by Sachi B, Somatic Recovery Guide · Somatelligence, Oceanside

Everyone loves the picture of it. You breathe, you soften, you arrive at calm, and you stay there. Regulated. Done. Like it’s a place you unlock once.

It’s reps. Every single day.

Same as the gym. Everyone knows one good workout is just one workout. But somehow we think calm is a state you reach and keep. The truth is you get calm, then something pokes you, and you have to notice it, feel it, walk it back to calm. Again. And again. It gets boring. It gets monotonous. That’s the part left off the pretty graphic.

And most of what runs us runs below awareness. So the work lives in the body, underneath the thinking, over and over.

Why Regulating Your Nervous System in Public Feels Weird

Here’s what makes it uncool. The work is invisible. The gym at least shows on your body. This is the hardest internal labor there is, and the only proof is how you show up.

So yeah. I’m the weird one. I’ll pause in the middle of a conversation to get myself calm while people give me the look. I like being awkward. I like naming the pink elephant in the room and laughing about it. I like saying the thing everyone else is holding back.

I’ll take a beat out of nowhere, surrounded by conflict or weird looks, and go find my calm anyway. And then I’ll still say what I need to say. Even when I don’t understand you. Even when you don’t understand me. I’d rather be met and awkward than smooth and gone.

That’s what the work actually is. The willingness to be weird enough to keep doing it.

What the Habit Research Says About Staying in Practice

The numbers say the quiet part out loud too. It takes around 66 days on average for something to become automatic, way longer than the 21 everyone repeats. And about half of people who start an exercise program quit inside six months. Right when it stops feeling special and starts feeling like a chore.

AWKWARD AF…BUT GET WEIRD WITH IT:

Almost everyone who walks into the studio starts in the same place. With awareness. Body awareness specifically. Feeling the charge comes first. Then you can walk it back down. So these reps are about noticing what your body is already doing.

Next time you feel the charge come up, stay right where you are. Take one small rep and notice what shifts.

1. At your desk, go to the window. Look out, one slow breath in, one slow breath out.
2. On a walk, drag your fingers through the leaves as you pass. Put your hand on the bark of a tree and feel it. Small inhales, small exhales.
3. On a bathroom break, swing your arms all the way up on the inhale and let them fall on the exhale. It’s a simple kriya move.

All of it looks a little ridiculous. That’s the point. The weird little reps are the work.

Where Body Awareness Starts

What’s your version of the window? Tell me the small thing you already do.

And if you want a guide for the noticing part, the Foundational Session is where the studio starts. 90 minutes, in person in Oceanside or virtual. We find where your body is already talking, and you leave with one rep you can repeat on your own.