Embodying the Soul: Surfing the Waves in Turbulent Times

Hello friends,

I’m Aisling — somatic therapist, soul guide, and founder of AnamSoma.

Welcome to this first blog, where I’ll share more about what AnamSoma offers in these turbulent times.

Like many of you, my heart feels deeply distressed by what is unfolding on the global stage. Each day brings fresh horrors — increasing domination, polarisation, and the apparent inability of our collective leaders to curb unchecked cruelty and power.

For many of us, this crisis is not only happening “out there.”

It lives inside our bodies as anxiety, exhaustion, vigilance, or numbness. We may notice arguments igniting more easily, divisions hardening, or cycles of anger, blame, and projection taking hold — responses that rarely help us meet the complexity of these times.

And...

As I write this in Ireland, I’m looking out at the wild Donegal landscape, bathed in a warm winter light. Errigle mountain reaches majestically skywards and descends downwards to meet the lake beneath. Over the glistening surface of the water, two swans glide. In seeing this sight, my heart leaps with love and wonder, and I'm reminded that in Irish lore, the swan is a symbol of the soul.

I am with these two realities at once — horror and beauty, soul and soullessness, grace and despair — co-existing.

It’s hard to know collectively how we can navigate our way through what’s often called the poly crisis- multiple complex issues we face globally. But as an act of service, I want to share what has helped me to navigate life, alongside what I’ve learned from many teachers over the years.

I also want to name how difficult it feels to write without reproducing what troubles me in our current paradigm — the asserting of certainties, the claiming of absolute truths, the subtle violence of “knowing better.” So please bear with me as I search for a different language, and a different way.

Rather than offering conclusions, I want to offer questions, lived experience, teachings and practices that you can try on for yourself.

What do you already know to be true, in your heart?

What do you notice in your body, as you hold this question close?

I invite you to pause and let this question breathe in you.

Staying With What Arises

I’m deeply curious about what somatic and soul-centred work can offer us now.

A few days ago, after finishing some writing, I noticed a heaviness gathering in my chest — a dull, condensing pull, like a vortex drawing inward. Instead of distracting myself or rushing to make sense of it, I stayed close to the sensations.

Grief emerged — grief for my own health struggles over recent years, and grief for the wider world. I cried, cradling my heart in my hands, letting my breath and touch hold me until the waves subsided.

On the other side, a quiet peace arrived. I could simply recognise: this is where life is, for now. By staying receptive rather than armoured, I was carried — by my body — toward steadier ground.

Later, joy returned in simple ways. Playing with our dog. Bathing in warm water, oils, and scent. By feeling the sadness, I found myself more available to joy — I was more coherent, less fragmented. And eventually, a desire to act arose, not from urgency or fear, but from a grounded, heart-connected place.

I also want to acknowledge the privilege of relative safety that made this possible. In other conditions, de-armouring may not be what’s needed. Somatic practice is not a doctrine; it’s an invitation to listen inwardly when we can, and to let that listening shape our response.

Untoughening Up: Being Affected as a Gateway to the Soul

In psychology, being "affected" means allowing ourselves to feel what is happening within and around us — while noticing impulses to shut down, lash out, or disappear.

The aim isn’t non-reaction or permanent calm, but cultivating the capacity to hold all of our reactions within a wider, compassionate awareness.

Without this capacity, something essential in me would remain numb — unavailable to creativity, meaning, and care. Being affected allows my creative energy to flow more freely. And yet, I also honour that numbness once protected me growing up in a war-torn Northern Ireland, when no other options were available, and that still lives within me, as a faithful protector.

Question:

How might any numbness be a protector for you ?

As Aftab Omer teaches, soul is not a belief or abstraction. It is a relational, unfolding essence that becomes available when we allow ourselves to be touched, moved, and shaped by experience.

Modern culture trains us out of this capacity. We are rewarded for speed, certainty, productivity, and control. Over time, this breeds burnout, polarisation, extractive systems, and a profound loss of meaning.

The Irish philosopher John Moriarty named this condition clearly: a deep soul loss.
AnamSoma is an invitation to remember — and re-embed ourselves — within the wider, wilder web of life.

Being Affected as a Leadership Capacity

Moriarty urged us to feel the fullness of our humanity — including what Carl Jung called the shadow — rather than suppressing it or acting it out. He warned that when shadow remains unintegrated, it erupts destructively. As he wrote, humanity has spent its history “killing dragons and building walls,” while failing to recognise that the dragon lives within.

Perhaps this is our invitation now: not the hero’s journey outward, but the heroine’s journey inward.

To become intimate with ourselves.
To tend what arises — shadow and light — without suppression or enactment.
To let "affect" be metabolised within a wider, wiser field.

What wants your care in this moment —

in your body, in your relationships, or...?

When we restore our capacity to be affected — personally and collectively — we begin to interrupt the roots of domination, polarisation, and burnout.

This work supports a different kind of culture: one that honours shadow, cultivates compassion, and remembers rhythms of rest and action aligned with nature, rather than machines.

As old systems tremble and crack, we can learn to surf the waves together — held in heart-centred community — opening to a wider grace, and creating living sanctuaries in these times.

I’ll pause here, friends.

You’re warmly welcome to share what this stirs in you below.

With love,
Aisling