Somatics 101: Dropping below the chin
“Calm down.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“What’s the big deal?”
How do you feel when you hear these statements?
When I’m upset and someone tells me to do one of those, I feel misunderstood, ashamed, and sometimes a little angry. My mind gets it. I want to scream, “Of course, I’ve already thought of that.” When I’m triggered or in a heightened state, I want to follow that advice: to stay calm and let whatever upsets me roll off my back. But when my body takes over, I just can’t.
Enter: Somatics.
Somatic means “of the body.” Within The Adult Chair® methodology I practice and teach, somatic work is dropping below the chin, getting out of our heads and into bodies, where our wisdom, beliefs, and patterns reside. When we work with the body, we can bring true, lasting change.
You can’t think your way to a deep transformation.
You can learn, analyze, and will yourself to change, and there’s value in that. But until you work with the body, the transformation will stay in your head, at the surface level.
Somatics and The Adult Chair
The Adult Chair teaches us that our lives have three distinct periods, which we describe as chairs. They are the child, the adolescent, and the adult. Our child chair, formed between ages 0-6, is the seat of our emotions, our core needs, and our passions. From ages 7-24, we move into our adolescent chair. This is the seat of our ego, and where our protective parts develop to keep us safe and fitting in. It is rooted in fear, the past and future, and story and assumption. The child and adolescent live in our body, where they run the show unconsciously.
With our prefrontal cortex fully online at age 25, we can move into our adult chair. That’s where we live in the present moment, with discernment, grounded and conscious. It is from our adult chair that we can move into our child and adolescent chairs by going below our chin and connecting to those parts.
When we’re triggered or when old wounds are poked, the body pulls us out of the adult chair and back into those younger parts. We feel it as a rush of emotion, tension, or discomfort, sometimes before we even know what’s happening. Somatic work teaches us to notice, feel, and release what the body is holding so we can move forward from a place of presence and choice.
The more we work with the body, the more we heal and change egoic patterns and process our emotions so that we can find the pause and live more of our life from our conscious, healthy adult self.
Thinking isn’t enough
The brain is brilliant. It helps us plan, process, and practice how we want to respond in difficult moments. But when we’re triggered, our body takes over.
Have you overreacted and yelled or fled from a situation and later wondered, what was going on? Then you think, “ok, I’m not going to get so mad next time”, but find it hard to control your reaction.
That’s because most of our reactions are automatic. They’re driven by the nervous system, by unconscious beliefs, unprocessed emotions, and patterns that live below the surface of our awareness in our child or adolescent chairs.
This is why you can know exactly what you want to do and still find yourself reacting in the same old way. It’s not about willpower or faulty thinking. It’s about wiring. And that wiring lives in the body.
The body is the missing link
Our life experiences are stored in our bodies. Emotions we didn’t feel safe enough to process, protective beliefs we built to survive, feelings of pain, fear, or even joy we didn’t know how to metabolize, are all there below the chin.
These experiences don’t just disappear because we move on in the moment or because time rolls on. Until we go in and process them, they get stored as energy, frozen in time.
Energy is meant to move
Somatic work is what helps that energy move through and out of the body. Somatic tools help us process what’s been stuck, to update the old beliefs that no longer serve us, and to update the younger parts so they aren’t running the show anymore.
When we start to integrate somatic practices, we can:
Ground ourselves in the present moment.
Notice what’s happening inside our bodies without judgment, bringing awareness and compassion to the child and adolescent parts of us.
Create safety in our nervous system, so those younger parts can soften and trust that we, in our grounded adult selves, are here to lead.
This is how we stop living on autopilot and start responding with intention.
Dropping below the chin
If you’re new to somatic work, start small. Somatics isn’t about doing more; it’s about noticing and connecting. Here are a few places to begin:
Grounding: Place your feet firmly on the floor, take a slow, deep breath, and notice the support of the ground beneath you.
Body scans: Pause to simply notice physical sensations in your body, tight shoulders, a flutter in your stomach, a heaviness in your chest, without trying to fix them.
Hand to heart: When emotions come up, place your hand on your heart or your belly. Take a few deep breaths and remind your body that it’s safe to feel your feelings. Even tears are energy moving through. Emotions will metabolize in 60-90 seconds.
Gentle movement: Walk, stretch, or shake out your arms and legs to release tension and reconnect with your body.
Energy practices: Tools like tapping and grounding practices can help emotions and energy flow through your system instead of staying stuck.
Living in our body
When we stop trying to think our way into healing and instead drop below the chin, we discover something powerful: the body already knows what we need.
Lasting change doesn’t come from white-knuckling or memorizing scripts for how to react. It comes from creating safety and presence in the body so we can meet life’s moments from a place of connection, compassion, and choice.
Next time you’re frustrated or triggered, know that you can tell yourself to calm down and use these tools to do so. This is the heart of somatic work.
Rebecca Fellenbaum is a certified somatic life coach, Reiki practitioner, intuitive guide, writer, and Cleveland, Ohio-based mom. She helps women who have “made it” on the outside feel great about themselves on the inside so they can find joy in their lives, kids, and families. Get her free guide: Slowing Down: 9 Steps to Live With Intention to start meaning it when you say you’re doing fine.
