True Listening: Witnessing our Fixations in Real Time
- Fede
- Apr 17
- 4 min read
Somatic Science® articulates a holistic view of human suffering and healing, grounded in a neurobiological and experiential framework. It explicitly rejects metaphysical or superstitious interpretations of the so-called "mind" and instead offers a logical, physiological explanation of the process where we identify in our self with constriction and contractions. We also show a way to a potential release. Here we emphasize 3 distinct types of fixations and how to intelligently transform them.
These fixations are rooted in neurobiological processes, especially those involved in the threat response cycle (TRC). When the natural response to a threat (fight, flight, freeze) is interrupted or suppressed, the body stores the unresolved metabolic energy—leading to muscular, behavioral, and cognitive bindings or fixations. Due to the evolutionary purpose of our autonomic nervous system (to survive), these fixations can easily form into a pseudo-identity, often mistaken for our true self. This pseudo-identity is at the root of dissatisfaction and unhappiness with life. It is at the root of the belief in separation: the felt sense that some non-specific thing is wrong with us right now. We can discover and listen to (sense and experience) these fixations in real time because they are ever-present when our nervous system is dysregulated. Any common sensations such as tight jaws, shoulders, abdomens, calves or foreheads indicate that our nervous system is undergoing processes of fixation. Before listening to them, we must prepare. Join us to discover our approach.
Please join us on May 17-18 for an online workshop where we will introduce these ideas and demonstrate how to use them to transform trauma, grief, loss, and our tendency to get "lost in thought".
Muscular Fixations
"Muscular fixations" are physical contractions or tensions held in the body—particularly in muscles or specific body areas such as the face, gut, solar plexus, or even the hands. These contractions are understood as expressions of unprocessed energy, immobilized responses from past experiences, particularly those involving a past threat: trauma.
These fixations are not symbolic but represent stored metabolic energy that has been prevented from completing its natural cycle of motor expression right after being sent for execution.
These are somatic or physical constrictions that become habitual responses to past, unresolved emotional or survival experiences. These muscular contractions "hold" unprocessed metabolic energy in the body, keeping historical affective states alive in the present moment without our conscious awareness.
Behavioral Fixations
"Behavioral fixation" encompasses patterns of action or inaction—habitual behaviors that emerge from unresolved muscular fixations that develop into patterns over time. This includes habitual facial expressions (like a scowl or frown), gestures, or postures that reflect past emotional responses. Somatic Science® suggests that by witnessing these behaviors without interference, their associated metabolic energy will release naturally. This aligns with trauma theory’s view that embodied behavioral patterns are attempts to manage unresolved states of arousal or threat.
This includes unconscious patterns of action or inhibition that arise from unresolved physiological stress cycles. For instance, we describe involuntary behaviors (e.g., facial expressions like a scowl) as fixations that emerge when the nervous system hasn’t completed a particular TRC. These patterns become part of one's personality or identity, but they are, in fact, remnants of unprocessed past events.
Cognitive Fixations
"Cognitive fixations" are the most insidious form: the identification with limiting or distorted cognitive patterns. Somatic Science® challenges the ontological status of thought itself. We describe it as not inherently real but merely the echo of unresolved nervous system contractions. This fixation limits awareness to a narrow, self-reinforcing view of identity, disconnected from present-moment experience.
Cognitive fixations manifest as persistent, looping "thought" patterns or identifications with negative mental states — e.g., "I am this negativity" or "I am this craziness" or 'I am doomed." These cognitive fixations are often implicit and must be first made explicit in order to bring them into conscious attention.
These cognitive states can be easily traced to a pattern of dorsal vagal activation, which downregulates all of the human relational mechanisms and instead uses more ancient neural circuits to destroy, escape or ignore a perceived threat. Somatic Science® challenges the reality of thought itself, labelling it “so-called thought,” suggesting that most "thinking" is not conscious cognition but an aggregate form of neural contraction. a or tension rather than present-moment awareness.
Please join us on May 17-18 for an online workshop where we will introduce these ideas and demonstrate how to use them to transform trauma, grief, loss, and our tendency to get "lost in thought".
By bringing non-judgmental awareness rooted in the present moment (now) to these stored contractions—thus allowing the energy to move—we can complete the TRC and enter an “updating cycle.” This is not a mystical process, but as a law-governed mechanism of the physiology of the nervous system.
Somatic Science® is the natural study of human nervous system processes that result in daily unhappiness or suffering. We look from the perspective of evolutionary biology, neurocognition and consciousness to discover the means to regulate our nervous system towards the absence of suffering.
Somatic Science® is a novel, reason-centered 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.
The aim of our approach is to enjoy life with great happiness; no more and no less. It is not to focus on diagnoses, understanding our problems or spending many years analyzing them. When we are happy, we are simply BEING the present moment, where psychological, scientific, spiritual or metaphysical problems do not exist. There might be challenges, and in being presence, we can resolve them with responsibility and care.
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