Mindfulness & somatics

Welcome to just being and resting into conscious presence and traditional and contemporary exercises from mindfulness and practices oriented around compassion. We explore an approach to life based on presence and compassion, providing resilience under stress and resources for recovery and balance. When we practice mindfulness, we cultivate an ability to be with what is and step out of our automatic reactions and instead respond to life’s various events with greater compassion.

Mindfulness originally comes from the Hindu and Buddhist tradition where conscious presence is practiced as an approach to life and for meditation. In west the mindfulness-techniques has come to be widely researched and evidence-based methods to increase well-being, health and quality of life.

Some benefits of Mindfulness are used in:
– Stress reduction and recovery.
– Step out of your autopilot and increase our ability to consciously act instead of reacting.
– Understanding of your behaviors and their connection to thought, feeling, body and action.
– To face life and be with yourself from a conscious, compassionate and embodied approach.
– Breathing and body awareness.
– Mindfulness in everyday tasks.

Compassion is a radical way of acknowledging suffering as part of being human and an understanding that when we are our ally rather than our enemy, we create more constructive and sustainable ways of dealing with life. We practice being our own friend, even when we need it most. Compassion is the key to responding to stress with care and to creating community in relationships instead of separation. We are all in the same boat.

With compassion, we can build a foundation for inner support in all moments of life and a sense of belonging – with the ability for our nervous system to create security in contrast to the survival mechanisms our bodies use when we experience stress. A fundamental approach in Eastern philosophy is to understand how we all, both humans, animals and nature, interact and influence each other and therefore it is ethically valuable to take care of each other, to cultivate a concern for others. In Buddhist tradition, compassion is a guideline, something that leads to happiness and is a large part of the meaning of life. Compassion is today a proven and research-based method in the West as a way to increase well-being and resilience in the midst of life’s challenges.

As we recognize ourselves with our breathing sensing bodies, the perceived world itself begins to shift and transform. Our understanding of life rises up from our living bodies. We can experience things – we can touch, hear and taste things – only because we ourselves are part of the sensible world we perceive! The Latin word soma means “the living body.” Somatic Movement is a field within bodywork and movement studies aimed at experiencing and feeling movement from within the body.

In somatic dance practice we learn embodied approaches to movement, the body and consciousness. With an experimental approach we learn body agency and anatomy and as well connection and integration of our being as a whole. ElinMaria and Gabriel draw inspiration from Contact Improvisation, dance improvisation, mindful movement, developmental movement-patterns, Body Mind Centering, experimental anatomy, authentic movement and eco-somatics.
“Are you comfortable? That can be missunderstood. Are you comfortable? Even in great stress and pain, it can be comfortable in being ourselves. It’s not just not having any pain – comfort doesnt mean not having pain. It’s that we are here in our body. Maybe we are totally misserable but we are here, with all the feelings and frustration and joy. It’s I’m still here. And I’m grateful” /Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen.

Eco Somatics is an emerging interdisciplinary field that connects body-shaping practices such as dance and healing art with ecological consciousness. Somatic movement practices has the possibility to break the dichotomy between man and nature and make visible that we are mutually welded together. We aim to bring awareness how body and nature are intertwined and that the body is nature; in it’s ongoing exchange of air with the plants and trees, food we eat, footprint that we make in our interaction to the ecosystem.

“We are not seprate from the Earth; we are as much a part of the planet Earth as each cell in our body is part of us.” /Mike Samuels, M.D and Hal Zina Bennet, Well Body Well Earth

Welcome to nourish connection and belonging to yourself and this beautiful planet Earth!

When ElinMaria facilitate mindfulness and Somatics;

– I set up exercises and group processes with room for choice. I encourage and support participants to listen in, take a break and be with their boundaries.

– I integrate compassion in my teaching as a recurring approach to ourselves and each other, both through attitudes and specific exercises. With compassion we can build a ground for inner support inour learning-processes and a sense of belonging – with the possibility for our nervous system to create safety in opposition to those surviving mechanisms our bodies use when we’re having stressors.

– When we practice methods where we get more in touch with ourselves, our bodies and each other, I deliberately prevent participants from becoming overwhelmed. In my facilitation, I intend to honor breaks, work slowly, with space to step out of an exercise, to frontload with grounding resources and root us in this present moment so that it can be as safe exploration as possible.

– These courses are not group therapy, but education to support skills for tending to yourself on your day-to-day basis. If you need deep work to heal your past, the invitation is that you reach out for a therapist, teacher, healer, or shaman who specializes in trauma integration work, to help you on your journey.

ElinMaria Sydänvirta has more than 20 years of daily experience with somatics and meditation. I am graduated at the Nordic Yoga Institute and Virya yoga teacher, Mindfulness Instructor at Mindfulness Center Sweden (MfC), ISLO Dance and Somatics (1 year fulltime education) and Somatic Selfcompassion® trauma Informed Approach. My background in somatics and mindfulness started as 14 years when I dived deep into the world’s of meditation and yoga, 5 rhythms, somatic practices and breathwork. Since then different movement- and meditation disciplines has been part of my daily life. In meditation I’ve been mainly practicing mindfulness-meditation and Transcendental Meditation (TM). My special interest is in compassion-based techniques and interconnectedness to nature.

For Gabriel, mindfulness and meditation have been part of life for a long time. After discovering meditation in 2004, he has meditated daily and participated in many Vipassana meditation retreats. While traveling the world, Gabriel has lived in ashrams, monasteries and temples, e.g. in Tibet, Nepal and India and spent long periods of time in nature in silence, fasting and meditating.
Aguahara, water treatments, water dance and being in the water has been a big part of this path. Mindfulness and staying present is important for Gabriel in his everyday life.