Ep. #242: Accessing States of Liberation, Imagination and Possibility Through the Body with Marika Heinrichs

Living Open | Modern Magick and Spirituality for Mystics and Seekers

Marika Heinrichs (she/her) is a cis queer femme of (Soviet) German, British, and Irish ancestry who believes that reconnecting with the wisdom of our bodies is vital to ending systems of domination and supremacy. She has practiced as a somatic therapist and educator within social movement spaces for over a decade, trained in the lineages of generative somatics (gs), Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy (BCST), Focusing, and NeuroAffective Touch and is currently a PhD candidate at the California Institute of Integral Studies.

In this episode, Eryn and Marika talk about:

• Marika’s journey with healing & somatics coming from a community organizing background
• Trauma, justice and somatics as inherently in relationship
• Accessing states of liberation, imagination and possibility through the body
• What happens when we drop into connection and spaciousness
• Trauma responses to systems of oppression and domination
• Finding spaces where there is the opportunity to access some safety so we can soften and connect
• Safety as shades of gray and not as a binary and the absence of discomfort
• Respecting and honoring the ways bodies and nervous systems are designed
• Christian supremacy culture infusing and shaping radical spaces and organizing communities
• A practice of being in deep reverence and relationship with lineage
• Somatics as inherently politicized and radical
• Appropriating our own lineages
• Holding grief when it’s pathologized and we’re disconnected from our cultural practices and ritual around grief
• Doing what we don’t know how to do

Blog for this episode: www.living-open.com/blog/marika-heinrichs

Connect with Eryn on Instagram. Get a copy of the Religious Trauma Workbook.

Connect with Marika on her website and on Instagram.

Mentioned in this episode:

• A Language Older than Words by Derrick Jensen
• Generative Somatics
• Paul Kivel
• Lisa Fazio @therootcircle
• Mary Oliver grief poetry
• Michael J. Morris