Episode 54: Christine Caldwell

Recipe
Written By Ailey Jolie

02/26/2026

What if the most radical thing you can do for your life and relationships is to feel your body right now? In this episode, we’re joined by somatic psychotherapist and movement pioneer Christine Caldwell to explore bodyfulness, the embodied counterpart to mindfulness, and why attention belongs in sensation, not just thought.

Christine shares how her work integrating dance therapy, body psychotherapy, and Buddhist practice led to founding the Somatic Counselling program at Naropa University. We explore how culture trains disconnection, how language reinforces the mind body split, and how returning to direct experience changes the way we act. She introduces the Moving Cycle of awareness, integration, and natural action, along with a simple practice she calls breathe, move, sense. We also touch on the influence of Thich Nhat Hanh and her book Conscious Moving.

If mindfulness has felt incomplete, this episode offers a grounded path back to your own skin. If it resonates, subscribe, share, and leave a review.

About In This Body: Conversations with leading experts about the importance of embodiment in living an authentic life. In This Body asks the important questions: How does connecting to your body change your life? How will connecting to your body allow you to love better and live more authentically? And how does connecting to your body change the trajectory of our shared world?

In this episode:

0:00 Welcome and Meet Christine

4:10 I Am My Body, Not In It

8:23 Synthesising Dance, Bodywork, And Psychology

12:59 Why Fields Became Siloed

17:43 Defining Bodyfulness Beyond Prescriptions

23:46 Technology, Consumerism, And Disembodiment

28:59 The Moving Cycle: Origins And Phases

33:51 Physical Free Association In Practice

38:40 Buddhism, Attention, And Everyday Practice

43:44 Enlightened Body And Sensorimotor Loop

47:55 A Doorway: Breathe, Move, Sense

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Episode 55: Ailey Jolie
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