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Othering, Self-Abandonment and the Power of Somatic Practices
Updated: Oct 23
Table of Contents
The Unspoken Cost of Belonging
There is a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from constantly having to consider how you are being perceived. What you say. How you say it. Whether you're being too direct, too emotional, too loud, too quiet. Whether your confidence will be interpreted as arrogance, your frustration as aggression, or your silence as disengagement.
For many people navigating spaces in which they are perceived as different, these calculations become second nature. So familiar, in fact, that we may barely notice ourselves making them.
We learn to read the room before entering it. To anticipate discomfort before it arises. To adapt ourselves to the expectations of others, sometimes before we've had a chance to consider what we actually think, feel or want.
And while these adaptations can be necessary, even skilful, I wonder what happens when we become so practised at making ourselves acceptable that we begin to lose contact with ourselves.
Public Health Scholar, Wizdom Powell observes, othering is about denying people the fullness of their humanity. It communicates, through both social interactions and structural barriers, a persistent message: you're not one of us.
But what happens when we begin to internalise that message?
" To be othered is to be denied the fullness of one’s humanity. It’s about reminding people, either by the barriers we put up in social spaces or the barriers to opportunities to advance our well-being, about saying through words or actions, that ‘you’re not one of us " Wizdom Powell.
Understanding Othering: When Belonging Becomes Conditional
Othering is more than simply feeling different. It is the experience of being positioned as outside the dominant group, of having assumptions made about who you are, what you are capable of, and where you belong.
This can manifest through overt discrimination of the non-dominant group, but also through subtler, everyday interactions. The surprise at your competence. The expectation that you explain or represent an entire community. The feeling that you must continually demonstrate your legitimacy in spaces where others are simply assumed to belong.
To navigate these environments, many of us learn to code-switch, assimilate and leave certain parts of ourselves at the door. The voice we use in the boardroom is not the voice we use at home. We moderate our language, our gestures, our humour, even our expressions of joy or frustration.
Of course, adapting to different social environments is something we all do. We all adapt how we communicate depending on who we're with, and there is a difference between adjusting how we express ourselves to be understood and changing how we express ourselves in order to be accepted. Seen in this light, code-switching can be a sophisticated form of communication, cultural fluency and agency. The problem is not adaptation itself.
The problem arises when adaptation stops being a choice and becomes the condition of acceptance. When acceptance depends on adopting the codes of the dominant group, the unspoken message is that your own way of being is somehow wrong, lesser or not quite good enough. The way you naturally speak, move, express emotion or occupy space becomes something to correct rather than simply another way of being.
And perhaps this is where adaptation begins to become self-abandonment. Not necessarily in the act of code-switching itself, but in the gradual internalisation of the idea that who you are without those adjustments is somehow less acceptable.
The Cost of Distance: From Adaptation to Self-Abandonment
One response to repeated othering is to create distance. Distance from others, certainly. But also distance between our whole selves and the versions of ourselves we believe the world will accept.
For those who must remain constantly alert, careful and prepared to counter assumptions already made about them, feeling can become something of a luxury. There may not be room to acknowledge the fear, shame, anger, sadness or exhaustion that accompanies these experiences. We have work to do, responsibilities to meet, people depending on us.
And so we learn to push through.
To intellectualise what we experience rather than feel it. To explain away discomfort. To minimise hurt. To convince ourselves that something doesn't matter because acknowledging that it does might be too costly.
These are not necessarily conscious decisions. They are adaptations, ways of protecting ourselves and maintaining our ability to function in environments that may not always feel safe.And they can serve us remarkably well.
Until they don't.
When Survival Becomes Disconnection
There is a cost to continually overriding our own experience. As my own (quite brilliant) therapist once told me we cannot selectively numb our emotions. Emotional suppression can sometimes dampen our access to pleasurable feelings as well as painful ones. The strategies that help us contain fear or sadness may also make it harder to experience ease, spontaneity and joy.
But perhaps the more subtle cost is the erosion of self-trust.
When we repeatedly dismiss what we feel, we may begin to question the validity of our own experience. Am I overreacting? Was that really what happened? Am I being too sensitive? Should I just let it go?
And if we become accustomed to looking outside ourselves for confirmation of what is acceptable, reasonable or true, it can become increasingly difficult to recognise our own needs, preferences and boundaries.
What began as a strategy for navigating the external world can gradually shape our relationship with our internal one.
I think this is where the conversation about othering meets the conversation about self-abandonment. Not because we have consciously chosen to abandon ourselves, but because, somewhere along the way, we learnt that staying connected to ourselves was less important than staying accepted, to staying safe.
Somatic Practices: Finding Our Way Back
This is where I find somatic and movement practices particularly interesting.
Somatic work begins with a deceptively simple invitation: to notice what is happening in our bodies.
Not to analyse it, fix it or immediately turn it into something productive. Simply to become curious about our lived experience. What happens in your body when you feel uncomfortable in a particular space? Do you hold your breath? Tighten your jaw? Pull your shoulders in? Feel an urge to make yourself smaller, explain yourself or leave?
And what happens when you feel genuinely welcomed, understood or at ease?
Perhaps your breathing changes. Your shoulders soften. Your voice becomes more animated. You find yourself laughing without first checking whether it's appropriate.
These responses are not infallible messages about what is objectively right or wrong (if such a thing exists). Our bodies are shaped by experience, and our reactions often reflect what we have learnt to think, feel and believe about ourselves and the world around us.
We may no longer be conscious of the beliefs themselves, but our bodies can continue to respond as though they are true. A tightening in the chest, a held breath, an impulse to withdraw or make ourselves smaller may tell us something about what we have come to expect, rather than what is actually happening in the present moment.
Somatic practice offers an opportunity to become curious about these responses, to distinguish what belongs to the present from what we may be carrying from the past, and to rebuild a relationship with the parts of ourselves we have learnt to ignore.
Beyond Intellectual Understanding
I have spent much of my professional life working in strategy, helping people and organisations make sense of complex problems.
I value clear thinking. I believe in the power of analysis, questioning and well-considered action. But my training in yoga and somatic coaching has deepened my appreciation of something that intellectual understanding alone doesn't always provide.
We can understand why we behave in certain ways without necessarily being able to change how we experience them. We can recognise that a situation is uncomfortable, even harmful, and still find ourselves responding in familiar patterns.
We can know, intellectually, that we deserve to take up space while our bodies continue to respond as though doing so carries a risk.
This is why I believe we need to make room for another kind of knowing. Body wisdom is not a replacement for reason. It is another source of information, emerging through sensation, emotion, movement and our responses to the world around us.
Sometimes the question isn't simply What do I think about this? It's also What am I sensing? What am I feeling? What happens when I allow myself to pay attention?
Perhaps the deeper work lies in learning to bring these different forms of knowing into conversation.Not abandoning the intellect, but no longer asking it to carry everything.
Tuning into Bodily Wisdom
Somatic practices invite us back into relationship with our bodies. They remind us that rest, feeling, and trust are not indulgences but intentional acts of resistance in a culture that asks us to fragment. They create space for us to notice what is here, the ache, the exhaustion, but also the longing and the hope.
Because reconnecting with ourselves is not always a dramatic act of transformation. More often, it is a series of small moments in which we choose to pay attention.
To notice when we are overriding ourselves.
To question the assumptions we have internalised.
To allow a feeling to exist without immediately explaining it away.
To recognise when we need rest, connection, movement or support.
And to remember that the body we inhabit has carried us through every experience we've had, including those in which we felt we had to leave parts of ourselves behind.
So I invite you to consider:
Beyond Intellectual Understanding: Making Room for Body Wisdom
When was the last time you tuned into your body's wisdom?
When was the last time you thanked your body for everything it has carried you through?
What parts of yourself have you learnt to leave at the door?
And how might it feel to know that, wherever you go, you can find your way back to yourself?
Perhaps the work of somatic practice is not about becoming someone new.
Perhaps it is about slowly, patiently and intentionally reducing the distance between ourselves and our own lived experience.
Not in a bid for perfection or indeed to become immune to the world around us.
But to make more room for all that we are. And to discover what becomes possible when belonging no longer requires us to abandon ourselves.
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