About the Guest

Christine Caldwell, Ph.D., BC-DMT, LPC, NCC, ACS, is the founder of and professor emeritus in the Somatic Counseling Program at Naropa University in Boulder, CO, USA, where she taught coursework in somatic counseling theory and skills, clinical neuroscience, research, and diversity issues. Her work began forty years ago with studies in anthropology, dance therapy, bodywork and Gestalt therapy, and has developed into innovations in the field of body-centered psychotherapy. She calls her work the Moving Cycle. This system goes beyond the limitations of therapy and emphasizes lifelong personal and social evolution through trusting and following body states. The Moving Cycle spotlights natural play, early physical imprinting, bodily authority, and the transformational effect of fully sequenced movement processes. She has taught at the University of Maryland, George Washington University, Concordia, Seoul Women’s University, Southwestern College, Pacifica, and Santa Barbara Graduate Institute, and trains, teaches and lectures internationally. She has published over 30 articles and chapters, and her books include Getting Our Bodies Back, Getting In Touch, The Body and Oppression, and Bodyfulness.

In this Episode, We Discuss:

1. Christine Caldwell’s new book, Bodyfulness: Somatic Practices for Presence, Empowerment, & Waking Up in This Life
2. Bodyfulness happens when you look at embodiment as physical, psychological, and contemplative
3. 8 principles of Bodyfulness and the 4 aspects in the practice of Bodyfulness
4. Difference between the stories that the body would tell and the verbal narrative we have laid on top of it
5. Bodyfulness is activism at its most basic level and how it can shift forms of activism
6. Obstacles to Bodyfulness include the oppression of the body by many societies, making our bodies and other bodies “wrong”, and Bodylessness, in which the body is seen as a project
7. An enlightened body and body wakefulness – being “awake” is a bodily experience not just in the mind