The somatic dimension of coaching and personal development has been calling me for a while. In a conversation with a coach friend and mentor, I had a flashbulb moment when they declared the body as “the final frontier and the last mile” of development.

It activated me enough to sign up for a three-day workshop on somatic awareness that would start the next day: a spontaneous decision, following the energy in me.

Ironically, I misread the program description. The workshop turned out to involve far more hours than I’d initially thought. Had I realized that beforehand, I wouldn’t (couldn’t) have been so decisive as to sign up on the spot. And since it turned out to be an incredible experience, I’m glad I didn’t give myself the chance to overthink it!

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. — Anaïs Nin

Related: The Aeon essay, Deskilling the body, warns that “we are, moment by moment, doing less sensing, navigating, remembering, walking, choosing, and attending”. This is a grave issue because:

The physical organisation of an organism is inherently evaluative. It is from this embodied evaluation that agency emerges. Yet the same unique qualities that make life-forms so causally special and intelligent can undermine us when repeatedly trained by harmful environments. Instead, we can acquire patterns or lose pathways that progressively weaken our intrinsic intelligence, which we need to flourish.

The cold weather has started to set in. I’ve been feasting all week on a big pot of soup, with slices of Wales cheese that I’d picked up in Surrey last week. It’s called Snowdonia Black Bomber and it’s delicious.

I also dug out my winter cycling gear out of the closet, and had a once-in-a-blue-moon 7am start to a long ride. It’s probably not going to happen any time soon, but look at that morning mist!