Beyond thinking...

For years, I lived mostly in my head, analysing every feeling rather than feeling it. Somatic work gently brought me back to a quieter truth — that my body held the key, she (it) was just waiting to be heard.

Yesterday in yoga, we were asked to let go of the thinking mind, to lower the eyes and to focus, kind of, at the point of the nose… then we were asked to drop our awareness into the heart space…  to find the essence of ourselves, our higher or infinite Self, and to focus on that essence... that which I Am, a unique drop in the vast ocean of beingness… and if we could bottle that, how/what would it be… what is the essence that would be poured into a bottle or vase or any kind of container... and then to ponder... what lies beyond thinking...

That was a beautiful moment and touched me tremendously. I have experienced this felt sense before. Often when I allow myself the time and space to be still, to enter the quiet, to enter the space within – and allow the embrace of Beingness... the same feeling settles in me.

In my everyday therapy practice, this invitation resonates with how we work with somatic presence.

The thinking mind wants to control, make sense and predict. The heart — and by extension, the gut — offers a different kind of knowing: intuitive, wise, and ancient, accessed by the felt sense. The mind constructs meaning, the body carries truth. The mind analyses safety, the body feels it.

In somatic work, I’ve seen this countless times: we come to therapy with questions, stories, and explanations. The mind wants to understand, to organise, to predict. Yet often the deepest truths emerge not in thought but in sensation – a heart that aches, a breath that is held, a throat that feels stuck… These are the body’s subtle signals, its own language of knowing.

In sessions, I invite clients to pause, to notice these micro-signals, and to consider them as guides rather than obstacles. Sometimes it’s as simple as: I need rest. I feel safe now. I am not alone. Other times, it is more profound — a felt sense of boundaries, or a subtle recognition of what is ready to be released.

What struck me yesterday is how these moments of quiet presence — in yoga, in therapy, in life — offer a glimpse of something beyond the constant chatter of the mind. It’s not emptiness. It’s a living intelligence, alive inside us, intimate and infinite, offering clarity and guidance without words.

Perhaps the real practice isn’t learning to think differently or challenge our unhelpful thoughts, but learning to sense deeper. To inhabit the body fully, to listen to its wisdom, and to allow life to be experienced from that place. Maybe in this quiet, beyond thought, a subtle pulse of life emerges: you are here, you are safe, you are enough. 

As the yoga class ended, we placed our hands in a prayer mudra, opening our palms slightly as if to make a little lantern, and to focus on that Essence, …. and then, to bring it into the room, to connect with all the Essence’s of the fellow beings in the room, and together we can bring forth a light so strong and bright to touch this world, with peace, love, calm, ease, peace and nurturing.

Therefore, the invitation to you: to gently close your eyes, drop into your heart space, suspend the thoughts as much as possible, find your Essence, your Deep Self, it is in there…. And go within, find your Wisdom.