Somatic Intelligence Quotes

Women think with their whole bodies

We should not exercise the body without the joint assistance of the mind; nor exercise the mind without the joint assistance of the body.

Ironically, we are all too often educated out of rather than in to an awareness of the body.

When we're in touch with our body, we're attuned to our intuition, needs, and desires and will be in the best position to make evolutionary choices for our health and wellbeing.

A mind is so closely shaped by the body and destined to serve it that only one mind could possibly arise in it. No body, never mind.

Without awareness of bodily feeling and attitude, a person becomes split into a disembodied spirit and a disenchanted body.

There's a lot of neuroscience now raising the question, 'Is all the intelligence in the human body in the brain?', and they're finding out that, no, it's not like that. The body has intelligence itself, and we're much more of an organic creature in that way.

A mountain of evidence shows that our bodies are pushing, shaping, even leading our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. That the body affects the mind is, it's fair to say, incontestable. And it's doing so in ways that either facilitate or impede our ability to bring our authentic best selves to our biggest challenges.

When we're awake in our bodies and sense, the world comes alive. Wisdom, creativity, and love are discovered as we relax and awaken through our bodies.

The body knows things a long time before the mind catches up to them. I was wondering what my body knew that I didn't.

Ninety percent of the people don't realize that there is anything below the head. They think that the head is carried around by something very mysterious, and they're not aware that it's the body, something they should be in tune with.

Movement, or physical activity, is thus an essential factor in intellectual growth, which depends upon the impressions received from outside. Through movement we come in contact with external reality, and it is through these contacts that we eventually acquire even abstract ideas.

If you don't have the ability or encouragement to use yourself in a physical way, you could become just another talking head. And talking heads run things. That's part of the reason why we're in such a sad state as a planet, because it's all about thinking, and thinking has led to a lot of aggrandizement - taking over [resources] and figuring out how you can steal and leaving people and the planet in an impoverished state.

Think with your whole body.

The will to change begins in the body, not in the mind.

One cannot understand the rhythms and meanings of the outer world until one has mastered the dialects of the body.

[The sensate body possesses] an art of interrogating the sensible according to its own wishes, an inspired exegesis.

If my heart could do my thinking, would my brain begin to feel?

But if one observes, one will see that the body has its own intelligence; it requires a great deal of intelligence to observe the intelligence of the body.

The body is not a thing, it is a situation: it is our grasp on the world and our sketch of our project

Our body is not in space like things; it inhabits or haunts space. It applies itself to space like a hand to an instrument. And when we wish to move about, we do not move the body as we move an object.

We only believe in those thoughts which have been conceived not in the brain but in the whole body.

The person drawn to dance as profession is notoriously unintellectual. He thinks with his muscles, delights in expression with body, not words; finds analysis painful and boring; and is a creature of physical ebullience.

I would say there is a conversation happening between your body and mind all the time. Even when you're sleeping, your body is communicating the information to your mind. And so to me it feels like, why not harness that? If it's happening all the time, why not control the content of the conversation?

The body, then, has a mind of its own. It must follow, then, that the Mind has a body of its own, even if it’s like nothing that we can see around us, or have ever seen.