Desire, direction, and the body ➷
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about orientation, and what it really means to feel a sense of “place” in our bodies, in our surroundings, and in the trajectory of our lives.
Orientation is one of the most foundational (and often overlooked) skills in somatic work. It's not just about knowing where you are on a map. It's about sensing where you are in your body, in the space around you, and in your life.
There are so many different ways to orient:
Externally to the environment around you (external orientation)
Internally to your emotions and sensations (internal orientation)
Relationally to your body’s position in space (proprioception)
Existentially to the arc of your life (life or soul orientation)
External orientation is one of the first things I guide when I’m supporting someone 1x1. It’s the practice of connecting with your outer environment, through your senses, as a way to anchor and attune before turning to your internal environment.
Additionally, it can often serve as a gateway for more profound inward explorations. This kind of support is incredibly helpful when titrating somatic explorations or moving through trauma renegotiation work. It’s gentle, accessible, and one of the most powerful tools I know for nervous system care.
There are SO many ways to orient, and each one gives us a different kind of information. Different anchoring points to meet ourselves from.
Let’s walk through a few of them together.
External Orientation (exteroception)
This is where many somatic journeys begin: with your senses.
Sight. Touch. Sound. Smell. Taste.
This one of the most accessible ways to attune your nervous system to the present moment, and it can often be helpful to speak the things you’re noticing out loud. To yourself or a friend!
External orientation can also be an incredible helpful skill when a nervous system is in acute crisis or panic mode, like I shared about in last week’s love note.
Look around, let your eyes go where they want to go
Name a few things that look or feel “pretty okay” (or even good!) to you e.g. a warm mug, the way the light hits a wall, a tree outside the window, the sound of the birds chirping, the lingering taste of coffee in your mouth etc.
These simple acts send a quiet but clear message to your nervous system: You’re not in the past, you’re right here, and you have options.
In somatic practice, we often do this before going inward to anchor the nervous system, and help establish a few external resources to come back to if the system becomes overwhelmed in further explorations.
Body Orientation (proprioception)
Body orientation is about knowing where you are in space.
Can you feel how close your head is to the ceiling above you without looking? The wall to your left? Right?
Can you feel your feet on the floor without looking down?
Can you sense the curve of your spine, or where your neck turns into your shoulder?
Can you feel your back against the chair/couch?
Do you know where your body ends and the world around you begins?
This sense often goes offline in the aftermath of shock, anxiety, or chronic dysregulation. It’s like the body sense gets fragmented… here but not fully “known” to itself.
In somatic sessions, we spend time gently rebuilding this awareness with slowness, compassion, and (most importantly) repetition.
Because when your body knows where it is in space, it no longer needs to stay on high alert as a baseline… which is the default mode when your brain can’t sense where your body is: it automatically predicts danger/threat.
When you know where you are in space, your system doesn’t have to do guesswork. It doesn’t need to keep searching for you. You become known to yourself, which carves out more capacity to move through the waves of life with more resiliency.
Internal Orientation (interoception)
This is the deeper layer: turning your attention inward to notice what’s happening inside of you.
It’s the felt sense of:
What am I feeling emotionally, and where do I feel it?
Is there tightness in my belly? Warmth in my face? A flutter in my throat? A softness in my shoulders? A spaciousness in my chest?
Am I hungry? Tired? Needing connection? Stillness? Rest? Space?
Am I feeling sad? Startled? Optimistic? Skeptical? Hurt? Joyful? All of the above? And how do I know I’m feeling this way? What inner signals tell me that I feel ______?
Interoception is about developing intimacy with your inner landscape of sensations, emotions, hunger, fatigue, arousal, contraction, expansion.
It’s the art of knowing how you feel, and where you feel it.
And from there, being able to attune to:
What is a yes in your body?
What is a no?
What’s a boundary? A longing/desire? A signal that something needs tending to?
Rebuilding interoception allows us to live in deep relationship with ourselves. The willingness to not only notice your needs, but also act on them, is a big part of what cultivates a profound sense of self-trust, healthy identity, and a solid centre.
Interoception is your body’s language.
It’s how your organs, tissues, emotions, and intuitions speak to you.
The more fluent you become in that language, the more you start to trust yourself.
And from there, boundaries get clearer. Desires and needs become more palpable. Your hell YES and f*ck NO become much easier to feel in real time, not just in hindsight.
It’s not always easy to rebuild that relationship, especially if you’ve been taught to override these signals. But it is possible. Gently, over time, and in connection.
And finally, Life Orientation
Lately, I’ve been exploring this one more deeply in my own life.
Life orientation is the sense of where you’ve been, where you are now, and where you long to go.
It’s not about career goals or productivity plans (although those can be part of it). It’s about desire, alignment, and soul trajectory.
Some questions you could ask yourself…
What is calling me forward right now?
What wants to unfold through me?
Where do I want to be in three years? Five? Ten?
What do I want my life to feel like? My body? My everyday?
What do I truly desire for myself? My relationships? My home?
When you let your body participate in orienting to your life, something powerful begins to shift.
And, it’s important to note, that life orientation can feel overwhelming (and sometimes even misleading) if we haven’t first rooted into the more foundational layers of exteroception, proprioception, and interoception. Because how can we know what we truly want, if we haven’t yet learned to sense where we are? How can you know what you truly want for yourself if you don’t yet have a relationship with your embodied YES and NO? How can you make aligned life choices if you haven’t first developed a relationship with how you feel in any given moment?
That’s why we start with the basics. With the body.
And from there, life’s direction tends to unravel and clarify itself.
With courage, Ayesha xx
p.s. If you are looking for 1x1 support, I offer online and in-person Somatic Processing Sessions 🌊 I’d love to welcome you into this therapeutic container!