Somatic Descent: How to Unlock the Deepest Wisdom of the Body

Description

A powerful meditation practice for connecting with your body's innate, guiding wisdom. Have you ever had a "gut feeling" about a certain person or situation? Or a sense of intuition about how to respond to a particular challenge in your life? There's nothing magical or mystical about those kinds of scenarios. In fact, our body contains immense wisdom not directly available to our conscious mind, and it is continually communicating to us in the form of bodily feelings, impressions, sensations, corporeal intuitions, and felt senses. However, because most of us are so cut off from our somatic experience, we are quite unaware of this dimension of our body's expression. Although this intelligence may feel hidden most of the time, the wisdom of the body can actually be a guide for us in living our lives fully and also in responding compassionately to others. Through a meditation practice called Somatic Descent, Reggie Ray shows us how to connect with our body's intuitive intelligence. In Somatic Descent we see that the body is always showing us what sort of response, direction, or action may be called for at any given time, and can in fact be relied upon as a primary practical resource for decision-making in our everyday life.The book will include links to online audio recordings of the guided meditations to further aid the reader.

DR. REGINALD "REGGIE" RAY is the cofounder and Spiritual Director of the Dharma Ocean Foundation, an organization dedicated to the evolution and flowering of the somatic teachings of Tibetan Buddhism. Dharma Ocean attracts a worldwide following across more than seventy countries and offers online programs and retreats. Ray is a lineage holder in the tradition of Ch gyam Trungpa Rinpoche and is the author of several books and audio programs--including The Awakening Body, The Practice of Pure Awareness, Indestructible Truth, and more. He makes his residence in Crestone and Boulder, Colorado.

"A guide into deeply integrative spiritual practice. With clarity and nuance, Ray shows us how to bring meditative awareness to the body and to listen to our most immediate and direct experience. His practice instructions are enlivening, pointing to the complete coherence of body and mind."-Diane Musho Hamilton, author of Everything Is Workable "So many meditative practices take people away from the dark, juicy nether regions of their bodies. Using an ancient tantric practice, Reggie Ray leads us instead on a journey of exploration into our bodies and helps us communicate with the parts of us residing there that we often bypass through meditation. Through these embodiment practices we access surprising wisdom in addition to profound somatic spiritual experiences."-Richard Schwartz, Ph.D., developer of the Internal Family Systems model of psychotherapy