Let’s take a moment to pause and tune in to this autumnal season. Fall can be a powerful time to release, reflect, and appreciate what no longer serves us (think leaves changing colors and dropping, the days growing shorter/darker, the birds starting to migrate). I often ask myself, “what have I been through this past year? How has this impacted me, positively or negatively? What have I released, either by choice or necessity? And what remains?”

Using somatic awareness, we can take this reflection by going deeper than simply making the list of all the things we are grateful for. Somatic awareness is the bridge to see how all that we have been through (our reflections) affects our body and how we show up on a day to day (what we need to release).

When we take the time to tune inward & notice, gratitude naturally emerges. It’s found when we connect with our body, instead of fearing it & running from it. When we learn to listen to the body, to hear what it is telling us, to see all it does for us, even in our hardest season. Gratitude becomes something we feel and becomes an embodied experience. It can feel like that gentle exhale after a long day, a warmth in the chest when we notice safety, or that greater appreciation when we eat our favorite food.

Somatic awareness helps us move beyond the “shoulds”—I should feel this, do that, be this. It brings us into a space rooted in reality where things can coexist. The grief and the joy, the freedom with recovery and the struggle to it.

And through this awareness we find gratitude, not as a concept, but as a lived experience. We learn to make space for it all, with compassion, and in doing so, we begin to release what we no longer need.This season, I invite you to see gratitude through a different lens. Take that moment to notice what your body is telling you…because it sure has a lot to say.