the same thing with your body and your nervous system. If you practice daily or regularly somatics, you're not going to lose your height when you grow older. Some people shrink as they age because they're actually contorting their body posture, making themselves shorter. So one thing is you stay tall and you stay as attractive as you are. You maintain mobility in your body.
You have less pain, so that further on allows you to stay mobile and aware. You're going to be more conscious around other people. Your intelligence is going to go up because you're so aware, right? Awareness can almost be equated with with intelligence because the more you're aware of, the more you can take action on. And the more things that you can actually do if you're aware. If you're not aware of anything, you can only take action on whatever is in front of you.
Right. And yeah, there are so many other benefits to doing a somatic practice. If you're dealing with a chronic issue, say, like multiple sclerosis or having an autoimmune disorder like rheumatoid arthritis, even though these conditions can necessarily be cured through somatics, the symptoms that come up will be dealt with and your quality of life will be that much better than anybody else that is not doing somatics. Right.
A: Yeah. Well, just that that level of tension and pressure and the inability to downregulate that we were talking about earlier. Anybody can benefit from that. Right. That's the piece here that you just mentioned about the, you know, using using it and actually doing the brushing of your teeth now that you know, right? I feel like that's why it's so important. Like you said, you're working with someone for three months. You know, this is something they're going to get a shift. And when you get a serious shift like that, I feel like it's motivating to continue the work. When some people, you know, just get like a couple of sessions and everybody's different, some people's nervous systems are really like hungry and ready for this. And other people, it takes more time. Right. There's more conditioning.
There's more stuff in the way. But like getting them to that place where they feel, oh, the difference. This is how I could feel. And it's different than how I was feeling before. That is very motivating. If you haven't had that experience, you know, yeah, it's kind of about like making once again, what was unconscious, conscious. If you are having an experience, it's just normal. You're just like, yeah, I just always feel this way. I'm just always anxious. I'm just always nervous, you know, or I worked with someone recently, a Pilates instructor, and she warned me when she laid down her back. She's like, I don't like laying on my back. I hate Savasana. Like my chest always hurts. And I hear these words a lot. It's like always my chest always hurts, right? When I lay on my back. And so, you know, we did some movements, we did some sessions. And we got to the point like four or five sessions in, I was she laid down on her back and I said, how does your chest feel?
And she's like, it's fine. I was like, don't you remember when we first started? Always hurts when you lay on your back. You said, it's like I'm always uncomfortable when I lay on my back. And she's like, oh, no, I'm good now. Yeah, it's fine. You feel that difference. But sometimes like that habituation goes on and we'll forget again. We'll forget how much pain we were getting in. We'll forget how much tension there once was. But that shift is really important for people to be able to go, oh, like there's not an always when it comes to my body. There's what's happening. And then now it's not happening. And then it's coming and going, right?
It's those those feelings of always that have us feeling like we're stuck, you know, and I mean, I had that it was like my left leg always hurts. Well, it doesn't anymore. It's not true. It once was like that. But then I felt that shift and that change and it motivates me to continue to do my somatic work because when I have that pain in my left leg, I'm like, oh, I don't really want to live with that. I think I'll lay down and turn that off.
S; Yeah, exactly. And I think like so sometimes I'll be in front of a really difficult problem. And I have no idea what to do. And so I have no motivation to do anything about it until I talk to somebody that happens to be maybe some expert in that field or area. And they give me an easy to follow instruction. And then suddenly the whole difficulty I had in even getting started and trying to fix my problem totally disappears. Suddenly I have an actionable step I can take to help myself through this issue. Right. And suddenly there's excitement.
There's excitement around dealing with this issue when before it was just trepidation and fear and life. Right. And once you have easy to follow steps and somebody proving to you that it works, you're going to feel excited about doing it. And that's exactly how the somatic works. Once you know how it works and you can use it with any muscle in your body, you're going to be excited about using it because that means you can do something about it in the moment and feel better and not have to deal with the pain, the limitation, the, oh no, I can't because my back is hurting today. Right. You're going to introduce yourself to a new world of possibility.
A: Yeah. Very exciting stuff. Double high five on that for sure. Well, as we're kind of winding down here and wrapping up things today, I just want to say like it's been so wonderful to hear you share about where you're coming from and the people that you're ready to serve and that you're serving. And I would just love to invite you to say a little bit more about the kind of span of your modalities. Like, because you also do sound healing, you work with crystals sometimes. Would you like to say a little bit more about how you synthesize your work and deliver it?
S: Absolutely. So for me, my main core or my main objective when working with people is how do I uncover the truth? How do I uncover their true self? So it comes out in me just like when I'm talking to somebody, I'm just like focusing on them and without judging them, allowing them to be who they are. So the true self can come out when I have them on the massage table or I'm training them in somatics. It's all about how can we cut away all the fluff, all the conditions, all the things that are holding them back from actually being right here. And we do somatics and they come back to themselves. It all comes back to uncovering your core. And now I also, for many years, have been making jewelry. Wearing a piece right here. Yay.
I just like wrap little crystals in string and they're usually colorful string with colorful beads and every single one is different because every single person is different. And I make them kind of with this, this intention of externalizing their inner energy. Right. If you think about yourself or you think about a person in your life, do you see a color associated with them? Right. So for example, whenever I think about my mom, I think of the color red. And so if I were to make something for her, it would have red in it to reflect that, that inner spirit that is always there. But you can't really see it if you're only focusing on light and the information that light gives you. You kind of have to see it with your third eye or with your imagination or with your feeling. Right. And so again, it's a way of helping people to uncover their core and show it out and free it. Right. And then the other modality that I work in is also sound healing. And again, it's a way for people to be immersed in a sound experience where maybe the things that are holding them back, the traumas, the pains can be drained out, can be brought up and then moved away or cleaned out. Sometimes it feels like I'm cleaning people out energetically and just removing whatever clutter there is so that their true core can shine through. So all the things I do, it's all about being in your truth, being authentic, being yourself and being in the power of that because we're incredibly magical, powerful beings. And if we suppress our hearts, suppress our emotions and our dreams, then we're not going to shine as bright and we're not going to have the kind of impact on the world and other people that maybe we would like. Right. Maybe you would want to be remembered historically.
Maybe you want a bronze poured to made of you, but what's going to get to you there? Right. Is it going to be you living with your self doubts and staying home all the time and not expressing your gifts and not sharing them? Or would it be to inspire other people to also unfold themselves, to also take their own abilities in hand and use them to the best of their abilities? Right. And we are remembered for the great impact and change that we've had on other people. Right. And we can list many, many, many historical figures that have impacted our lives, maybe indirectly or directly, but it was because they decided to do something despite their own doubts, despite their own traumas. Or they tried to do something to reverse the damage that had been done to them. Right. And, and everybody is grateful for them for that. And so now we remember them.
A: Yeah. Yeah. Talking about making that imprint on the collective consciousness, even if it feels like small or large, right? There's a, there's a reverberation. So each time that you have a positive impact on someone, that person has their bubble of people that then they share a little bit of this with. And then those people share a little bit of that. And so you really don't know how big your impact actually can be. Unless we were doing, what is that thing that they were doing? The contact mapping that they were doing during COVID. Yeah. Oh yeah. We could do that, but like in a positive way. Yeah. Well, that's a great example. That's a great example. The impact that you're having on other people through how you're being, through how you are, throughout your showing up, you know? And sure, just like COVID, not everybody's going to catch it, you know, and to that degree, you know what I mean? But there are those who are going to, going to catch onto your vibe or going to take in what you share, you know, and, and, and make it part of them and then take it out into the world and, you know, energetically it's being passed on and passed on. Exactly.
S: It's like a wonderful disease. The best. Yeah. It's, yeah, that's a really interesting point because it made people aware of how powerful they were, but with under the context of like, I could, I could hurt people. Right. I leaving my house and go into the next thing. That narrative. That's what we're trying to do is we're flipping that narrative and like do whatever you need to do to protect yourself from infectious diseases. Of course. But if you want to live in a more positive environment, a positive world, take responsibility, you totally can. And you can affect the people in your environment, just like the people in environment affected you. And the more we have people just being kind, just being present, um, modeling that for each other, I think we're going to eventually move onto a different track. Right. It's already happening. It's every person that you inspire can inspire other people infinitely on. And so let's move with that intention.
Let's be in the world with that intention, that the positivity that I spread is going to spread further. And it's not just going to like affect nobody and have no splash whatsoever. I don't believe that. Right. I hope people listening can take some of that on, right? And feel the joy and the empowerment within that. If you just smile at somebody on the street, you might make their day and you might actually make somebody else's life further down that stream even better. Yeah. So why not? Why not do that?
A: Thank you so much for being here with me today and sharing. For those of you who are interested in learning more about Seiji's work, maybe you're interested in hiring him or chatting with him about some of the things that he shared today. Can you tell our listeners where they can find you?
S: You can find me mainly on Instagram under Oshenza Seiji. Maybe we'll just have the links in the description down below because people don't always know how to spell my name. I also have videos on YouTube. If you find my Instagram page, you'll find a link tree of all the different kinds of links. You can apply for coaching with me, of course. I do have some free content, free videos of me teaching you somatics. If you want to learn how to turn off tension in your shoulders and your neck, how to stand taller, how to feel less pain in your back, you can find all those things if you reach out to me. And other than that, you can find me on Facebook, but there I like, I share mostly memes and then also some somatic stuff. But if you're looking for information that inspires you and makes you laugh, then you would find me on Facebook.
A: Yeah. Well, your meme game is pretty tight, man. Thanks. You share some funny stuff and some really just sweet stuff too.
S; So yeah, I just, I try to give people a mixed bag. I don't want, there's some very, very cynical memes out there and some of them I find funny, but other times they're just kind of pathetic. And I try to find the ones that either just make people think a little bit more about what's going on socially or in the world or whatever. Or just to lighten the load and make them laugh about something dumb, like completely dumb. And then other times it's not even a meme. I'm just sharing articles about inspiring thing that's happening, new technologies that are coming out that could help us or new types of awareness that are emerging into society. But my whole motivation is how do we make this whole experience together better and ensure it for the future? Totally.
A; Yes. So beautiful. Thank you again. I absolutely adore you and I'm looking forward to more conversations in the future. Thank you for sharing about your, you know, some about your childhood today, growing up in Germany, about the impact of the men's work for you and a little bit about the client that you're helping too. That was really inspiring. Yeah.
S: It's all inspiring to me and I love what I'm doing and I just want to do more. Okay.
A: Well, we'll catch you really soon. Make sure to check out Seiji on Instagram. He also makes some pretty fun reels and share some very helpful information about regulating your nervous system, about somatic and all the juicy stuff we talked about today. Thank you so much. Bye bye. Sorry. You've been listening to the Free Your Soma podcast. To find out more information about today's guest, check the show notes. And to find out more information about me, Amy Takaya and the Radiance program, visit www.freeyoursoma .com.
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