There’s a word that comes up a lot in my work that tends to stop people momentarily: somatic.

It sounds technical. Clinical, even. But the meaning is straightforward – somatic simply refers to the body. Somatic coaching is coaching that includes the body as a source of intelligence, not just the mind.

And once you understand what that actually means in practice, it’s hard to go back to ignoring it.

The Gap in Most Leadership Development

Conventional coaching and leadership development are largely cognitive. We analyse situations, set goals, reframe thinking, build strategies. All of that has real value.

But here’s the problem: your body is doing something your mind can’t – it’s processing your environment faster than conscious thought. Before you’ve formed a rational opinion about a situation, your nervous system has already registered a response. A tightening in the chest. A sinking in the stomach. A sudden lift of energy. An inexplicable resistance.

Most of us have been trained to override these signals. Push through. Stay analytical. Don’t let feelings get in the way.

Somatic coaching takes the opposite view: those signals are information. And learning to read them accurately is one of the most practical skills you can develop.

Your Onboard GPS

The best way I know to explain somatic intelligence to a business leader is through what I call the Onboard GPS.

Think about how a GPS works. You set a destination, and the system continuously calculates the best route from where you currently are – accounting for conditions, obstacles and options you might not have considered. It doesn’t judge your starting point. It just orients you toward where you want to go.

Your body has an equivalent system, and it’s been with you since birth.

It works through feeling. When you’re moving toward something that’s genuinely in your best interest – a decision, a direction, a relationship, an opportunity – there’s a quality of ease, openness or energy to it. When you’re moving away from what’s right for you, there’s contraction, heaviness or unease.

This isn’t vague intuition. It’s your nervous system doing what it was designed to do: registering the flow or restriction of life-force energy through your body, and giving you feedback in real time.

The hot-cold game children play is actually a decent analogy. Someone hides an object and tells you whether you’re getting warmer or colder as you move around the room. Your Onboard GPS works the same way – except the feedback comes from inside you, not from someone else.

Why Most of Us Have Stopped Listening

The signals are always there. The problem is we’ve learned not to trust them.

From early in life, most of us are encouraged to follow external guidance – what we’re told is sensible, safe, expected – rather than what genuinely feels right to us. Over time, we lose confidence in our own inner reading. We default to analysis, comparison and approval-seeking instead.

The result is individuals and leaders who are cognitively sharp but frequently second-guessing themselves, feeling vaguely disconnected from their decisions, or making choices that look good on paper but somehow don’t land.

Reactivating the Onboard GPS is about rebuilding trust in this inner guidance – carefully, practically and with tangible evidence.

How I Work With This in Practice

One of the exercises I use involves two circles – one blue, one yellow – placed on the floor.

I invite the person to step into the blue circle and briefly recall an experience that felt unpleasant or draining. Not to relive the story, but to notice what happens in the body. Where does the sensation sit? What quality does it have – colour, temperature, density, movement or stillness?

Then they step into the yellow circle and recall an experience that felt genuinely good. Energising, right, alive. Again – body sensations only. Not the memory itself.

We move between the circles a couple of times. What this does, reliably and quickly, is reconnect people with their own felt sense of the difference between energy flowing and energy shutting down. For many people it’s the first time they’ve consciously noticed that difference. And once you can feel it clearly, you have a tool you can use anywhere – before a decision, in a difficult conversation, when evaluating an opportunity.

This is your Onboard GPS coming back online.

The Second Dimension: When the Body Is Sending a Different Kind of Signal

There’s another aspect of somatic work that’s worth briefly touching on here.

Sometimes the body isn’t giving directional feedback – it’s flagging something that needs attention. Chronic tension in the shoulders. A persistent tightness in the chest. Recurring pain that doesn’t have a clear physical cause.

This kind of body signal is often the nervous system’s way of pointing toward stuck energy – a belief, a pattern or an emotional charge that hasn’t been processed. The brilliant pain researcher Alan Gordon, in his book The Way Out, describes how much of chronic pain is the brain generating a protection response to perceived threat, even when there’s no physical injury.

In a coaching context, this type of somatic work involves learning to turn toward these sensations with curiosity rather than alarm – to ask what they might be communicating, rather than simply trying to suppress or manage them.

It’s a deeper layer of work, and one we explore further in the Navigator programme. But even at the surface level, simply learning to notice and name what your body is doing – rather than pushing through – is a significant shift for most leaders.

Let me share a personal example – during our massive series of earthquakes here in Christchurch 2011 and 2012, I ruptured a disc in my lower back with crippling nerve pain that radiated out and down my right leg. I came to learn that I had overburdened myself with responsibilities that were not mine to take. When I took on any that were not mine, within 20 seconds I got ‘a right pain in my butt” literally!  I have learnt to become a lot more aware and work proactively with this intelligence.

What This Looks Like as a Leadership Practice

You don’t need a coaching session to begin. Here are three entry points:

1. Before your next significant decision, check in with your body first. Not to override your analysis – but to add to it. Is there ease or contraction? Openness or resistance? Factor that in.
2. Notice what happens in your body during meetings. When does your energy lift? When does it drop? These shifts are data about alignment, trust and dynamics that your analytical mind might miss.
3. Take persistent physical discomfort seriously. If your body has been trying to tell you something for a while, it may be worth getting curious about what’s underneath – not just managing the symptom.

The Deeper Point

Somatic coaching isn’t about getting mystical. It’s about using more of the intelligence you already have.

Your body is the most sophisticated sensing instrument available to you. It responds to your environment, your relationships and your decisions in real time – before your conscious mind has caught up. Learning to read those responses accurately, and to trust your Onboard GPS, is one of the most practical things a leader can do.

At CG&A, somatic practice runs through everything we do – from the very first Navigator session through to conscious leadership and business work. It’s not a soft add-on. It’s a core part of how we help individuals and leaders perform better, decide faster and lead with greater authenticity.

If you are curious and would like to talk it through, I’m always happy to start with a chat, no commitment, just a conversation.

Craig Galloway is the founder of CG&A Coaching, based in Christchurch, New Zealand. He has 40+ years of corporate leadership experience and has been coaching individuals, leaders and teams since 1999.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does somatic mean? Somatic simply means relating to the body. Somatic coaching integrates body-based awareness – physical sensations, nervous system signals, felt sense – alongside cognitive and emotional work.

Is somatic coaching the same as therapy? No. Somatic coaching works with present-moment body awareness to improve decision-making, resilience and performance. It isn’t trauma therapy, though it can support emotional regulation. If deeper therapeutic work is needed, Craig will say so and refer accordingly.

What is the Onboard GPS? It’s Craig’s term for the body’s innate guidance system – the felt sense of ease or contraction that signals whether you’re moving toward or away from what’s genuinely in your best interest. It’s a practical, trainable capacity, not a mystical concept.

How quickly can someone learn to use somatic awareness? Most people notice a shift in their first session. The blue/yellow circle exercise reliably reconnects people with their felt sense within minutes. Building reliable skill takes practice – typically four to eight weeks of simple daily check-ins.

What is the connection between somatic coaching and chronic pain or tension? Persistent physical tension or pain can sometimes reflect stuck emotional energy or chronic stress patterns. Somatic tracking – learning to observe sensations with curiosity rather than resistance – is one way to begin working with this. Alan Gordon’s research into pain neuroscience supports this approach.