Collective embodied practices : group coregulation at service of global healing

(for the dancers of the Adam Barley Tribe and the sisters of l’Élan du Cœur-Sophie Aucourt)

Dear you,

How are you doing ?

How are you breathing in our global chaos?

I'm meeting you today with the intent to share more about the group practices that have been nurturing me for many years now.

All these hours of intuitive movement, sharing circles, family and systemic constellations, ancestral rituals, have imprinted the design of their medicine in my bodies. Its view is so stunning, I can't help but sharing it widely.

I will not go into the technical details specific to each, but will rather pull their common thread: the sharing of full presence, body sensations and emotions; the pure expression that opens to a symphony of resonances, whose waves are delightfully healing.

I'm inviting you to a reading-journey through spaces where individuals find a connection within containing collectives. Like in the wrapping arms that soothe the child transitionning towards his or her personnal identity. A source of warmth that reminds the souls, incarnated in separation, the sensation of Unity they all came from.

A precious ressource in our destabilising times.

Sit comfortably, take deep breaths with me.

Together,

we inhale...

we exhale...

at the same pace...

Connect to your physical body,

to our breath that, progressively grows from the presence of other calm breaths.

Allow the words, their images and sensations to nurture you deeply.

From my solitude to yours, together

"Together

in a single shiver

along the world's bodies.

I'm dancing your emotions

You're shaping my dreams

I'm inhaling your perfumes

You're exhaling my bliss.

Holy Whole

I'm opening up to you.

Beloved brothers and sisters

I am delighted

to finally meet you"

(written after an online 5Rhythms session with Adi Argov, April 2020)

WELCOME TO THE COLLECTIVE BODY...

The doors of a room open.

People are already here.

Some are lying down on the floor, stretching out, yawning, closing their eyes. Some are up, shaking out. Others are walking around the space.

There are those who withdraw, recreating their safe space. Those who are looking out for other's eyes and connection.

In this suspension in time, each one arrives with their state, need, mood, energy, burdens and rays of sunshine. The units gather in a common place, full of their singular trajectory.

The practice starts.

A music inspires a dive into movement. Or it is the voice of a guide that invites all to gather in a circle, or a drum induces harmonization through the roots.

Whatever its form, a binder flows into the interstices that separated the bodies and sounds the call to presence. 

So, the individual voices start talking.

Slowly, a canvas appears. The room gets teinted by the colours eachone brought in. Out of the words or movements, depending on the practice, mixes and contrasts emerge.

The more we dive in, step by step, the more tongues loosen.

The more we listen, the louder it gets.

As the units individually reveal themselves, the global canvas gets clearer.

The group-entity is born and an influx, come from afar, is breathing through it.

The collective body takes its place.

Tangible, powerful, enveloping.

It surpasses us, carries us, sweeps us away. 

Within the set and held frame, its magic unfolds. Between the visible and invisible walls of the receptacle-room, the antennas that we are, send and receive the messages we came to hear or deliver. As active contributors, moved by a both personnal and altruistic momentum, we bring liveliness back to what the daily, in its mecanics, tends to numb. We celebrate the relief to be together, authentic, on our way to more of this heart that yells from within « again, yes, stop, and, more, enough... ». We answer our yearning to contribute to the natural equilibrium of our interconnected existences.

… THAT WELCOMES AND HOLDS US...

In this room, nothing differs from what plays out within families, at work, or at the grocery store. Affinities are formed, frictions light up. Bonds, annoyments and discomforts feed the mirroring game at play.

Progressively, the pervasive listening, anchored in the law of respect and kindness, allows for deeper expression to come forth. Truth within each and every being gets secured enough to come out of its hidden places.

This container gives permission.

It welcomes and guides.

When we welcome sensations and spontaneous movements of the physical body, our primal needs spring out. Strengths and pains awaken simultaneously.

When our words speak our experiences, thoughts and dreams, both passion and grief rise to our awareness.

When we sing a call to our ancestors or to nature's medicine, our entire being shakes. We feel the ache of our longing as much as the exultation of this reunion.

My friend Jakub Moulis, movement facilitator, often shares an intention that I deeply resonate with : « dancing, not to feel better, but to feel more. »

What if this is the revolution we so desperately need now ?

Feeling more, with competence.

Welcoming what comes up, not fearing nor drowning anymore, because we're holding whatever is showing up together. Because we understand that beyond the individual who lets it out, a whole world is speaking, our world. What comes out of « I » really concerns « we ».

When we strengthen this knowledge of body, emotions and energy, we enable the circulation of the heavy charges, whose so uninformed conduits we are.

Here, in the collective pulse of owned individualities, the flow, that moves through us all the time anyway, is released. Energies are transiting, emotions are moving, memories are enlivening.

For the walls of this room are porous,

the world invites itself, even unannounced,

and here we are dancing with the long burried treasures as much as the corpses of a system undergoing a purge, and whose hidden secrets are overflowing...

When alone, this process can get extatic as much as crushing. Together, we become this organic system radiating a supportive, protective, regulating and powerfully transformative force.

An invisible presence takes place in us all. Sensitive and intelligent.

A tiredness takes the whole space, or a fire grows wild. Some people lay down gently, while others get energised. Some cry an amount of tears too big to only be their own, others enjoy an extatic bliss. In the group process, everyone poors out and everyone takes in, at their own pace, with their own colour.

The distribution of it all isn't our business.

Mystery is in charge.

We are only providing gathered and awake tools.

Each one a unique place. Together for the Whole.

Gathering after gathering, I've seen, experienced or facilitated dozens and dozens of break-down and through, extasies, collective euphorias, despair, soothed bliss, shared rest...

So many times, this space reveals an urgent need for pressure release and a craving of replenishment. And inevitably, from heard words to shared movements, the collective body watches its natural homeostasy occur.

There is nothing that the group, gathered in consciousness and connected to the heart, can't release, transmute, soothe.

©Luna Buerger Photography

…BRINGING US BACK TO OUR RIGHT AND TRUE PLACE

Éric Laudière, family constellations facilitator, says of his practice that it restores « a coregulation we all lacked, growing up in childhood. » As we gather and make the relational and energetic dynamics we carry visible, as we watch them unfold through the other participants' body, within a safe and containing frame, and in front of witnesses (often called « benevolent humanity »), we gift eachother with the possibility to journey through embarrassing, painful and sometimes disabling, yet profoundly liberating territories in our existence. We bring tranquility to our nervous system, so used to reacting to the inflammatory environment we're collectively soaking in. We reprogram our cells, proving that this benevolent humanity does exist,

it is here, gathered, present and reliable

it is learning, step by step, to look at its wounds

and to remember its immeasurable treasures

it does know how to bring back breath, eye contact and consideration

it knows the way is long

it sees that on the other side of each journey, carrying on is possible

opening one's heart even more is possible

feeling more is possible

moving on

smiling

dreaming

loving...

together,

we inhale...

we exhale...

at the same pace...

our hearts are beating in coherence

the calling to embody

what in our guts

vibrates with infinite potential.

In our re-union, my joy expresses your surrender. Your anger feeds my limits.

Your sadness passes through me. Your escape gives permission to mine.

I feel your weaknesses, within them I find mine.

I admire your strengths, mine intrigue you.

The more you lay down your masks, the more I find the courage to take off mine.

The more you allow your shadows to show, the more I'm curious of mine.

The more I mirror your truth, the more mine appears.

The more we're taking our place, the more what links us gets visible. Us, complementary opposites, amplifying similars, and all the shades in between.

At the end of the journey, has it been intense or delightfully gentle, the energy in the room finds its final suspension. Something in the air is different. The collective body has found the way to its equilibrium, under the subtle guidance of the one who has been holding the space all along. The units have been inspired, regenerated, sometimes confused, in all cases, touched.

Each person transitions back to its individual trajectory, outside. The doors of the room will close on the alchemical process of all those colours put together, now ready to be diffused in the world.

As my mentor, Adam Barley, generally says : « Now the practice really starts. »

When the essence of what's been experienced

is being poured out

into the meanders of daily life.

---

If you want to taste more of these vibrations of collective support, here are two mixes:

• Supported to freely BE : the 46min music mix I played during the online session of intuitive movement I guided in April 2025, as part of the fundraiser for Adam Barley, in his journey with cancer. An opportunity for me to make the most beautiful present I received from him so far, into a public contribution: feeling seen and supported to be oneself, free from any care for judgement. A mix that holds you, so that you can more easily play and have fun...

• Grief Sanctuary : a 53min long journey, in words and music, that I created with the intention of providing a sacred space where prayers and emotions related to grief are held. A gentle container, you can rest in.