Between the Lines | Before Words Arrive — Ep 01
A field guide to noticing before you write
🌬️ Before We Begin
I’ve been exploring something called somatics for a while now.
It started because I was curious — how does some writing make you feel something, and some doesn’t?
What is it that actually does that?
Then I came across the term somatics — something I’d vaguely heard of before, but more in a spiritual or new-age context. The people I heard talk about it, growing up somewhere like Brighton, UK, always referenced it in their work around healing and spiritualism. It’s much bigger than that, of course — but this was the 1990s.
Lately, I discovered it’s also part of writing — not a style of writing exactly, but a way of feeling through writing, through breathing, through noticing what lives in the space between thought and word.
So I started to explore it more deeply and began integrating it into my own writing. I first tried it on LinkedIn — mostly through leadership-related posts — and it started to resonate.
People could feel more of what I was talking about: not just the ideas, but the emotional and sensory narrative behind them.
They weren’t being told what to think; they were being invited to feel.
That got me thinking:
Sometimes, maybe writing is less about telling people what to read, and more about letting them feel the words — to see what the imagery and rhythm open up inside them, rather than what they’re instructed to see or take away.
What I’ve put together here are just a few notes from that journey — ideas, explanations, and small experiments.
Some things worked, some didn’t.
But all of them came from the same place:
Curiosity.
And a lot of caffeine along the way.
The way this works in different writing styles will vary, of course.
So here are some small fragments that might help others explore a different way to write — one that begins not in thought, but in breath.
🫁 Where It Begins
Before the sentence, before the structure, there’s a pause.
The body already knows what it wants to say —
it tightens, it softens, it breathes differently.
That’s where somatic writing starts.
It’s not a method for sounding poetic.
It’s a way of noticing what happens before you understand
🌡️ What Somatic Writing Is
Somatic writing prioritises the felt experience —
and it does this by anchoring both reader and writer in the body, breath, space, and sensory memory.
Not the idea of emotion,
but the texture of it.
We move through:
Thought → Sensation → Meaning
Rather than:
Idea → Explanation → Description
You let the language find its pulse first.
✴️ Key Practices
As I’ve gone along, I’ve written down a few key practices — reminders of where to start, and where to head next.
Body-first Language: Start with sensation, not analysis.
Sensory Anchoring: Use touch, sound, weight, breath.
Emotional Attunement: Let the body reveal what the mind resists.
Cognitive Gap: Leave space for the reader to feel, not be told.
🪶 The Somatic A.R.C.
Before we get started, I’m not claiming to have invented this — but sometimes a small acronym helps.
This one combines ideas and influences from a few great people I’ll list at the end of this post.
Anchor → Release → Catch
It’s a rhythm for somatic flow —
each phase a breath of its own.
1. Anchor
Begin with something physical.
Something that grounds the scene.
A coffee mug.
A phone charger.
A half-read report.
Let it exist — plain, ordinary, real. Maybe even boring.
2. Release
Then let awareness loosen —
the object begins to breathe.
The coffee mug warmed her palms — the heat borrowed.
The phone charger curled in on itself, a loop learning to rest.
The half-read report lifted at the edge, as if the room exhaled beneath it.
Sensation builds.
The body remembers before the mind does.
Something shifts — quietly.
The moment doesn’t end; it settles.
3. Catch
Then try to land somewhere new — but softly.
A reorientation more than a conclusion.
The coffee mug cooled, leaving the faint trace of warmth she hadn’t noticed holding.
The phone charger lay still, its quiet hum now somewhere in her hands.
The half-read report rested face-down — unfinished, yet somehow complete.
It’s not resolution.
It’s return.
🌏 When Words Cross Cultures
As I explore this and other areas in my Between the Lines series, I like to see whether the ideas I write about still work across different cultures — especially where English isn’t the first language.
Most do, though often with subtle differences in tone, emotion, expressiveness, even in how silence is held.
The body feels differently depending on where it’s read.
Gentle Somatics — warmth, release, breath — tend to travel easily across cultures.
Tense Somatics — clenched, braced, restrained — can sometimes feel invasive or abrupt.
For example, in Japan or the Philippines, readers often seek understatement and resonance.
In many Western contexts, a pause can feel like absence unless it’s framed with intention.
Whether or not you adapt your writing with this in mind is, of course, a personal choice.
I like to be at least a little aware of it — though trying to account for too many possibilities usually means I’ll get stuck on the first line, or even word.
Some Additional Areas for Exploration
🧭 Anchors and Dissolves
Anchoring
“The can clicked back.”
“Steam rose from the vent.”
“Shoulders softened.”
Dissolving
Let the anchor fade — or question its existence.
“Ink bled at the edges.”
“Maybe it was never there.”
Where Anchors give form.
Dissolves invite the reader to step through.
💌 Somatic CTA — The Call to Action / Call to Awareness
Back to something anyone posting on LinkedIn will recognise — the eponymous “Thou must close with a CTA.”
A call to action exists to encourage a follow-on step from the reader.
But this isn’t just a LinkedIn thing — it’s everywhere: in marketing, websites, emails, and beyond.
I prefer to think of CTAs as Calls to Awareness.
Instead of Buy now, Click here, or Drop a comment below, try a gesture that breathes:
“Take a breath.”
“Carry that feeling into your next moment.”
“Stay with it. Just for a second.”
The body recognises sincerity before the mind approves it.
🟠 Example: The Pause That Sells Itself
This was a fun example I was playing with — exploring how somatic writing might work differently across two cultures.
The same pause can feel completely different depending on where it’s lived, and where it lands.
Below are two versions of the same somatic moment — one drawn from the warmth of a Filipino afternoon, the other from the chill of an American night.
Each breathes through its own nervous system, showing how culture changes not just what we read, but what the body feels between the lines.
Filipino Version
You peel the can from the fridge door.
Cold air kisses your wrist.
The tab clicks back —
a soft fizz rises,
like the day just exhaled.You didn’t plan this pause.
But maybe your body did.
Maybe this fizz was always meant for now —
not after the next task, or the next deadline.Just now.
Just like this.Royal Tru-Orange.
Take a breath.
Let the fizz sit on your tongue a moment longer.
Then go — but go with that feeling still in your hands.
American Version
You crack the can by the gas station door.
The hiss cuts through the night air, clean and quick.
Metal on fingertip,
cold enough to sting —
the kind of chill that wakes you up just to prove you’re still here.You didn’t mean to stop.
But the highway hum needed a break.
Maybe this sound — this small explosion of fizz —
was your body asking for a reset.Just now.
Just you.
Just the hum fading.Coca-Cola.
Take a sip.
Let it bite a little before it softens.
Then go — but let that edge stay with you.
When Words Breathe in Different Climates
What I was exploring here was how contrasting the two versions shows that somatic writing can shift its emotional frequency by changing both sensory and cultural tone.
The Filipino version is humid, gentle, and relational — everything breathes together.
Warm air, soft fizz, and second-person tenderness (“maybe your body did”) invite the reader into a shared pause.
The body is part of its environment; time slows, sensation expands.
The American version, by contrast, sharpens.
The air is cold, the metal bites, the rhythm cuts faster. It carries independence and motion — the self against the world rather than within it.
Where the first feels like an exhale, this one feels like an inhale: quick, alert, slightly defiant.
Both are somatic, but they anchor in different nervous systems.
One leans toward communal release, the other toward solitary reset.
The words breathe at different temperatures — and the reader’s body adjusts accordingly.
How do they each land for you?
🪞 Where to take this breath
You don’t need to be a poet.
Sometimes it’s enough to notice where the words touch you first.
We begin there — noticing what they do to us
before they ever reach anyone else.
Before the sentence breathes on the page,
it breathes in you.
That’s where meaning begins —
in the body,
before the words arrive.
🧩 Coming Next
If this landed for you —
or even if it just brushed against something you can’t quite name —
let me know.
I’d love to hear what opened, what lingered,
or where you’d like me to wander next.
Nothing truly leaves — it just changes how it stays.
If something moved in you — a silence that whispered — I’d love to hear it below, or in my DM’s.
Curious when people read this, if you like the intro style.
Much of how I write is done through voice notes first, and the vast majority of the "Before we begin" was a voice note, with some tweaking and minor corrections.
It was intended to be more of a conversational part rather than purely written.
Always pleased to hear if things land well and also when they don't! It's all part of the process.
Mark, this was such a quietly stunning read~
I love how you framed writing as something that begins in the body — before structure, before thought — almost like breath finding rhythm on its own. The way you wove warmth, tension, and cultural tone together (especially between the Filipino and American versions) made me pause and actually feel that shift in temperature you described.
Your idea of somatic writing as noticing before understanding really stayed with me. It reminded me that words aren’t just vehicles for meaning, but echoes of what the body has already lived. The line “The body recognises sincerity before the mind approves it” felt especially true — the kind of truth you can only reach by listening closely.
I think I’ll start paying more attention to those small pre-language moments you mentioned — that soft inhale before the first line forms. It’s such a beautiful reminder to write (and live) more slowly, more honestly~