Shape Shifter
A sequence of somatic practices to state-shift. Use creatively.
Last week around 35 people gathered in Melbourne for a Supermuse event about the felt experience of creativity, and what it means to access creative intelligence, from Vedic, somatic and neuroscience perspectives. Thank you so much to everyone who came. My heart is so full to share this space with you and I’m honoured that you entrusted me with your creative bodies and minds.
I’m sharing some of what we practiced and spoke about here, in a series. This first part is a rundown of the somatic experiencing, yogic and intuitive practices I took everyone through before we meditated.
You could do this as a sequence or pick one, or two, if you’d like a transition into meditation.
Alternatively, any of these can be used as a standalone practices, first thing in the morning, last thing at night, when feeling overwhelmed, before or after a big meeting, when starting creative work, feeling creatively blocked or just generally frazzled.
Don’t be concerned about perfection, as long as the gist is right you will likely experience a state shift. These practices invite subtle state change, not a dramatic exorcism(!), so they won’t feel like a cold plunge and nor should they. They are deliberately subtle and will invite progressive state change, which is what we ideally love for our nervous system, as subtlety, progression and repetition signals safety to the body, which in turn signals internal trust, which makes coming back to these more inviting – and coming back to them is where the neuroplastic magic happens – small, repeatable shifts. If you think ‘nothing is happening’ it probably is.
Note how you feel on a scale of 1-5 (1= calm, centred, grounded, clear, inspired and 5 = anxious, activated, agitated, stressed, ruminating, blocked etc) before and after the practice.
More on what we discussed regarding the neuroscience of creativity and what is actually happening in the brain in my next post.
Say hi
I started by asking you to say hi to two people you didn’t already know.
The nervous system settles when it knows evidence that the people around you aren’t a threat. When you say hello to strangers intentionally you are getting data via their face, voice and eye contact that they are safe. This is called neuroception: below-conscious safety scanning.
It’s the only practice here that works through relationship rather than the individual body. You’re giving the nervous system data and reducing unconscious threats.
Orienting
Slowly let your gaze turn to the edges and periphery of the room. Turn your head and body physically, not just your eyes, and take in every corner, window, exit. Make sure you turn to look behind you. Take longer than you think. 1-2 minutes.
This is a practice I learnt from a somatic experiencing practitioner I’m working with, Isabel Georgina Taylor (I love her). Orienting gives the nervous system evidence of physical safety. The body registers what it can actually see and feel. The orienting reflex — an ancient, automatic scanning response — needs to run its full cycle to complete. Most of the time, in ordinary overstimulated life, it doesn’t do this because we arrive somewhere and our gaze goes straight to a screen or a person. Orienting lets the brain map ‘where am I’ ‘am I safe’ and essentially ‘where are the exits’? It’s important to move the head and body when you turn as just moving the eyes mimics ‘darting eyes’ which is a threat response (think, cartoon eyes haha). Once you’ve oriented, background scanning can step down. From there we can move from hypervigilance to present awareness.
Shaking
Put a song on a shake your body for its full length. Don’t choreograph, just shake: slow, fast, however you like.
The technical term for shaking is neurogenic tremouring — the same involuntary shaking you see in animals after a threat passes, like what Bambi does after a fall. The tremor is the nervous system completing the stress cycle, allowing the muscular and hormonal activation (adrenalin, cortisol) to discharge rather than stay held in the body.
We humans don’t do this. We hold and suppress our stress and fair enough, as this kind of movement would be inappropriate or antisocial in most modern situations. Shaking deliberately mimics what the body would do naturally if we let it. (This is why dancing feels good too). You might feel some kind of release or grounding after two-ish minutes but keep going for a song or longer.
Humming - Bhramari
Gently close your ears with your fingers, inhale through the nose and gently hum on every out-breath, exhaling through the nose. Aim to extend the exhale and hum as long as possible without forcing. Cycle through for 1-2 minutes.
Bhramari (humming bee breath) stimulates the vagus nerve, which is like a master switch for the nervous system, helping it shift from sympathetic (fight flight freeze) to parasympathetic (rest digest). The buzz sound also acts as a soft internal anchor almost like a mantra, drawing attention away from rumination. Nasal breathing also encourages the production of nitric oxide which dilates blood vessels and increases cerebral blood flow, helping to clear brain fog. Nitric oxide has antiviral and antibacterial properties, especially in the nose, which is why nasal breathing is ideal in life, generally. If you want to boost the practice, pause after the hummed exhale on empty lungs. CO2 further helps shift the body into a parasympathetic state.
Alternate nostril breathing – Nadi Shodhana
Rest the thumb and third or fourth finger of one hand on each nostril. Close down the right side and inhale through the left, pause at the top, close the left and exhale through the right, pause at the bottom. Start with a count of 2 for each and work your way up. Extend the pause at the bottom for an extra count. 1-5 minutes.
The body already shifts nasal dominance every ninety minutes, left to right, right to left, a cycle linked to subtle shifts in the nervous system. This practice mirrors that rhythm, while slowing the breath and focusing the mind.
Then we meditated.
By the time we sat to meditate, the nervous system had done a significant amount of processing. From here we can be softer, deeper and wider, in our meditation, with ourselves, with others.
The post-med visualisation practice I led was geared towards feeling creative inspiration in the body as something wild, expansive and self-generative. If you want to experience this live, Club Med is a twice-monthly group meditation — accessible via a paid Substack subscription ($10/month). You can come in here and join either online or in-person in Melbourne.
See you soon xo
I teach a functional, creative meditation technique and coach people to build the habit of a daily practice. If you’d like to know more about the offerings, visit the Supermuse website here. I post on Insta here.
Club Med, a twice-monthly group meditation collective for inner visionaries, is now run here on Substack. Go here to join and get more info!