Somatic Tracking is a foundational Heart iQ practice: noticing sensations and the feelings or thoughts that accompany them. The body becomes a place to return to while speaking and listening.
Noticing before explaining
You might begin with warmth, tension, movement or numbness. There is no need to produce a special experience. Naming what you notice gives you a starting point, alongside the option to slow down or pause if the attention becomes too much.
Tracking while in connection
The next layer is noticing what changes as someone listens. Shalini’s account below describes her first check-in during an online Heart iQ group, including the nervousness of being seen and the relief she experienced while naming it.
Through the Eyes of a Student
By Shalini Tewari
My fingers tremble as I move to click the ‘raise hand’ button on Zoom. It’s the first live call on the Heart iQ 90-day challenge and I am feeling slightly anxious to speak in front of so many people. I am comforted by the fact that I am behind a screen in my own home and this motivates me to participate and engage more than I might have in person.
My name is called. I begin with the suggested stem, ‘I’d like to check in. May I have your attention please?’
The protocol gives a sense of order and ease, and I use the space to take in participants’ nods of attention.
I close my eyes in order to tune in to what is alive in my body. I’d learned that circling involves being present to everything that is moving in the present moment.
Sharing your inner world
Tracking is the art of being aware of your inner world from several perspectives. It is a fundamental practice of Heart iQ and involves noticing everything that is in your mode of awareness, from sensations in the body to feelings around a topic or issue that is present and occupying your focus.
It becomes an art when one also tracks the relationship to your experience, any thoughts or judgments, and even the judgments around those thoughts as well.
I open my eyes and begin to describe my internal world. But as I take in the stares from my computer screen, I realize that I cannot sense anything, my system feels frozen. I share this openly with the group.
‘I notice that there is no sensation in my body, a cross between stillness and numbness.
As I share this with you, I am starting to notice some tension in my lower back and my body is shaking slightly. My hands are cold and clammy at the same time. Now I feel a little nauseous’, I express with a giggle.
As I track and share my experience of feeling nervous by describing the physical sensations I am noticing, I realize that my body is starting to open and relax. I continue by tracking my feelings and judgments around those feelings.
‘I feel both nervous and excited to speak, and I am aware of a judgment that I need to say something impactful or that I might say something silly.’
By this point, I feel completely relaxed and joyful. The idea that hundreds of people are listening and watching me is no longer a threat and instead I feel connected, supported and loved.
Heart iQ fundamentals
Heart iQ is a language of the heart that was created to expand and deepen intimate human connections.
Similar to how communication involves much more than verbal dialogue, Heart iQ integrates the full range of the human experience; combining our emotions, life force energy, sexuality, intellectuality, intuition and spiritual resources to express our deepest truth.
Much like learning any language, there are basic structures in place, and learning how to track is an integral step in learning the Heart iQ language.
An intimate relationship with all the moving parts of our inner world includes being aware of the content of our mind, our physical body sensations, our subtle energetic body, our feelings and any intuitive sense we may have.
In being aware of all of those parts at any given moment, we can experience our entire present reality from multiple perspectives. This creates space where we are no longer encompassed by the stories and judgments, engulfed in the emotions or physical pain, or spiritually bypassing any of it. We gain a deeper understanding of our world and how we relate to it.
I was feeling resistance to the present moment of speaking in front of a group. My system froze as I began to speak and stories around not being enough and becoming excluded crept into my mind. In the past, I most likely ran and hid when confronted with this scenario.
Tracking what is moving and our relationship to what is moving increases intimacy with ourselves, as well as with others since it brings the power of truth and presence.
When we own our judgments (about self and others), we release the tension created when our truth is suppressed. When we acknowledge pain without being overwhelmed by it, we honour our human experience and capacity to be vibrant sentient beings. While we may not be able to control how we feel, we can feel the joy of the entirety of our human experience.
By sharing my authentic self, which included the fear moving through me, the physical sensations that arose with that fear, and the judgments around feeling fearful, I could witness all the multiple layers alive in me without attaching to any of it. And then, I could actually show up versus collapse in the story and never raise my hand, disengaging with life and falling prey to old patterns of belief and trauma.
Recording Notes: What Tracking Actually Trains
Starting with the body, not the story
Christian describes tracking as the ability to become aware of what is alive in your own body, in another person's body, and in the field between you. He explains that when we get triggered, that trigger shows up somatically first, as shortness of breath, tightness, hyper or hypo arousal, before it ever becomes a thought. Learning to notice this early, he says, lets us catch the trigger sooner rather than being swept into the story built on top of it.
Dual awareness rather than analysis
He addresses a common misconception directly: tracking is not a heady or analytical exercise. What it actually develops is what he calls dual awareness, or embodied awareness, the capacity to simultaneously observe an experience from a wider view while also feeling it fully. He frames this as a specific human capacity that, when strengthened, changes how people communicate, making connection feel more direct and alive rather than purely cerebral or purely emotional.
The body as anchor
Christian's reasoning for starting the Heart iQ curriculum with somatic tracking is practical: the body works as an anchor. Wherever the deeper work goes, in circle, in relationship, in shadow material, returning to what is happening in the body keeps the process grounded. He suggests that tracking what we do when we close, defend, or make the moment wrong is just as instructive as tracking what opens us.
On skipping the basics
He notes that some people want to move straight to deeper circle or embodiment work and treat tracking as too elementary. His comparison is to language learning: without the basic vocabulary and grammar, the more advanced sentences do not hold together. He recommends practising the fundamentals of tracking properly before assuming they are already known.
The Layers of Somatic Tracking
- Notice the raw sensation as it arises in the body
- Name the sensation aloud, without interpreting it yet
- Track the feeling or judgment sitting underneath the sensation
- Track any judgment about that judgment
- Return to the body as the anchor point throughout
