Chewing on Birdsong

Chewing on Birdsong

Someone I know said the first time she went to Times Square she felt so seen. All of the lights, sounds, images and people felt like how she experiences the inner workings of her brain. For me, Times Square, though impressive in its own right, is a version of hell on earth. Give me glistening sunlight on the ocean, salty air, and the sound of the waves any day.

We are constantly digesting stimuli, based on what we choose to expose ourselves to. So do you consider what stimuli you take in as carefully as you do the food you eat?

Becoming Right Sized

Becoming Right Sized

Are you the right size? 

And no, I’m not talking about clothing. I was first introduced to the terminology of becoming “right sized” through Staci K. Haines’s book The Politics of Trauma. Haines is a co-founder of generative somatics. To become right sized gives language to an implicit aspect of somatic and Family Constellations work: refining your understanding of the physical and energetic space you take up, and your agency to affect it. Through somatics, we come to know our size more accurately in the context of our environments, our relationships, and the universe at large. 

How do you know if your body is telling the truth?

How do you know if your body is telling the truth?

I live and work on a fairly intuitive basis, but I recently experienced a particularly strong knowing in my body about a situation in my life. The logic and evidence to support this knowing was slim, but this was a deeply intuitive hit.  No amount of reason seemed to be able to persuade my body otherwise. This begs the question, how do you know when to trust your body? How do you know when it’s telling the truth? 

Come to Your Senses - Guided Meditation

Come to Your Senses - Guided Meditation

I’m offering this morning meditation for people who have an inkling they might need some extra help coming back from the astral plane into embodied presence. If you find it supportive, I encourage you to use it as soon as possible once you wake up in the morning. This transition from sleep to waking is precious, and the more consciousness and intention we can bring to it the better.

Holding the Holders

Holding the Holders

I have the fortune of working with some of the most powerful, heart-centered, strong women, femmes, and people I can imagine. These particular people have been praised for their strength, and they value it in themselves, as they well should. These are the kinds of people that are containing our individual and collective fields by transmuting the reverberations of the fracturing and collapse of our society. They are mothers, caretakers, partners, friends, teachers, healers, artists, and more. They feel it all, and they consciously practice letting their feelings move through their bodies to be alchemized. It is an honor to witness and hold space for them in my work.

These holders support others in containing and riding the waves of their overwhelm. This builds resilience in the nervous system, so over time those that have been held by the holders may be able to offer that holding to others.

What’s also true is that the holders need to be held.

Waves of Healing - Guided Audio Meditation

Waves of Healing - Guided Audio Meditation

Did you know the words heal and whole share etymological roots? Believe it or not, healing energy is flowing everywhere all the time. (And if you don’t believe it, I invite you to get curious about how your body and breath hold on to that thought.) It is something we can connect to, and it connects us all in wholeness. It is not something that must, or even could, be generated by our sweet, messy, little human will power, even if we tried (though bless us for trying). It is something to be accessed, and we access it best by continuously clearing all of the many intricate strategies we have developed over time that interfere with it. 

Sense and Be Sensed

Sense and Be Sensed

Somatic work is to become more conscious of ourselves as beings that process the energy of all that is through our senses. We explore how to sense ourselves, and then we continuously refine how we make sense of what we are sensing! But we don’t just sense ourselves to exist in an isolated vacuum. We do so to shift all of our connections and relationships, to our family, our lovers, our friends, our neighbors, our cities, our earth, and beyond. To clearly, deeply, and fully sense yourself, and to allow yourself to be clearly, deeply, and fully sensed by another is an act of vital resistance in our world where closing off, running away, and shutting down might seem like the only viable option.

Release your butt™

Release your butt™

Release your butt™ first occurred to me in 2021 while I was collaborating on a project focused on undoing white supremacy in the Alexander Technique. I realized there is a link for me between my whiteness and my patterns of tension. Born from my irreverently reverent nature, this phrase helped shift something in my soma along with putting a big old grin on my face.

Today I’m delighted to announce the Release your butt™ line of hats, mugs, and totes.

Not Yours to Carry

The deeper I go into my Family Constellations facilitator training, the more I understand how my life’s work is in part to help people release what is no longer theirs to carry in order to move more freely forward into their future. I offer you this meditation in that spirit.

Wave Somatics - Not Yours to Carry - October 2025
Ariel Carson - Wave Somatics LLC
a person carrying a heavy log

What is not yours to carry?

let go and find out

let go and find out

How are you with letting go? Does it make you anxious? Do you pretend not to care? Have you become so attached to letting go that you don’t know how to hang on when it would serve you to do so? Letting go can be a constant daily somatic practice. It is an essential part of creating and tending to the conditions for what you want to be able to arise. How are you getting in the way of what you want to make space for in yourself, your life, and the world? Can you let that go?

Wave Somatics - Guided Meditation Journey

Wave Somatics - Guided Meditation Journey

I am positively thrilled to announce the release of my new 13-week Wave Somatics Guided Meditation Journey!! This has been a long time in the making and I'm so excited to finally be able to share it with you.

This meditation journey is a great way to dip a toe into somatic work, deepen your current exploration, or to supplement your private sessions.

Here's the deal:

One audio track will be released each week exclusively on Patreon.
These audio tracks will not be available anywhere else for the time being.

Are you a rule follower?

Are you a rule follower?

I am a confirmed Rule Follower. Anyone else? My rule following self is one of the most humorless aspects of my personality. She’s no-nonsense, bossy, and easily flustered. You can find her standing off to the side with her hands on her hips and a furrowed brow while everyone else goes out and has a good time. 

Your Song: a guide to nurturing self-expression

Your Song: a guide to nurturing self-expression

Whatever is inside of you wants to come out. Can you feel it? I promise you it’s there. Stop whatever you’re doing for a moment, and shift your attention to your body. Feel the weight of your bones, the movement of your breath, the gurgling of your digestion, your heart beating in your chest. What is in there? What wants to be expressed? A burning? A yearning? A pulsing? A swirl? A painting? A sound? A movement? A story? 

How Good Can You Stand It?

How Good Can You Stand It?

What is your capacity for pleasure, delight, and joy in every day life? 

As a matter of survival, we are biologically wired to look for threats in any situation. We often therefore become accustomed to noticing our pain and discomfort, rather than luxuriating in the more pleasant experiences of life. The more time we spend focusing on our pain, physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, the more it intensifies and grows. Even when we’re committed to resting, releasing, and receiving in our yoga, meditation, or other self-care practices, there are often parts of us constantly fighting to keep our systems on alert. Our relationship to pleasure is intimately wrapped up with our capacity to experience safety. This can breed an exhausting subconscious conflict of interest, which interferes with our ability to freely inhabit a place of joy.