Somatic Connection Practices for Designers with Celine Waters
Somatic Connection Practices for Designers with Celine Waters
Celine Waters — somatic embodiment coach, body psychotherapy student, and service/strategic designer — explores how reconnecting to our bodies can transform design practice. From the Window of Tolerance to trauma-informed facilitation, we unpack why slowing down is the fastest way to create meaningful change.
Somatic Connection Practices for Designers with Celine Waters
Show Notes
Welcome, Country, and Celine's Unconventional Path
- Notable quote: "It was the first time I'd ever seen the customer needs and the business needs aligned."
Host Jessica Watson opens with a land acknowledgement and introduces guest Celine Waters — somatic embodiment coach, student of body psychotherapy, and service/strategic designer. Celine traces her non-linear journey from biochemistry to computer science and consulting, then into service design after "falling in love" with the service blueprint at Telstra for its holistic alignment of customer and business needs.
From Coaching to Somatics: The Aha Moment in Crisis
- Notable quote: "I couldn't feel anything except stress… I couldn't feel joy… and the word somatics came up."
Celine describes adult development coaching (Keegan, Garvey Berger) and a personal tipping point during COVID when she googled "I'm falling apart," discovering somatics as a life-changing pathway. She defines somatics as a holistic mind–body–spirit approach shaped by social and historical context, citing "soma" as wholeness and sharing Eduardo Galeano's line: "The body says I'm a fiesta."
Rethinking Design Culture: Speed, Capitalism, and the Cost of Adrenaline
- Notable quote: "We can't rush our way through complexity… we have to be able to sit with and be in complexity."
Jessica and Celine examine design's commercialisation and adrenaline-fuelled timelines that reward speed but risk disconnection and harm. Celine argues for "go slow to go fast," especially amid social and climate crises, urging designers to sit with complexity and "hold hope and despair at the same time."
De-centering the Expert: Unlearning Colonised Mindsets
- Notable quote: "Everyone has the ability to lead." and "Our job really is to be the container."
They unpack the "expert" trap as a legacy of colonisation, replacing it with co-leadership and collective intelligence. Jessica shares her anxiety about being "right" as a designer and how co-design and iterative testing freed her from ego; Celine reframes designers as containers that enable community voice rather than translators speaking for others.
Beyond Wellness Hacks: Practice, Lineage, and Restorative Rhythms
- Notable quote: "We're always practicing something." and "I'm going to put time aside to practice on purpose, and with intent."
Celine critiques corporate wellness shortcuts (e.g., 4-minute app breaks) for stripping cultural lineage and reinforcing busyness, advocating intentional daily practice. Jessica shares her shift to restorative/yin yoga as a daily boundary between work and evening to re-regulate her system.
Expanding the Window of Tolerance: Physiology and Everyday Tools
- Notable quote: "We weren't built for [stress] to be there for long periods of time." and "We need to repeat something 3,000 times in order for it to become embodied."
Celine explains Dan Siegel's Window of Tolerance — balanced arousal where we can stay centred in change — versus hyper/hypo states that flood us with cortisol. She notes our biology hasn't kept pace with rapid societal change, emphasising centering (safety, belonging, dignity), breathwork, and repetition — "3,000 times" — to embody new patterns.
Safety, Belonging, Dignity: Designing Containers That Hold People
- Notable quote: "We can never really create a safe space… but we can foster belonging."
Applying embodiment to teams, Celine argues studios often fail to foster safety, belonging, and dignity — core needs that, if met, could reduce trauma dramatically. True safety is complex, so facilitators can intentionally cultivate belonging and dignity, minimise hierarchy, and create spaces of mutuality and equality.
Trauma-Informed Co-Design: Slow Down, Invite, Witness
- Notable quote: "In humans, we don't discharge the experience; it becomes locked in the body… and a trigger can cause that response to show up."
- Actionable takeaway: Use invitational language ("you're welcome to…" rather than "you must…") and always resource participants with grounding before diving into content.
Celine defines trauma as stuck survival energy when mobilisation was impossible, emphasising its prevalence and unpredictability. She advises slowing down, letting go of control, using invitational language, and resourcing participants through centering and visioning.
Bringing It Into the Room: Vision, Grounding, Boundaries, and Facilitation Energy
- Notable quote: "The grounding is the actual work." and "I always start with vision — what are you longing for?"
Celine always begins with visioning and the prompt "For the sake of what?" — often devoting up to 30 minutes to grounding before "making." She teaches embodied boundary work (yes/no/maybe) to counter pressure-driven misalignment. Jessica shares her facilitation rituals (movement, protein breakfast, no emails, 1:1 welcomes) to set a stable group energy.
Vision-Led Futures and Feeling Again: Indigenous Wisdom and Caring for Self
- Notable quote: "No one on their deathbed says, 'I really want my car keys.'" and "Warriors of the human spirit."
- Celine Waters
- The Feeling Designer
- Dan Siegel — Window of Tolerance
- Adrienne Maree Brown — Emergent Strategy
- Robert Keegan & Jennifer Garvey Berger — Adult Development Theory
- Eduardo Galeano — "The body says I'm a fiesta"
They call for more vision-led work in Australia, guided by First Nations knowledge and true collaboration beyond consultation. In closing, Celine describes "thawing" from numbness, heart-centred coherence, gratitude, nature, and being in right relationship with self, others, and planet.
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