Somatic Awareness at the End of Life

NEDA board members, Michelle Thornhill and Elizabeth Johnson, recently completed a 50-hour Embodied Social Justice Certificate Program as a means of informing their work as co-chairs of the Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Committee. The online program explored how unjust social conditions are embodied and how we can utilize the body's inherent wisdom to make our social justice work more 'grounded, responsive and sustainable.' 

Please see the 'Guide’ that emerged from Elizabeth and Michelle's program experience and is meant to serve as a simple and concise reminder around the benefits of staying ‘somatically aware’ in moments of great stress and suffering, especially in end of life spaces.

Whereas we all die, we don’t all die in the same way, nor with the same supportive care infrastructures surrounding us. Death can be fraught with trauma, injustice and irreconcilable suffering. For practitioners working in end of life care, our capacity to show up for and recognize and/or be with the compounded suffering of another is dependent upon our ability to stay with ‘what is.’ This requires an embodied connection to self, understanding that we are an interconnected vessel that is both receiving and emitting information, impressions, stresses, and much more. 

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