The Somatic Science® Approach- Part 4
Somatic Science® is a highly effective neurocognitive & nondual wisdom approach. It supports our nervous system to become regulated, relaxed and harmonized with itself & the external environment. This helps us to develop a basic capacity for self-attunement and self-regulation, which are essential for satisfying relationships with our self and others. This approach fills the void left by Science and Spirituality yet embraces both, which ignore the great importance of Nervous System Regulation in our lives.
When our nervous system is regulated, its fine sensing capacity becomes a portal for consciousness in our world. There is no need to "be spiritual" or "be wise". Unconditional happiness is obstructed by any "trying to be anything" other than our Self.
In the third part of this blog series, we uncovered how fixations develop out of incomplete TRC's and develop into the mTRC. Many individuals, despite fulfilling their basic needs, remain anxious or dissatisfied due to maladaptive threat response cycles (mTRCs) within the autonomic nervous system. These cycles, often rooted in adverse childhood experiences, disrupt natural processes of recovery and adaptation, leading to physical, emotional, and relational difficulties. Without the basic understanding of the way in which our nervous system manages both our inner & outer life we are doomed to repeatedly fail to discover what true happiness really means. Then, remembering our essential happiness is so hard that it might as well be impossible.
This writing is a form of inquiry which does not seek for an answer. The inquiry happens for the sake of its own curiosity. The landscape of experience that it renders into existence is meant as an exchange with You, who is aware of this body writing and reading these words right now. You, who operates these hands, these eyes, these ears, nose and skin to experience the world right now. This is for You and by You, who lives in the heart that can never be grasped by understanding.
You can only be experienced directly, in silence.
Curiosity: A Gateway to Healing
The most powerful sign that our nervous system is regulated is the experience of curiosity, which can lead to the experience of wonder. Our nervous system manages curiosity as a restorative or healing parasympathetic state that is diametrically opposed to the TRC; specifically the mTRC. When we feel safe, our natural instinct is to explore, engage, and learn. This contrasts with the fear-driven state of the mTRC, where our nervous system capacity for curiosity is shut down, and we focus only on surviving potential or actual threats.
Curiosity is not a cognitive activity—it's a neurocognitive reflection of our nervous system’s health. By fostering curiosity, we open ourselves up to the wonder of new experiences that transform fear and fixations into the opening of our essential heart-mind. Physiologically speaking the heart-mind is a very different construct than the body-mind. The heart-mind results from an ANS relationship between the pericardium and heart and the different areas in the face where the vagus nerve can reach it. These can form a closed circuit. In the absence of this circuit, the body-mind dualistic construct is more prevalent and the heart to face relational circuit is not active. Then our face is absent, and we are disconnected from our inner and outer realities which fail to meet and blend within our awareness.
Our theory builds upon the polyvagal theory by suggesting that many habitual cognitive processes hitherto labeled "thought" actually stem from a dysfunctional activation of the TRC - or mTRC.
The Way Forward: A Path to Lasting Well-Being
Somatic Science® explores the interplay of evolutionary biology, interoception, and metacognition to address unresolved nervous system responses that perpetuate existential trauma and unhappiness. By engaging the parasympathetic state of curiosity and leveraging relational dynamics, individuals can process past experiences, release trapped energy and achieve a balanced state of calm and safety. This process fosters a deeper connection to one's true self, unburdened by fear-based conditioning or external expectations. Our approach offers a holistic and practical strategy for addressing chronic unhappiness – existential trauma. By focusing on the nervous system’s role in shaping our cognition, emotions and behavioral experiences we can learn to regulate ourselves, dissolve dysfunctional patterns, and foster a sense of curiosity and engagement with life.
True happiness, according to this perspective, doesn’t come from cognitively understanding or changing our circumstances—it comes from restoring our nervous system’s natural balance. When we do this, we unlock a state of well-being that is intrinsic, resilient, and grounded in the present moment.
The present moment is a perception of a window in time-space that contains 4 dimensions: inner and outer signals, consciousness or cognition, and behaviors.
This experience of the present moment, from a distinctly human perspective, has four perceptible dimensions. Even if there exist an infinite number of realities to discover, our human perceptual capacity is limited in its ability to render reality onto these four dimensions:
Exteroception | Perception of experiences outside of our body.
Interoception | Perception of experiences inside of our body.
Behavior | Perception of the experiences that relate the inside to the outside of the body.
Aperception | A synoptic abstraction that summarizes the first three dimensions into an imaginal perceptual object. Our nervous system uses short-term and long-term forms of memory to create this store of knowledge from which we can interact with our experience and grow in all 3 possible facets: Being, Doing and Having.
Aperception (as abstract potential) is the substrate where all of experience takes place. It is where insight, intuition and inspiration take place. Aperception in the human realm of experience relies on memory, the reference framework that acts as a guardrail for perception.
When we actively harness our innate capacity for metacognition towards self-regulation and curiosity, we naturally step out of the cycles of fear and anxious imagination – we rediscover the joy of living in presence.
The Power of Self-Regulation
Somatic Science® suggests that releasing our selves from the cycle of unhappiness requires a unique tracing of the cycles required by self-regulation. This dynamic reinforcement builds on a new understanding of evolutionary biology and taps into our capacity for metacognition—our awareness of our own cognitive processes. This involves becoming aware of interoception—tuning into our internal bodily sensations—simultaneously with an explicit awareness of the external environment via exteroception. Only then are we able to recognize when we're reacting to imaginal threats rather than real ones. This by itself can help us shift from an activated mTRC back into a neutral or positive sense of safety. Self-regulation isn't about ignoring stress by “transcending”, “bypassing” or "thinking positive"; it's about consciously guiding our nervous system out of "checkout mode" and into a beneficial felt sense of explicit safety, rest, recovery and curiosity. When we intentionally engage in this, we naturally turn to the relief of presence, so we are much better equipped to handle life’s challenges.
Somatic Science® approach highlights the vital role of nervous system regulation in fostering emotional clarity, resilience, and happiness. Bridging science and spirituality, it explains how maladaptive Threat Response Cycles (mTRCs), often stemming from childhood adversity, contribute to our experience of unhappiness and stress. By prioritizing autonomic nervous system regulation, this approach helps individuals transform the energy of chronic dysregulation into curiosity, activating a biological state of well-being through self-attunement. This re-ignites our capacity for knowing self and others as manifestations of intelligence.
Self-regulation is a unique blend of interoception and exteroception coupled with new behaviors, metacognition and neurocognition. It helps us differentiate between real and imagined threats, shifting our nervous system from a state of threat-activation to one of safety, curiosity & wellbeing.
Here are the links to the previously published segments:
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