MOVING FROM THE SOURCE

Somatic Movement Therapy & Authentic Movement
with Paula Josa-Jones, MA, CMA, MSMET, SEP

The body is a moving archive - a breathing reservoir of our bodily experience.
Movement is the body's language and voice. Breath is the body's anchor.
When we invite the body to move without judgment or hurry, we open to the body's wisdom.

A recipe for entering the body:
Attention: because the body is precise.
Listening: because the body is subtle.
Kindness: because the body is tender.

Somatic Movement Therapy deepens our connection to the body through conscious movement and stillness, breath, touch, sound and imagery. Grounding experience in the body gives us a clear and vibrant sense of our sensual connection to the earth, each other and ourselves. By cultivating an improvisational spirit of exploration and play, we open to greater expression and expansion. Moving mindfully restores qualities of connectivity, openness and integration by dissolving the separation between inner and outer experiencing. It is an effective and gentle way of working with trauma, injuries and physical limitations.

Somatic Movement Therapy focuses on the sensations that lie beneath our feelings, and uncovering our habitual responses to these feelings. Clients develop increased tolerance for difficult bodily sensations and suppressed emotions, helping them to gain access to greater resilience and expressivity, learning to stay in the present moment.

This work supports:
  • Our ability to focus on the body both as an objective physical process and as a subjective process of lived consciousness.
  • A way to refine perceptual, kinesthetic, proprioceptive, and interoceptive sensitivity that supports homeostasis, co-regulation, and neuroplasticity
  • Learning to recognize habitual patterns of perceptual, postural and movement interaction with the environment
  • Improving movement coordination for structural, functional and expressive integration
  • experience an embodied sense of vitality and create both meaning for and enjoyment of life

    This work is for:
  • Those who want a more conscious and compassionate relationship with their bodies.
  • Individuals recovering from injury, physical or emotional trauma.
  • Individuals recovering from addiction.
  • Children and adults on the autism spectrum.
  • Therapists wishing to bring more body-mind awareness to their practice.
  • Those seeking an integrative, therapeutic approach to exercise and fitness, read more here.

    Paula's somatic movement work with clients may include:
    AUTHENTIC MOVEMENT, a contemplative movement practice that nourishes creativity and imagination through a practice of intuitive and spontaneous movement and SourceWork - guided bodily meditations for deepening and expanding movement awareness.

    LABAN/BARTENIEFF MOVEMENT ANALYSIS (LMA), a way of describing, visualizing, interpreting and documenting human movement. LMA helps us understand where movement may lack coherence and connectivity, and to become aware of the overall expressive map of one's movement. Paula also works with perspectives drawn from her study of Body-Mind Centering®.

    DEEP LISTENING: Based on the work of long-time collaborator Pauline Oliveros these strategies expand choices, focus and dynamism in one's movement awareness and responsiveness. Oliveros describes Deep Listening as listening with your whole body.

    EMBODIED EQUINE EXPERIENCING may be appropriate for those wishing to discover the powerful, integrative presence of horses. Paula's book, Our Horses, Ourselves: Discovering the Common Body is a guide to deepening communication and understanding through the healing presence of horses.

    Directory Listing: ISMETA

    Download The Wisdom of the Moving Body

    Contact Paula to make an appointment.