Guest Post: Somatics and Expressive Art
Unearthing Resources and Wisdom from my Body
by Lory Povah Creative Health Consultant, Coach and member of The Brilliant Club
March 2024
In November 2023 I started a year- long piece of work supported using public funding by Arts Council England’s Developing Your Creative Practice fund. This work is both reflective and forward looking, taking in learning from my 30-year career in arts and community development, to further develop my own creativity and playfulness for future work within our sector with changemakers and creatives working for wellbeing and social change.
A highlight so far has been my week-long Somatics and Expressive Art Intensive with a wonderful therapist Evelyn Aston Rhodes, based in Bude, Cornwall, where I spent a wonderful, peaceful, and productive week earlier this year, and I’m happy to say we will be working together on-line all year both therapeutically and building resources for future training I am developing up here in the North.
My body has been calling for attention in recent years with a number of health scares and also that little old thing called ‘time’ ticking away and a feeling that if I don’t get to know my body now then when… I’d also been doing Mindfulness practices that take you into the body and become curious to do more of this.
I was nervous and had no idea what I would find. As with all therapeutic interventions, the experience is individual and personal, and I chose a way to experience the work that felt nurturing and supportive for me.
I found out that the body communicates in lots of different ways, through sensations, images, metaphor, memories, and words and learnt that through this process, change occurs.
I had a lot of images with information around colour and texture and lots of different feelings/ sensations and images from left and right body parts. A woody black block and cloak image at the back of my head led me to remember a car accident in my early 20’s, getting whiplash and losing my job. A memory of collecting shells, barefoot on the beach, at the age of maybe 8 or 9 in my faded orange castle bucket gave me an incredible feeling of inner strength and resourcefulness that I can still feel.
Tracking sensations around the body as it happens, being guided to follow the body’s inclination to move and creating artwork as part of this body process, to further respond to, are powerful and creative experiences I have learnt so much from in the sessions. A very moving experience for me, was witnessing my body responding to itself with care and tenderness when I was gently prompted to notice what was happening.
As the week progressed, I picked up ‘resources’ which I can use in my everyday life to feel settled and grounded in my body, solid and supported and yet expansive and open to life. My upper spine and neck feel freer than they have in decades. I am very grateful to my funders and to Evelyn and happy to have given myself the time and space to fully immerse in this self-exploration. Evelyn is a highly trained, sensitive, and thoughtful therapist who I am very happy to have as my guide in this process.
Evelyn is a registered Somatic Movement Therapist and Educator (ISMETA), and a Movement based Expressive Art practitioner in the Tamalpa Life / Art method. She works one-to-one in private practice supporting those experiencing poor mental health, chronic pain and illness, trauma, loss of connection, and those who want to develop a better relationship with their body and enhance the potential for deeper meaning in their lives.
She has worked within third sector organisations, developing, and running trauma informed Somatic Expressive Arts courses, with women refugees, and social prescribing projects for people affected by chronic illness within Mental health charities. She teaches Somatic Movement and Expressive Arts classes online and within her local community.
Self-care, compassion, joy and vitality are integral qualities that she brings to her work. She is passionate in working with the body as a vehicle for expression, transformation and healing and supporting others to find the moments of insight that bring vitality, health, and regulation back to their lives. She is based in Bude, North Cornwall where she has a home studio and offers one-to-one sessions online.
