An introduction to my Somatic Integrity framework. What it is. How it helps public speaking. How you do it.
A lot of speakers pay attention to their tone of voice, how they dress and how they stand. These play a critical role in how you are perceived as a public speaker, but true stage presence goes much deeper than these external projections of confidence.
Audiences respond best to speakers who they sense have turned up fully for them. They are soothed when all the different parts of the person standing in front of them are working together to share a message they can tell the presenter believes in. Even a very inexperienced speaker can hold an audience when there is coherence across how they feel, what they say and how they show up. Equally, discord between the words, body and meaning of speakers with dozens of keynotes under their belt can mean their talks don’t land as well as they could.
As a strategic speaker coach, I introduce clients to a practice I call Somatic Integrity, which helps them to find congruence in their communication. Somatic Integrity is an awareness-based practice, that can be applied to anything from sharing a personal story to presenting a strategy to your board or speaking at a conference, resulting in more ease on the stage, in yourself and in your work.
I developed the Somatic Integrity approach from somatic education principles after I realised the body is generally only used in communication and public speaking in a very superficial way. It meant we were missing a lot of potential. Broadly, somatic education focuses on your internal experiences of who you are and how you move. One of my earliest somatic practices was Feldenkrais, which taught me to be aware of small, internal movements and the qualities of mind I brought to that movement (such as effortlessness or intense focus). This kind of awareness promotes integration and growth and Feldenkrais continues to change how I move as a dancer, performer and communicator. Somatics is used in therapy, too, such as Gestalt, where learning to sit with bodily sensations and feelings “in the here and now” can help us to realise we have choices in life, and to find ourselves making spontaneous positive changes. My background in physical theatre, Yogic Education university studies and other somatic training such as Body Mind Centering practitioner training have proven instrumental in helping my clients to access clearer communication.
What is Somatic Integrity?
Somatic Integrity is a practice I developed of recognising when your body reflects your words and when both body and words communicate what you mean. In the practice, your body becomes a guide, giving you signs that your ideas for your communication have come together – and where you need to reflect or think things through. With more experience, you learn to attend to increasing subtlety in the body, noticing signals of inconsistency earlier and earlier.
When words, feelings and ideas all line up, the feeling can be, “Aha, that’s it!” You are clear about what you need to say. Equally, Somatic Integrity practices make it easier to recognise when you aren’t yet certain and to stay with uncertainty for a bit longer. In that vein, Somatic Integrity does not mean that you never feel conflicted! Instead, it helps you to stay open to new information and contexts and to grow as you learn more. Becoming more attuned to moments of incongruence in yourself alerts you to where to pay attention so that you can be clearer in yourself and your communication, while developing in your field.
Why is Somatic Integrity important for public speaking?
Somatic Integrity helps to ensure you deliver speeches that land with your audience and achieve the impact you hope for. The somatic awareness work, and paying attention to small signals in your body is important for a few reasons. One is that everything is amplified when you’re on stage. Your nervous system is more activated, there are usually a lot more people and, typically, your topic is more critical. A little sign in your body that something is off, that could get worked through or ignored in ordinary conversation, becomes glaringly obvious in public events. I believe that not tuning into the information in the body is a key reason behind monotone voices and audiences that switch off.
I once coached a speaker who initially told me her message was that young women could pursue any career they wanted. However, she also revealed she was considering leaving her industry due to difficult experiences over many years. This dissonance showed up in her early drafts as a slightly aggressive undertone and language that was too vague to have impact.
If your speeches feel general and abstract, there’s a good chance you have underlying concerns about your topic or yourself as a speaker. Recognising these inconsistencies is part of the practice of Somatic Integrity and your body (or “soma”) will often give you the first signs that you have unfinished work to reflect on before you get up on stage. When I helped this speaker to work through what she really wanted to say – and why her body was telling her she shouldn’t say it – she was able to speak more honestly about what needs to change for women to succeed, without getting folks offside. She not only gave a more powerful talk, the insights helped her to create better conditions for herself and others in her sector.
Of course, you don’t need to be speaking about life-and-death topics to benefit from Somatic Integrity. Even a project update or conference keynote will land better when you’re truly present.
How do you develop Somatic Integrity?
Somatic Integrity is one of a number of frameworks I use in my strategic speaker coaching work. Here are three of the dimensions we work with to develop a practice.
1. How you feel in your body
It’s really important to pay attention to what’s happening for you on the inside when you prepare and deliver a talk. A lot of people worry they will be judged for how much they move their arms or ask me, “What if I cry on stage?” when telling a personal story. They hope I can help them to be more controlled.
Trying to project an image, though, will feel awkward. It’s also tiring. Instead of “fixing” your posture or gestures, I help you to notice your feelings and to be in and with your body. This will help you let go of habits and find more natural ways to speak. I look for obvious signs like tight shoulders to deeper patterns, such as whether you’re speaking from your bones or nervous system, awareness helps your movements become naturally coherent and more you, without being “too much”.
A client of mine with ADHD was terrified she would speak too fast and stuff everything up. Her initial rehearsals came across as overly contained as she tried to project who she thought she “should” be. When you have been told all your life that you fidget too much, and you have a lot going on in your nervous system, it’s hard to trust that your body could help you on stage. It’s not an easy thing to “be with” your body, so it took time, but once this speaker could let her bodily feelings be there, she relaxed and we got to see more of her. Speaking became more effortless for her and more enjoyable for us as the audience.
2. Connecting with your audience (not just performing for them)
It took me a while to realise that audience members who say, “Oh, she is such a confident speaker” usually mean they have seen mannerisms they associate with charisma, rather than that they felt moved or changed by the speech. I was a TEDx speaker coach in the early 2010s and that relaxed-but-prepared style of speaking has become very popular. The problem is, a lot of speakers now use dramatic pauses and telling stories as the way to “do” audience connection. For your talk to really land, you need to be with your audience as real people.
Two great places to practice Somatic Integrity that will improve your audience relating are dealing with nerves and approaching difficult topics. Nerves are normal at a live event with a live audience! Yet most of us hope for the best and wait for it all to be over! This just means you walk on stage unprepared for nerves to hit you like a tonne of bricks. Without being prepared for that nervous system onslaught, it’s easy to fall into habits like speaking in monotone, contracting your body or moving awkwardly. Equally, when speakers come to me for coaching to talk about sensitive topics, such as safety or gender in the workplace, they often want to push through their worries.
Trying to hide feelings, whether it’s nerves or terror about the repercussions for you of speaking up, can show up as tightness, perhaps through the diaphragm and throat, dissociating from the body (often it’s feet first) and in euphemisms that lead to a more distanced style of speaking. Ultimately, you probably won’t say what you need to and your audience will tune out. My job is to help you unpack underlying fears, such as what you think the audience wants to hear versus what you actually want to say – and to guide you in you crafting a speech that takes all of that into account in order to have the impact you want.
3. Being yourself on and off stage
The aim of Somatic Integrity isn’t to get you up in front of an audience feeling like you have everything sorted and projecting unwavering confidence. People don’t want to see robotic perfection in front of them; they’d much rather see you. Not to mention that if you’re talking about, say, a death at your worksite, you shouldn’t feel utterly comfortable—you’ll come across as tone-deaf.
Imposing pauses and body shapes without feeling it means you won’t be the same person on and off the stage. While I often coach speakers to bring dramatic flair and physical theatre into their keynotes, this idea of on- and off-stage integrity is something that distinguishes acting from public speaking. In theatre, we expect actors to be different in each performance. As a public speaker, it’s confusing for your audience (who are often your colleagues, perhaps even subordinates) if you portray one image in public and another when you work with them. I frequently see managers present one way in a meeting, talking through carefully crafted dot points about their rigorous yet collaborative approach to work, while in reality their team feels overworked and undervalued. This isn’t usually because the manager is a bad person – they just haven’t had the skills to work through uncomfortable feelings in a way that allows them to speak and work in accordance with their values in challenging situations.
I help speakers to notice and be with deeper layers of feeling in their body so that they can be more honest with themselves and, in turn, find greater layers of coherence and that elusive presence in the face of difficulty. When you better understand your own relationship to your subject and the people you are addressing, you are more likely to leave the stage knowing that you connected and gave the information they needed, for the purpose you intended.
Somatic Integrity helps you get yourself out of the way. When you learn to recognise coherence in how you feel and show up, you can speak about what matters without hiding or performing. You discover you can be yourself on stage and grow as a communicator. That’s not just better speaking. That’s showing up fully for what you believe in.
About the Author: Rachael West has been a Somatic and Strategic Speaker Coach for over 15 years. She draws on training in physical theatre, Body Mind Centering and other movement and performance practices to help speakers of all levels deliver great talks that make their ideas ripple. Contact her by email or on LinkedIn to discuss how she can support your next event.
STRATEGIC SPEAKER COACH RACHAEL WEST 