From Reactivity to Reflection · The Somatic Academy by Soma+IQ

From Reactivity to Reflection

This morning began with breath. I did the quick daily somatic practice and felt ready—centered, open, aligned. I was in touch with myself, ready to show up with a strong spine, an open heart, and a curious mind. But the day had other plans.

Before dawn the shower was dripping. By morning it was straight up leaking. I sent a video and a message to the landlord, then drove to work carrying that small hum of annoyance under my skin. On the drive I had a near miss at the roundabout—a sudden constriction that tugged at a memory of my recent accident. My nervous system shifted triggered on high alert, and I carried that energy into the shop. I wasn’t aware of my state: the shift survival mode. I walked in scanning for disruption, my ancient wisdom looking for threats.

The tablets were smudged with fingerprints—little maps of someone else’s rush. Orders were being handled differently, changes left uncommunicated. That lack of clarity rubbed against the raw edge I’d brought from the drive. I showed up as someone else—sympathetic system turned up—hyper‑aware and tuned into everything that felt off. Those small frictions kept picking at my peace.

Still, I found my way back. I stepped outside to feel the sun on my face and the wind in my hair—the small, honest magic that leads me home. I remembered why I love this work: the shop’s smell, the people I get to meet. For a moment I was back. And as a reward from the universe, the next order sent me to the cooler. Ah—the cooler: cold, crisp air that hit me like a memory, filled with that earthy, skunky scent of bud, bringing me back. Tiny flashes of magic showed up all day and kept me tethered to the me I want to be.

I stepped outside several times to reconnect—the cool air, the warm sun, the whispering wind. Nature didn’t ask me to explain. It just received me. Each pause softened the edge and pulled me back.

Shift over but plans shifted again. The plumber was scheduled for 3:30–5, so my wife stayed home to wait. My friend and I still walked the beach, but it was Friday afternoon instead of our usual Thursday morning walk, and it felt different. I missed my wife there beside me. The disappointment thinned my sense of connection, and the old voices started asking why I was complaining, reminding me that this wasn’t the person I want to be. I did my recharging ritual anyway: vagal sounds into the open water. The ocean received it. I was back, recharging at the water’s edge, breathing with the planet.

By evening I was exhausted from a day of fending off the day—the leak uncertainty, the near miss PTSD, the finger smudged Ipads, and the rescheduling of simple pleasures. It felt like the world was testing me all day. Would I recognize when I shifted and could I get back. The answer is Yes. YES I can.

I found the power in the small wins mattered: the cooler at work, that scent that pulled me back, the ocean’s salt, the sun on my face—those were doors back to myself. It’s in the noticing that the shift happens; that’s where the magic lives.

When I got home, I was filled with gratitude. There she stood my ride or die my person. My final shift of the day in to the arms of love. My perspective finally settled on what really matters. The universe kept nudging me; my task to find myself again and again. Today, I kept coming back; by evening the stillness I’d made stayed with me

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