Body check-in
Photo by Olia Gozha on Unsplash
A picture is worth a thousand words, and equally - one sculpture or gesture can share a lot about how we are actually feeling. Perhaps, we even uncover something we had not verbalised.
It’s fair to say that in Switzerland we tend to be rather rational/logical brain oriented, and less driven by or connected to our emotions, feelings or body sensations. Some would even consider this positive, a winning of the reason over matter. Instead, we are learning that this separation is not necessarily healthy (e.g. holistic health approaches) and it also cuts us of a source of information.
There is an entire field of study around body work and systemic or family constellations. The one I personally am most familiar with is Social Presencing Theater, a methodology developed under the leadership of Arawana Hayashi in the context of the Theory U. I still recall how during one exercise at the Presencing Foundation Program in Oxford in 2017, she said something like “we only think of our bodies as a transport method for our brains”. I agree with her in that we underestimate what we can do and what information we can access with our bodies.
This exercise is a very simple first step to begin tuning into how you are actually feeling, what is really present within yourself. If you’d like to go deeper into this practice we recommend checking out the SPT website whilst we work on more toolbox entries and blogposts.
Why do it: this check-in is a way to tune into how each person in the room is feeling individually, and share this with the group. It creates a new sense of awareness and may be a first step to start practising more body work.
Process:
Introduce the exercise and give some context why checking-in with your body may be interesting, so people can relate to where this is coming from. The more people are new to this, the more important it becomes to introduce it properly.
Form a circle with everyone involved, standing up.
Introduce the exercise in more specific terms, with these steps:
When it is your turn, close your eyes and feel into your body
Which movements emerge naturally? Just follow the impulse.
Once you land in a certain posture, allow yourself to settle in. Feel into this posture, hold it for a few breaths.
Then come back to a neutral standing position, take a breath and hand over to the person on your left by looking at them.
You may wish to specify: it is not about thinking “I feel stretched, how can I represent this with my body” but the other way around. Just tune into yourself and follow the movement, without trying to make sense of it.
Then you may wish to start, to demonstrate what you mean. Take it slow.
Then hand over to the person on your left by looking at them to signal you are complete.
The check-in then proceeds around the circle, until everyone has done their gesture.
We hope you enjoy this exercise!
About Social Presencing Theater
“Social Presencing Theater (SPT) is a methodology, developed under the leadership of Arawana Hayashi, for understanding current reality and exploring emerging future possibilities. SPT can be practiced at the individual, group, organization, and larger social systems level. It is one of the most important and effective methods developed by the Presencing Institute, and has been used effectively for over ten years in business, government, and civil society settings, in places including Brazil, Indonesia, China, Europe and the United States. This is not "theater" in the conventional sense, but uses simple body postures and movements to dissolve limiting concepts, to communicate directly, to access intuition, and to make visible both current reality, and the deeper – often invisible – leverage points for creating profound change.” Source: https://www.presencing.org/aboutus/spt
Needed time
Any amount of people, time depends on the amount of people, min 2min per person recommended in order not to feel rushed. No other materials needed.
Sources and Further literature
The origin of Social Presencing Theater, conversation with Arawana and Otto
Social Presencing Theater 'Conversation with Arawana Hayashi' Trailer version
Photo by Olia Gozha on Unsplash