Somatic Glossary and Practice Guide

Agency

Mind, body and relationship

The experience of initiating or influencing your actions, alongside the practical opportunity to make choices. In movement education, agency includes choosing whether, when and how to participate.

Connections: A small choice can matter: changing position, asking a question or stopping an exercise makes learning a collaboration. This connects bodily practice to boundaries and self-trust. Agency is always shaped by real circumstances; it does not mean being responsible for everything that happens to you.

For example: Choose between imagining a movement, making it very small, or resting. Notice whether having a real option changes how you meet the invitation.

Feeling in control and having actual control are related but different.

See also: Comfortable range · Boundaries and consent · Self-regulation · Trauma-informed practice

Read more: Tapal et al. · The Sense of Agency Scale (original research)

Attention

Mind, body and relationship

The selective directing of awareness toward some aspects of experience rather than others. It can be narrow or broad, sustained or shifting, deliberate or drawn by something unexpected.

Connections: In a lesson, a spotlight on one joint reveals detail; a wider view may reveal how the action relates to the floor, room or task. This links attention with learning and contemplative practice. Changing the focus is itself an option, rather than a failure to concentrate.

For example: Notice one point of contact with the chair, then include nearby sounds and the room. Compare the two without choosing a correct version.

More inward attention is not always more helpful. Looking around or stopping is a valid choice.

See also: Body scan · Sensory discrimination · Orienting · Contemplative presence

Read more: APA Dictionary · Attention

Autonomic nervous system

Nervous-system and stress basics

Nervous-system pathways that help regulate internal functions such as heart activity and digestion, largely without deliberate control. Their activity changes with the body’s needs.

Read more: McCorry · Physiology of the autonomic nervous system

Awareness Through Movement® (ATM)

Movement and learning

Verbally guided Feldenkrais lessons in which students explore movement sequences at their own pace. Movements are usually gentle, and attention goes to how a movement feels and develops.

Read more: Feldenkrais Guild · Awareness Through Movement

Balance

Sensing and attention

The ongoing coordination that helps you maintain or change position without falling. It draws on several senses and movement responses, rather than on one muscle or one perfect posture.

Read more: NIDCD · Balance

Beliefs and expectations

Mind, body and relationship

Beliefs are ideas we take to be true; expectations are anticipations of what may happen. Both can influence how we approach and interpret an experience.

Connections: An expectation that a lesson is a test can make comparison and achievement especially salient. An invitation to experiment offers a different frame. Research on placebo effects also shows that expectations and care context can influence some health experiences; this does not make symptoms imaginary or make belief a cure.

For example: Before a familiar movement, notice “I expect this to be difficult.” Then try a smaller, comfortable version and compare expectation with what actually happened.

Persistent difficulty is not evidence of a bad attitude or insufficient belief.

See also: Perception · Self-concept · Reappraisal · Agency

Read more: NCCIH · Placebo effect

Body awareness

Sensing and attention

Noticing bodily sensations, position and movement. Awareness can be clear, faint or changeable; you do not need to feel every part of yourself to participate.

Connections: Awareness becomes useful when it supports a relationship with yourself: noticing a preference, making an adjustment or recognizing uncertainty. It is not a contest to detect the most signals.

For example: Notice whether your current position supports listening, then change it if you wish.

See also: Attention · Boundaries and consent · Self-compassion

Read more: ISMETA · Scope of practice • SAMHSA · Trauma-informed approaches and programs

Body scan

Sensing and attention

A practice of moving attention through different areas of the body and noticing what is present. The aim here is observation; relaxation is optional, and skipping an area is allowed.

Read more: VA Whole Health · Mindful awareness and body scan

Boundaries and consent

Mind, body and relationship

Boundaries express limits and preferences; consent is a freely given, informed and ongoing agreement to a particular activity. In a lesson, you can decline or change your mind.

Connections: Bodily hesitation may invite a check-in, but clear communication matters more than interpreting a signal. Boundaries connect awareness to relationship: noticing a preference, expressing it and having it respected. A spiritual ideal such as openness should never require surrendering the right to say no.

For example: “Please explain before touching me,” or “I’ll watch this part” turns a private preference into information another person can respect.

Silence, stillness, compliance and a previous yes are not substitutes for current consent.

See also: Agency · Relational attunement · Functional Integration® (FI) · Trauma-informed practice

Read more: SAMHSA · Trauma-informed approaches and programs

Chakras and subtle-body maps

Selected Indian tantric and yogic traditions; teachings differ by lineage.

Chakras are centers within particular subtle-body teachings, often discussed alongside nadis, or channels, and prana. Such maps organize contemplative practice and spiritual meaning. The familiar seven-center account is one teaching framework, not a universally agreed map of the human body.

Connections: A teacher may invite attention to a “heart center” as a place for contemplating care. This can connect bodily attention and symbolic meaning without treating the location as a medical finding or assigning a fixed emotion to an organ.

An invitation: If “heart center” is meaningful to you, consider one act of kindness; no special chest sensation is required.

Chakras are not established anatomical organs. A sensation or symptom does not diagnose a blocked chakra.

See also: Prana · Imagery · Compassion · Discernment

Read more: Swami Rama / Himalayan Institute · The Flow of Prana: Nadis, Chakras, and Kundalini • Sandra Anderson / Himalayan Institute · The Nadis: Tantric Anatomy of the Subtle Body

Co-regulation

Practice language, frameworks and metaphors

The ways interaction with another person can influence how settled, alert or supported you feel. A predictable pace and respectful communication may help; another person cannot guarantee your internal state.

Connections: Relationship can make room for choice and expression. A listener who accepts correction may be more helpful than someone trying to make you feel calm. Attunement includes checking rather than assuming.

For example: A partner asks whether quiet company or conversation would be helpful and follows your preference.

See also: Relational attunement · Agency · Boundaries and consent

Read more: Rosanbalm and Murray · Co-regulation practice brief • Polyvagal Institute · What is Polyvagal Theory? • International Focusing Institute · Focusing partnership FAQ

Comfortable range

Movement and learning

The amount of movement you can explore without pushing into pain or strain. It may be small and can change from one day or position to another.

Read more: Feldenkrais Guild · Awareness Through Movement • International Feldenkrais Federation · Standards of practice

Compassion

A broad human capacity; karuna has a specific place in Buddhist practice.

Compassion is care that responds to suffering with a wish to help. In the Theravada account of the four sublime states, karuna is distinct from loving-kindness, appreciative joy and equanimity. It can be gentle or firm, and it includes attention to what would actually be useful.

Connections: Sensing another person’s distress may be part of compassion, but becoming overwhelmed is not its measure. In a movement class, compassion might mean offering a chair, respecting a refusal or allowing a different pace. Care becomes concrete through attention and action.

An invitation: Ask: “What is one helpful thing I can offer without taking over?”

Compassion does not require absorbing another person’s feelings or becoming responsible for solving everything.

See also: Loving-kindness (metta) · Self-compassion · Relational attunement · Boundaries and consent

Read more: Nyanaponika Thera · The Four Sublime States

Contemplative presence

Mind, body and relationship

A practice quality of staying receptive to present experience without immediately turning it into a problem to solve. Here it is descriptive language, not a clinical state or a test of spiritual development.

Connections: Sensation, thought, emotion and surrounding life can all be included. A quiet pause may make room for gratitude, uncertainty or a question of meaning. The bridge to spirituality lies in how a person understands and lives that experience; the glossary does not equate presence with a particular nervous-system setting.

For example: While holding a cup, notice its contact, the room and whatever thoughts are present. Let the moment remain ordinary rather than trying to make it profound.

Eyes-open, moving and outward-focused forms are valid; quiet inward attention is not suitable for every moment.

See also: Mindfulness · Attention · Meaning-making · Embodiment

Read more: VA Whole Health · Mindful awareness

Differentiation

Movement and learning

In movement education, learning to notice and vary the contributions of different parts of yourself. For example, exploring whether your eyes and head can move together or separately.

Read more: International Feldenkrais Federation · Standards of practice

Discernment

Reflective judgment; Ignatian Christianity offers one specific tradition.

Taking time to understand an experience and consider where it leads before deciding what it means or how to act. In Ignatian spirituality, discernment attends to interior movements such as thoughts, feelings and desires in relation to a life with God. Here, the wider practical question is how bodily knowing, reflection, values and evidence can inform one another.

Connections: A tight stomach can be important information without being an infallible verdict. Curiosity about context, consequences and patterns over time can help distinguish a meaningful impulse from a conclusion made too quickly.

An invitation: Write three separate lines: “I notice…,” “I think it might mean…,” and “I still need to find out…”.

This general reflection is not a substitute for tradition-specific spiritual direction or assessment of concerning symptoms.

See also: Sensation · Perception · Meaning-making · Intention

Read more: Loyola Press / Ignatian Spirituality · Discernment of Spirits

Embodied cognition

Mind, body and relationship

A family of research approaches asking how bodily abilities and interaction with the environment contribute to thinking. It is broader than the idea that thoughts cause bodily reactions.

Connections: Gesturing, handling objects and moving through a space can participate in understanding. This suggests a useful question for a movement lesson: what becomes understandable through doing that was difficult to grasp through explanation alone? Different versions of embodied cognition make different claims.

For example: You can explain a spiral with words, trace it in the air, or explore a small comfortable turn. Compare what each form of exploration makes noticeable.

A finding about gesture and learning does not establish that every movement practice improves thinking.

See also: Embodiment · Somatic education · Imagery · Integration

Read more: Margaret Wilson · Six views of embodied cognition • Goldin-Meadow, Cook and Mitchell · Gesturing gives children new ideas about math (original experiment)

Embodied spirituality

Integrative language; no single religious ownership.

Spiritual life expressed through being a living person: sensing, moving, relating, caring and making choices. Spirituality may involve God, sacred presence, belonging, nature or a sense of meaning beyond oneself; it can also be nonreligious. Here, embodied spirituality asks how those commitments are lived through the body rather than only discussed as ideas.

Connections: A value such as reverence may become a slower pace, a respectful touch or enough rest. Sadness, fatigue and ordinary needs can belong within spiritual life. A meaningful experience need not feel peaceful, expansive or extraordinary.

An invitation: Before a familiar activity, ask: “What would care look like in how I do this?”

This is an invitation to explore personal meaning, not a claim that a bodily state proves spiritual attainment.

See also: Embodiment · Values in action · Ritual · Grounded spiritual integration

Read more: VA Whole Health · Spirit & Soul

Embodiment

Experiential and philosophical language; definitions vary across disciplines.

Living and knowing from within a body: sensing, moving, feeling and acting in a particular world. Here the word names a lived perspective, rather than an achievement or a special state.

Connections: A conversation is experienced through words, but also through distance, gesture, the wish to approach or withdraw, and the effort of speaking. Somatic inquiry makes room for this bodily dimension of meaning. It can also support spiritual reflection on how a value becomes something you actually live.

For example: While offering thanks, notice the words, your tone and your orientation toward the person. No particular warmth or bodily response is required.

See also: Somatic · Body awareness · Embodied cognition · Values in action

Read more: Shapiro and Spaulding · Embodied Cognition, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Emotion and feeling

Mind, body and relationship

Emotion can include bodily changes, interpretation, expression and readiness to act. “Feeling” often names the consciously experienced aspect, although everyday speech and scientific theories use these terms differently.

Connections: A tight throat, the thought “I may disappoint them,” and an urge to stay silent may belong to one emotional moment. Exploring their relationship can bring nuance without deciding that one sensation has a universal emotional meaning. Bodily feeling and reflective thought can inform each other.

For example: After a difficult conversation, try naming one sensation, one possible emotion and one need. “Tight jaw; perhaps frustration; I need time” is a tentative description, not a diagnosis.

A body region cannot reliably identify a particular emotion, and not every sensation is emotional.

See also: Interoception · Sensation · Meaning-making · Boundaries and consent

Read more: American Psychological Association · Emotions • Damasio and Carvalho · The nature of feelings (theoretical review)

Feldenkrais Method®

Movement and learning

A form of somatic education developed by Moshe Feldenkrais. Lessons use movement and attention to explore how you act, notice habitual patterns and discover additional ways of moving.

Read more: Feldenkrais Guild · About the method

Felt sense

Practice language, frameworks and metaphors

In Eugene Gendlin’s Focusing approach, a bodily felt, initially hard-to-name sense of a whole situation. The term has this specific history; it is not simply another word for any sensation.

Connections: Gendlin’s concept bridges bodily experience and emerging meaning: a situation may feel complex before you have words for it. A tentative phrase or image can be checked against that whole experience rather than accepted because someone else supplied it.

For example: Facing a decision, you try “I am afraid” and then “I need more time.” Notice whether either phrase fits, without making the bodily response your only evidence.

See also: Meaning-making · Imagery · Emotion and feeling

Read more: International Focusing Institute · Felt sense • Eugene Gendlin · The client’s client: The edge of awareness

Fight-or-flight response

Nervous-system and stress basics

A pattern of threat-related changes that prepares the body for action, including changes in heart rate, breathing and muscle tension. It does not explain every instance of anger, busyness or avoidance.

Read more: NCCIH · Stress

Functional Integration® (FI)

Movement and learning

Individual Feldenkrais lessons adapted to the student, using movement, verbal guidance and often gentle touch. Touch requires consent; the student remains clothed.

Read more: Feldenkrais Guild · About the method • International Feldenkrais Federation · Standards of practice

Grounded spiritual integration

An editorial bridge, rather than a named treatment or single tradition.

Bringing spiritual insight into ordinary choices, relationships and care for the body. An important experience can remain meaningful while its implications unfold gradually.

Connections: A useful question is whether practice helps you acknowledge needs, keep commitments, repair harm and seek support. Intensity alone cannot answer that.

An invitation: After a meaningful practice, choose one ordinary act of care you can follow through on.

Spiritual insight and psychological growth may support each other without being the same process.

See also: Integration · Embodied spirituality · Spiritual bypass · Values in action

Read more: John Welwood · Human Nature, Buddha Nature, interview • VA Whole Health · Spirit & Soul

Grounding

Practice language, frameworks and metaphors

Bringing attention to present surroundings or points of physical contact, such as the chair beneath you. People use it to feel more oriented; no particular feeling needs to appear.

Read more: VA National Center for PTSD · Be in the moment

Imagery

Mind, body and relationship

Bringing an experience to mind through imagined movement, sights, sounds, touch or other qualities. Imagery can be spontaneous or guided and need not take the form of a clear visual picture.

Connections: An image can offer another way into exploration: a hand floating, a path unfolding, or a familiar place. It can connect movement with memory and creativity. The image is an invitation to notice, not a claim about what the tissues are doing or a promise of a particular effect.

For example: Imagine a small comfortable turn before trying it, or simply think through the sequence. Compare the imagined and actual experience; either may remain indistinct.

Choose neutral or pleasant material if useful. Stop or change the image if it becomes distressing.

See also: Embodied cognition · Meaning-making · Attention · Felt sense

Read more: VA Whole Health · Guided imagery

Implicit memory

Mind, body and relationship

The influence of past learning on present performance or experience without deliberately recalling a past event. Familiar skills and learned associations can operate this way.

Connections: A habitual reach may happen before you describe how you do it. Somatic learning can make an alternative available through present exploration. This is different from treating a sensation as a hidden historical record: memory is reconstructive, and a strong feeling does not by itself verify what happened.

For example: You reach automatically toward the old location of a light switch after furniture is rearranged. Noticing the habit lets you learn the new location.

Do not use bodily sensations, imagery or teacher suggestion to establish supposedly recovered memories.

See also: Movement habit · Neuroplasticity · Stored trauma · Self-concept

Read more: APA Dictionary · Implicit memory • APA · The seven sins of memory, with researcher Daniel Schacter

Integration

Movement and learning

In movement education, coordinating parts of yourself within a meaningful action. A change explored in a lesson may become useful in everyday activities such as reaching, standing or walking.

Connections: An insight becomes personally useful through the life it serves. Easier reaching may matter because it supports cooking, making art or greeting someone. The meaning belongs to the person, not the movement pattern alone.

For example: After a lesson, choose one ordinary activity in which to notice whether anything feels different.

See also: Meaning-making · Values in action · Embodiment

Read more: International Feldenkrais Federation · Standards of practice • VA Whole Health · Build your personal health plan

Intention

Everyday practice language, with distinct meanings in spiritual traditions.

An intention is the direction or quality you mean to bring to an action. In the Buddhist Nibbedhika Sutta, intention is central to kamma: intentional action expressed through body, speech and mind. In this glossary, setting an intention means choosing how you want to participate, not promising a particular result.

Connections: “I want to learn without forcing” can influence movement size, pace and willingness to rest. Intention connects meaning to behavior; it becomes clearer through what you repeatedly do and how you respond when plans change.

An invitation: Choose a quality such as curiosity, and identify one small action that would express it today.

Intention does not guarantee outcomes or imply that illness, adversity or another person’s actions were created by your thoughts.

See also: Agency · Values in action · Movement habit

Read more: Nibbedhika Sutta (AN 6.63) · Thanissaro Bhikkhu translation

Interbeing

Thich Nhat Hanh’s Plum Village Buddhist tradition.

Interbeing describes how nothing exists entirely by itself: each life and thing depends on conditions beyond it. In this tradition, the insight is connected with Buddhist emptiness and ethical practice. It is more than a pleasant feeling of connection; it asks us to recognize the relationships that make life possible.

Connections: Your body depends on food, water, air, other people and an environment. Remembering this can connect sensation to gratitude and responsibility. Receiving support and offering care become ordinary expressions of interdependence.

An invitation: With a glass of water, notice one person or natural process that helped make it available.

Interdependence does not erase personal boundaries, unequal circumstances or responsibility for harm.

See also: Nonduality · Compassion · Values in action

Read more: Plum Village · The Plum Village Tradition

Interoception

Sensing and attention

Sensing signals from inside your body, including hunger, fullness, heartbeat and breathing. Noticing a signal and interpreting its cause are different abilities.

Connections: Internal sensations can contribute to emotional experience, but their meaning emerges in context. Hunger, excitement and worry may overlap in how they feel. Reflection and ordinary information, such as when you last ate, can help interpretation.

For example: Before calling a fluttering sensation anxiety, pause to consider other possible explanations without having to settle on one.

See also: Emotion and feeling · Sensation · Meaning-making

Read more: Bonaz et al. · Diseases, disorders, and comorbidities of interoception • Damasio and Carvalho · The nature of feelings (theoretical review)

Loving-kindness (metta)

Buddhist practice; here grounded in the Karaniya Metta Sutta.

Metta is the cultivation of goodwill: wishing for beings to live with well-being and freedom from hostility. It is an orientation of care that can be practiced without liking everyone or producing an intense loving feeling. In Buddhist practice it is developed alongside ethical conduct and attention.

Connections: A kindly intention can influence the way you approach a difficult movement or speak to someone. The bodily response may be warmth, softness, resistance or no obvious sensation; none of these alone measures the sincerity of goodwill.

An invitation: If welcome, silently offer a simple wish for well-being to someone easy to care about.

Goodwill does not require reconciliation, access to you or contact with a person who has harmed you.

See also: Compassion · Self-compassion · Intention

Read more: Karaniya Metta Sutta · Amaravati Sangha translation

Meaning-making

Mind, body and relationship

The ways we understand what an experience signifies in our lives. Meaning can arise through language, relationships, memories, culture, bodily experience or spiritual commitments.

Connections: An arm movement might be exercise, a remembered dance, a gesture of welcome or part of prayer. The movement’s significance is not contained in its mechanics alone. Asking what an activity is for can connect somatic exploration to belonging, grief, creativity or purpose without imposing a story.

For example: Explore a comfortable reach while imagining greeting someone, then reaching for a useful object. Does the intention change your experience? Either answer is useful.

A personally meaningful interpretation can be valuable without proving a physiological mechanism.

See also: Felt sense · Embodiment · Values in action · Emotion and feeling

Read more: VA Whole Health · Chapter 1: Whole Health and what matters

Mindfulness

Sensing and attention

Paying attention to what is happening now with less immediate judgment. In movement, this may mean noticing effort or contact without deciding that either must change.

Connections: Mindfulness can include thoughts and relationships as well as sensation. In movement, a moment of noticing may open a choice: continue, adjust, ask or rest. That opening need not feel calm.

For example: Notice the thought “I am doing this wrong” as a thought, then return to one detail you can actually explore.

See also: Attention · Self-compassion · Contemplative presence

Read more: NCCIH · Meditation and mindfulness • VA Whole Health · Mindful awareness

Movement habit

Movement and learning

A familiar way of organizing an action, such as repeatedly turning one way first. Habits make life manageable; exploring alternatives can give you more choices when circumstances change.

Connections: A familiar action can be linked with a familiar story about yourself. Exploring a different route can invite curiosity about that story without assuming that a physical change automatically transforms personality.

For example: Try reaching with support under the arm and compare the experience with “Reaching is always hard for me.”

See also: Implicit memory · Self-concept · Agency

Read more: Feldenkrais Guild · About the method • APA Dictionary · Implicit memory • APA Dictionary · Self-concept

Nervous system

Nervous-system and stress basics

The brain, spinal cord and nerves that help coordinate sensation, movement and many functions that keep you alive. Thinking, feeling and bodily activity involve interacting processes within this system.

Read more: NICHD · What does the nervous system do?

Nervous-system dysregulation

Practice language, frameworks and metaphors

A broad phrase often used for difficulty managing activation or recovering after stress. In wellness settings it is not a specific diagnosis, and symptoms alone do not identify a nervous-system cause.

For example: It is more useful to describe what is happening, such as disrupted sleep, than to assume the label explains it.

Read more: Corrigan, Fisher and Nutt · Window of Tolerance model

Neuroception

Practice language, frameworks and metaphors

A term from Polyvagal Theory for proposed nonconscious evaluation of safety and threat. It belongs to that framework; a bodily feeling does not establish whether a situation is objectively safe or dangerous.

Read more: Polyvagal Institute · What is Polyvagal Theory?

Neuroplasticity

Movement and learning

The nervous system’s capacity to change with experience and learning. It is a broad biological process, not a promise that one movement or lesson will produce a particular lasting change.

Read more: Society for Neuroscience · How experience shapes your brain

Nociception

Nervous-system and stress basics

The nervous system’s detection and processing of potentially tissue-damaging stimulation. It is related to pain but is not the same thing: a nerve signal alone does not tell us what someone feels.

Read more: International Association for the Study of Pain · Terminology

Nonduality

A family of spiritual teachings, not one doctrine shared by all traditions.

Nonduality questions an ultimate separation between self and reality, but its meaning depends on the tradition. In the nondual Vedanta presented by the Vedanta Society of Southern California, the deepest Self, Atman, is understood as one with Brahman. This is a spiritual-philosophical teaching, distinct from a scientific claim about the nervous system.

Connections: A sense of openness or belonging can be meaningful without proving a metaphysical view. In ordinary life, a person can explore connectedness while still honoring individuality, consent, grief and the practical differences between people.

An invitation: Ask: “Can a feeling of connection make me more attentive to another person’s actual needs?”

Nondual Vedanta should not be treated as identical to Buddhist interbeing, psychological integration or every experience of unity.

See also: Interbeing · Embodied spirituality · Boundaries and consent

Read more: Vedanta Society of Southern California · What is Vedanta?

Orienting

Practice language, frameworks and metaphors

Noticing where you are and what is around you, perhaps through looking, listening or a comfortable turn of the head. In practice, it is an invitation to explore your surroundings.

Read more: UCSF MERI Center · Sustainable caregiving resources

Pain

Nervous-system and stress basics

A personal experience that involves both sensation and emotion. Pain is real, even when its cause is unclear, and the amount of pain does not directly measure the amount of tissue damage.

Read more: International Association for the Study of Pain · Terminology

Parasympathetic nervous system

Nervous-system and stress basics

An autonomic division involved in functions including digestion and slowing the heart. Its activity works alongside other systems; it is not simply an on/off switch for feeling calm.

Read more: McCorry · Physiology of the autonomic nervous system

Pendulation

Practice language, frameworks and metaphors

A Somatic Experiencing term for shifts between experiences of constriction and greater ease. Practitioners may use attention to explore these changes; it is a framework-specific concept, not a required movement rhythm.

Read more: Somatic Experiencing International · Glossary

Perception

Sensing and attention

The way your nervous system organizes and makes sense of sensory information. What you perceive is shaped by context and experience as well as incoming signals.

Connections: What seems possible can depend on the question you bring. Looking for the largest movement is a different exploration from noticing the easiest route. This is a teaching comparison, not proof that expectation controls the body.

For example: Repeat a comfortable action while asking first “How far?” and then “How?” Notice whether you attend to different information.

See also: Attention · Beliefs and expectations · Embodied cognition

Read more: NICHD · What does the nervous system do? • APA Dictionary · Attention

Polyvagal Theory

Practice language, frameworks and metaphors

Stephen Porges’s framework linking autonomic functioning with responses to safety, threat and social connection. It has influenced clinical practice, but important biological claims remain contested. Its labels should not be presented as diagnoses.

Read more: Polyvagal Institute · What is Polyvagal Theory? • Grossman · Challenges to the premises of Polyvagal Theory

Prana

Indian yogic concept; described here through Himalayan Institute teachings.

Prana names a life-sustaining principle in yogic accounts of the person. Breath, vitality and the movement of attention are related to it within these teachings, but prana is not simply another name for inhaled air. The concept belongs to a spiritual understanding of life and practice.

Connections: An awareness of breathing may carry two kinds of meaning: the direct feeling of the ribs moving and a practitioner’s spiritual interpretation of vitality. Naming both allows a rich experience without confusing interpretation with measurement.

An invitation: Notice one unforced breath; describe the sensation first, and any personal meaning separately.

Prana should not be equated with oxygen, nerve impulses or energy measured in physics.

See also: Body awareness · Qi · Chakras and subtle-body maps

Read more: Swami Rama / Himalayan Institute · The Flow of Prana: Nadis, Chakras, and Kundalini

Proprioception

Sensing and attention

Your sense of where your body parts are and how they are moving, even when you are not looking at them.

For example: You can usually bring a hand toward your shoulder without watching it.

Read more: Society for Neuroscience · Your sixth sense

Qi

Chinese medical and cultivation traditions; qigong is one practice context.

Qi is a traditional Chinese concept often translated as vital energy. In qigong, work with posture, movement, breathing and attention is understood within this wider approach to cultivating life and well-being. The translation “energy” is approximate and should not erase the concept’s Chinese context.

Connections: Someone may describe a movement practice in terms of qi while another describes warmth, coordinated movement or steady attention. These are different descriptive lenses. Research on a qigong program does not, by itself, establish its traditional explanation as a physical mechanism.

An invitation: After an easy, familiar movement, notice what changed in your experience before deciding why it changed.

Qi, prana and Reiki should not be presented as interchangeable names for one scientifically established force.

See also: Prana · Sensation · Integration

Read more: NCCIH · Qigong: What You Need To Know

Reappraisal

Mind, body and relationship

Considering a different interpretation of an event and noticing whether it changes your emotional response. It is one studied form of emotion regulation.

Connections: The words we use can alter the possibilities we perceive. “I failed the movement” and “I discovered the limit of this version” invite different next steps. Reappraisal works best as a plausible alternative to explore, rather than a demand to be positive or deny harm.

For example: After losing your place in a sequence, consider “This is information about what I need to learn.” Does it become easier to ask for clarification?

Research on a particular strategy does not mean it is the best response in every situation.

See also: Beliefs and expectations · Emotion and feeling · Self-regulation · Self-compassion

Read more: Goldin et al. · Neural bases of emotion regulation (original experiment)

Reiki

Japanese-origin practice, including traditions associated with Mikao Usui.

Reiki is a practice in which light touch or hands held near the body is used within a tradition of spiritual care and healing. Usui Reiki developed in Japan in the early twentieth century. Different lineages have their own teachings, practices and interpretations; Reiki is distinct from Feldenkrais movement education.

Connections: Quiet attention, the setting, consent and the meaning a person gives to receiving care all belong to the experience. Someone may report warmth, comfort, emotion or little change. Their report matters without requiring a particular explanation for it.

An invitation: Before a session, clarify whether you want touch, where, and how you can pause or stop.

NCCIH finds that health benefits have not been clearly established and that evidence does not support the proposed energy field. Reiki should not replace needed medical or mental-health care.

See also: Boundaries and consent · Sensation · Embodied spirituality

Read more: Gendai Reiki Network · What’s Reiki • NCCIH · Reiki

Relational attunement

Mind, body and relationship

Paying responsive attention to another person while remaining open to correction about what they mean or need. The term is used here as a practice description.

Connections: Tone, pacing, silence and distance are part of an interaction, but they are not a code that lets us read another person’s inner state. Attunement becomes concrete when listening changes what we do: slowing down, asking permission or accepting a no. Being accompanied can support inquiry without requiring shared feelings.

For example: A teacher notices hesitation and asks, “Would you prefer words, a demonstration or a pause?” The student’s answer guides the next step.

Do not infer another person’s emotions or consent from posture, eye contact or apparent calm.

See also: Co-regulation · Boundaries and consent · Felt sense · Self-compassion

Read more: International Focusing Institute · Focusing partnership FAQ

Relaxation response

Nervous-system and stress basics

A pattern of reduced physiological activation that can include slower breathing and heart rate. Some practices may encourage it, but feeling relaxed is not a requirement for learning through movement.

Read more: NCCIH · Relaxation techniques

Release

Practice language, frameworks and metaphors

An everyday description of a felt change, such as less gripping, easier movement or emotion arising. It does not, by itself, show that trauma, toxins or a measurable substance has left the body.

Background reading: NCCIH · Relaxation techniques • NIMH · Traumatic events and PTSD

Ritual

General term; particular rituals belong to particular communities and traditions.

A meaningful action or sequence that marks an intention, relationship, transition or commitment. A ritual may be religious, communal or personally created. Its significance comes from context, participation and meaning; repeating a gesture does not automatically give it the same meaning across cultures.

Connections: Body, attention and memory meet in ritual: a familiar posture, song or pause may help mark the beginning of practice or the end of a demanding day. The action can hold gratitude, grief or uncertainty without needing to make the feeling disappear.

An invitation: You might begin practice with a comfortable pause and a personal intention, keeping borrowed sacred forms in their own context.

A personal routine is not equivalent to a community’s initiation or sacred ceremony. Participation should remain voluntary.

See also: Intention · Embodied spirituality · Meaning-making

Read more: VA Whole Health Library · Spirit and Soul • Plum Village · The Art of Mindful Living

Self-compassion

Mind, body and relationship

Meeting your own difficulty with kindness, recognition of shared human vulnerability and enough awareness to notice what is happening. This follows Kristin Neff’s psychological framework.

Connections: In somatic practice, compassion can be enacted through pace and expectations, not only reassuring words. Making room for fatigue or frustration allows the question “What would support me here?” It can coexist with responsibility, effort and a firm boundary. Its overlap with spiritual compassion does not make the frameworks identical.

For example: When a movement feels awkward, replace “I should be better” with “This is difficult today; what adjustment would help?” Then try a smaller movement or rest.

Self-kindness need not produce an immediate soothing feeling.

See also: Mindfulness · Comfortable range · Self-concept · Boundaries and consent

Read more: Kristin Neff · What is self-compassion?

Self-concept

Mind, body and relationship

The descriptions and evaluations you hold about yourself, including your abilities, roles and physical characteristics. These descriptions can feel stable even when experience is more varied.

Connections: “I am stiff” or “I am not a movement person” can become a lens through which every lesson is judged. Somatic exploration offers specific observations alongside these general stories. It need not replace one fixed identity with a more positive one; it can allow a richer account of who you are.

For example: Compare “I am uncoordinated” with “This sequence is unfamiliar, and I found one part I can do comfortably.” What changes in your next choice?

A movement lesson does not determine your worth, identity or psychological health.

See also: Beliefs and expectations · Agency · Self-compassion · Movement habit

Read more: APA Dictionary · Self-concept

Self-regulation

Practice language, frameworks and metaphors

Ways of adjusting attention, emotion or behavior to meet a situation. In somatic practice, this might include changing pace, taking a break or seeking support; it does not mean controlling every body response.

Connections: Regulation can serve participation, expression and purposeful action, not only settling down. Sometimes the useful response is to speak clearly, move away, seek company or rest.

For example: During a group class, you choose a pause so you can decide whether to continue.

See also: Agency · Values in action · Boundaries and consent

Read more: Rosanbalm and Murray · Co-regulation practice brief • International Feldenkrais Federation · Standards of practice • Tapal et al. · The Sense of Agency Scale (original research)

Sensation

Sensing and attention

Something you feel through your senses, such as warmth, pressure, tingling or movement. Naming the sensation can help separate what you notice from what you think it means.

Connections: A sensation can be one strand of a meaningful moment without containing its entire explanation. Description leaves room for curiosity before a story becomes fixed.

For example: “Warm chest” might accompany gratitude, exertion or something else. You can notice it without assigning a spiritual or emotional meaning.

See also: Emotion and feeling · Meaning-making · Beliefs and expectations

Read more: NICHD · What does the nervous system do? • American Psychological Association · Emotions

Sensory discrimination

Movement and learning

Noticing differences between experiences, such as a movement feeling smoother, smaller or less effortful. In a lesson, comparison can be more useful than trying to reproduce an ideal shape.

Read more: International Feldenkrais Federation · Standards of practice

Somatic

Sensing and attention

Related to bodily experience. In somatic education, the word emphasizes how movement and sensation are experienced by the person moving, alongside what an observer can see.

Connections: A somatic perspective can ask how a lived experience joins sensing, thought, emotion and action. This does not require treating all four as interchangeable, or explaining spiritual meaning solely through anatomy.

For example: While saying yes to an invitation, you might notice the words, your posture and whether the choice fits what matters to you.

See also: Embodiment · Agency · Meaning-making

Read more: ISMETA · Scope of practice • Shapiro and Spaulding · Embodied Cognition, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Somatic education

Movement and learning

Learning through attention to bodily experience and movement. It can help someone explore habits and alternatives; it does not, by itself, constitute psychotherapy or medical treatment.

Read more: ISMETA · Scope of practice

Somatic Experiencing® (SE)

Practice language, frameworks and metaphors

A specific approach developed by Peter Levine that attends to bodily experience in work with traumatic stress. It has its own training and framework; it is distinct from Feldenkrais and general somatic movement education.

Read more: Somatic Experiencing International · Training framework

Spiritual bypass

A psychological-spiritual concept associated with John Welwood.

Using spiritual ideas or practices to avoid emotional pain, relational difficulties or practical responsibilities. Welwood used the term to describe patterns such as treating personal needs as spiritually inferior. The concern is what the practice is doing in a person’s life, not whether their belief is sincere.

Connections: “Everything is one” can express connection, but can also shut down someone’s report of hurt. Somatic attention offers a question: can spiritual meaning make room for the feeling and the action the situation calls for?

An invitation: Ask: “Does this interpretation help me meet what is happening, or avoid something that needs care?”

Use this as a question for reflection, not a diagnosis or accusation.

See also: Nonduality · Witnessing awareness · Grounded spiritual integration

Read more: John Welwood · Human Nature, Buddha Nature, interview

Stored trauma

Practice language, frameworks and metaphors

A metaphor often used for the lasting bodily and psychological effects of traumatic experiences. It does not establish that a particular emotion or memory is physically lodged in a muscle, joint or fascia.

Connections: Past experience can influence present habits and reactions without being a literal object trapped in tissue. Body-based inquiry can attend to today’s experience while leaving historical conclusions open.

For example: If a movement brings emotion, you can acknowledge the feeling and choose support without deciding that the movement retrieved a memory.

See also: Implicit memory · Emotion and feeling · Boundaries and consent

Background reading: NIMH · Traumatic events and PTSD • APA · The seven sins of memory, with researcher Daniel Schacter

Stress response

Nervous-system and stress basics

Changes in bodily activity and experience when demands feel challenging or threatening. These responses can be useful in the short term; persistent stress can affect health and everyday functioning.

Read more: NCCIH · Stress

Surrender

Ordinary language and tradition-specific devotional language.

Releasing the demand to control every outcome while remaining engaged with what is yours to do. In Patanjali’s yoga tradition, Ishvara pranidhana has a specific devotional meaning, often translated as surrender to God. A secular experience of easing effort can be compared with this, but does not capture the whole religious teaching.

Connections: In movement, you might allow support from a surface instead of working unnecessarily. In life, you might prepare carefully and still acknowledge uncertainty. The connection is between committed action and a less rigid relationship to results.

An invitation: Ask: “What can I responsibly do here, and what cannot be decided by effort alone?”

Surrender never requires surrendering consent, tolerating abuse or accepting a teacher’s authority without question.

See also: Comfortable range · Agency · Discernment · Boundaries and consent

Read more: Sandra Anderson / Himalayan Institute · Ishvara Pranidhana: Acknowledging Divine Grace

Sympathetic nervous system

Nervous-system and stress basics

An autonomic division involved in mobilizing the body, including during physical effort or a threat. Sympathetic activity is part of ordinary functioning and is not inherently harmful.

Read more: McCorry · Physiology of the autonomic nervous system

Titration

Practice language, frameworks and metaphors

In Somatic Experiencing, approaching difficult material in small, manageable portions. In an ordinary movement class, plain language such as “try less” or “take a pause” avoids implying that trauma is being processed.

Read more: Somatic Experiencing International · Training framework • Somatic Experiencing International · Glossary

Trauma-informed practice

Practice language, frameworks and metaphors

An approach that recognizes trauma may affect participation and prioritizes safety, transparency, collaboration and choice. In movement teaching, this includes meaningful options to pause, decline touch or change an activity.

Being trauma-informed does not make a class trauma treatment.

Read more: SAMHSA · Trauma-informed approaches

Vagus nerve

Nervous-system and stress basics

A paired cranial nerve linking the brainstem with structures in the neck, chest and abdomen. It carries sensory information toward the brain and signals involved in organ regulation.

Read more: McCorry · Physiology of the autonomic nervous system

Values in action

Mind, body and relationship

Giving practical expression to what matters to you. A value such as care, curiosity or integrity can guide a choice without requiring a particular mood or outcome.

Connections: Somatic awareness can help you notice how you are enacting a value: whether your pace allows listening, whether an effort serves a meaningful purpose, or whether you need a boundary. Spiritual commitments may also take everyday form through these choices, without needing a special experience.

For example: If your value is care, it might mean resting before a demanding afternoon or making room for someone else to speak. Ask which action fits this situation.

Values are personally and culturally shaped; a teacher should not assign yours.

See also: Meaning-making · Agency · Embodiment · Boundaries and consent

Read more: VA Whole Health · Build your personal health plan

Vestibular sense

Sensing and attention

Information about head movement and orientation provided by the inner-ear balance organs. It works with vision and other body signals to help you stay balanced and keep your gaze steady.

Read more: NIDCD · Vestibular system

Window of tolerance

Practice language, frameworks and metaphors

A clinical model for the range of experience in which someone can remain engaged and respond without becoming overwhelmed or disconnected. It is a helpful image, not an anatomical window or a diagnostic test.

Read more: Corrigan, Fisher and Nutt · Window of Tolerance model

Witnessing awareness

Contemplative language; this entry draws on a Himalayan yoga teaching.

Noticing thoughts, sensations and emotions as experiences that arise, rather than automatically treating each one as a command or a complete definition of yourself. Some traditions also give the witness a deeper spiritual meaning. That claim should be distinguished from the everyday skill of observing experience.

Connections: In movement, noticing “I am trying very hard” can open a choice to reduce effort. In a conversation, noticing an impulse to interrupt may leave room to listen. Witnessing can include feeling and participation; it need not mean withdrawing from life.

An invitation: If comfortable, notice “a thought is here” and also one ordinary sound around you.

Stepping back is optional. If an exercise feels unreal or disconnecting, return to ordinary activity and support rather than pushing further.

See also: Attention · Contemplative presence · Agency · Spiritual bypass

Read more: Swami Rama / Himalayan Institute · Four Ways to Improve Your Meditation