How to Move From the Felt Sense, and Make Yoga Help You Live a More Free and Empowered Life
- 2 days ago
- 11 min read
Updated: 12 hours ago
Henriette Edvarda Berntsen is a yoga teacher, master trainer, and women's rights advocate devoted to heart-centered healing. Through embodiment, intuitive movement, and self-compassion, she helps people reconnect with themselves and their intuition to live with greater clarity and freedom.
Moving from the felt sense is listening to your body speak. Imagine yourself on your yoga mat, standing on all fours. The shala is softly dimmed, and the music is low but inviting. You have rested in Child's pose for a little while, and now your yoga teacher is inviting you into some cat-cow stretching.
Normally, you are told to arch your back as you inhale, doing the cow. You look up toward the ceiling and then round your spine as you exhale. Drop your head, and take your gaze to your navel. Repeat the cat-cow stretch on each inhale and exhale, matching the movement to your breath.
You have done this before. So many times that the movements have almost become mechanical in your body. You gently move your spine up and down, and up and down, making sure to arch and round as deeply as you can. You want to do this pose correctly.
But this time, something is different. Instead of telling you to arch and round your spine, the teacher invites you to let your hands and knees reconnect with the mat beneath you. You allow your body to become grounded and notice what is happening to your breath. “Softly, see if you can let your body move slowly in whatever way that you need right now”, the teacher says quietly. “It could be rocking your hips from side to side, or slowly moving your body forward and back”.
Almost as if your body and spine start to wake up together, sensing what they need in order to release tension. The muscles in your upper back start to soften, letting go of pain and stress, and your spine naturally rounds itself up toward the ceiling. Then, you sense that your spine arches, but smoothly. It is almost as if your spine were a love-filled snake that can wrap itself up toward the ceiling to lengthen itself so that the muscles and fascia can get a lovely stretch. Then, arch so that your tight chest and sore shoulders can softly open up, and release some of the pain that has gotten stuck.
The teacher invites you to find your own rhythm and pace. “How can you move in cat-cow so that you respond to what your body is telling you what it needs? Is there any way that you can allow these movements to be an extension of your heart’s deepest desires, so that you can nurture your body and reset your mind? Find a way of sensing and being in these movements, instead of just doing them?”
This way of being in cat-cow is the felt sense listening to your body speak, and letting you move in the ways you need. This is as close to magical as it can get. Because it takes you home.
Your magnificent intuition at work
The felt sense is your intuition working at its best. You simply know how to create all those shapes and postures, how to move your body on the mat. Your movements come from within. The biggest beauty of it is that there is no right or wrong. Your intuition guides you into finding your own rhythm. It can be a way to be on the mat that feels safe, supportive, and nurturing. It can be your way of practicing asana.
A practice that simply brings you home to yourself. Practicing from the felt sense, yoga can become a deeply felt experience, one that carries your truth, your deepest desires and dreams, and the healing power that lies within you, like a beautifully kept secret ready to be revealed.
Your intuition and inner wisdom guide you on the mat
Have you ever considered your yoga practice to be something more than just a physical workout? By moving from a feeling or a sensation and really listening to what your body needs, a wave of a deep desire to explore movements in ways that feel natural for you will come alive. Furthermore, when you allow yourself to move more naturally, your body starts to seek your intuitive, inner wisdom as well.
That is the felt sense. It is a profound, innate knowledge so immensely strong that it will guide you into your own rhythm on the mat. Finding poses your body can tolerate, and ways of coming in and out of the postures that feel natural to you. Moving more freely and untraditionally. It can become your way of yoga.
When you move from the felt sense, yoga can become a more meaningful practice. A place where you can fully be yourself, rest and recharge your body and mind, and renew your energy. This way, you open your body-mind up for a deeper understanding of who you are, both on and off the mat. The felt sense has the power to heal if you listen closely. To mend those parts of yourself that got broken just because you are a human being trying to survive this life. You have experienced trauma and challenges, and they are stored in your body, making life hard.
The felt sense in you can awaken a deeply needed life force to create, to feel, to be your own way. Our amazing universe is spinning its life force right in front of our eyes. You do not need to see it without being able to feel it because it is working its magic right into the core center of your emotions and intuition, and guiding you home to you.
Whilst moving from this beautiful spinning life force, rather than trying to meet the criteria of a picture-perfect down dog or a warrior, you may find that you have begun a different journey, the journey of creating your own little oasis for rest. This is a simple yet powerful way of beingness.
Instead of doing the cat-cow mechanically, trying to meet the textbook’s teachings on how to do that specific pose, you let your senses take over. From this place, new ways of being in cat-cow arise. You flow with what you need at that moment. Like rolling in circles, rocking your hips from side to side, moving forward and back, and letting the spine round and arch itself softly.
You tune into what parts of you that need to be invited into these movements, and let that feeling guide you. The movements become you, and you are free to move, sense, and explore in any way you want. In any way you need.
Consider this for a moment. Because would not time on your mat be devoted more to being and sensing more than to doing, be time well spent? This way, you can meet the strongest needs that your Self is yearning for. Simultaneously, you open your body and mind up for a deeper connection with yourself, learning how to live more freely, and feeling empowered in your own choices, and attuned to your core values.
Yoga becomes less of a performance
In the Western world, yoga seems to be only about the poses. It is like a performance, mastering a head stand, or complex arm balances, or seated stretches for flexibility to be as deep as possible. To show off. Moving from the felt sense, however, supports your yoga practice to become less of a performance, and provides a better support for the life worth living on your terms.
We are so used to being told what to do and how to go step by step into the various poses and sequences that we have lost the deeper meaning on the way. By listening carefully and daring to stay true to your own sensations while practicing, you awaken a much stronger connection with what is going on in your body, your thoughts, mind and heart.
Yoga, coming from within, with a more profound, intuitive sensation, guides you in your movements, your breathing, and your resting. This is the felt sense working its magic in the purest, most beautiful way possible. It can open up a greater feeling of freedom, and let you move in the ways your body prefers and your mind desires. This is when you allow your intuition and felt sense to speak their truth.
The intuitive force: Your innate knowledge
Your intuition honors the innate knowledge that lies within you. And your body knows how to create shapes, and move so beautifully and effortlessly on the mat, so that your thinking mind can rest. With a moving meditation, you flow freely. When you ride this flow and let your body choose, the often intrusive thoughts of doubt and fear begin to fade.
Being the genuine, real you becomes easier and smoother. Why does this matter? you might ask. Healing, at its core, is one answer. A greater sense of mastery is another. The felt sense awakens the true you, inviting in stronger resilience and a greater belief in yourself.
This is yoga, the embodied way. Not completely radical and controversial anymore these days, but yet, carrying enough controversy for some yogis and schools to raise their eyebrows. If we are not to practice with set postures and sequences, how are we going to do what we call yoga?
We may wonder why, in the Western world, we so often tend to practice asana in the way many books of yoga have always taught us to, and this way only. If there is no teacher to tell us exactly what to do and how, and correct us when our bodies do not align flawlessly with the picture-perfect shapes in the book, we tend to get lost on our mats. How are we even going to make progress in our practice and control our minds if the practice is not rigid, sticking to the book-type of yoga?
Let’s stay with that thought for a moment.
In whatever circumstances someone tells you to progress something that was perfect in the first place, and control a mind that needs to be allowed to feel, explore, flow, and blossom at its own time, it feels icky to me. Progressing and controlling are words that do not sit well with me generally, but especially in yoga. A forced yoga is more of a strict and controlling performance than it is a heart-warming, healing way of meeting yourself.
Twisting the soft, sensory way
How can I meet myself and stay rooted in what I need instead of what I think I need to do on the mat? My answer is the sensation a movement or a pose creates in you. Does it feel forced, or can you soften yourself into the pose? Let us look at twists as an example.
Twists are a real, yummy yoga deal. And whether you are new to yoga, or have come to the mat regularly (or not so regularly, but quite often) lately, I am betting that twisting lying on your back, is something you have become familiar with. Those deep twists are just so yummy for your back! Not forgetting how they release tightness in your shoulders and chest, create more space for your lungs, help the muscles around your spine relax, and calm your nervous system, to mention just a few benefits.
Many yogis simply love the twists. I have even had people in my classes telling me that it does not feel like a real yoga class unless there is a twist or two involved.
Very often, I see people struggle though. Their twists become a forced, stone-like pose where nothing relaxes, and the muscles and fascia are working so hard to keep the body in the twisted shape. Even more so, the awful feeling of doing something wrong or of not mastering this mat business or of not belonging creeps in. Why is that?
Well, for starters, they do not seem to be listening to the signals coming from their bodies. Instead of letting their bodies decide how to be in the twist, they try to force themselves into a deep stretch where no sensations of softness are being felt. Furthermore, that deeply needed relaxed sensation, where the mind also finds ways of exploring and flowing, is being ignored.
I could have told you to twist both knees to one side and stretch your arms out. Let your knees stay on the floor, and roll your head over to the opposite direction. Keep both shoulders on the ground. Twist deeply. Stay here.
Where is the sensory beauty in this? There are no invitations for the felt sense to be present, or for you to dive into the twist in the way that your body and mind need.
Instead, I could invite you to twist your knees over to one side, and let your knees connect with the ground, feeling heavy on the floor, to begin with. Softly use your breath to move your shoulders closer to the ground, and let your arms open as wide as it feels comfortable for you. Notice your head becoming heavier and more relaxed, with the back of your skull sinking slightly deeper into your mat. Is there any way that you can be here while your breathing stays soft, and your body melts into the shape?
Notice if there are areas in your body still tight. See if you can allow those parts to slowly surrender, you meeting your needs in this pose, and finding your version of the twist. While your body softens into the twist, and tightness is released, notice if something shifts or moves in your mind as well. How does it feel to be you, right now, in this twist? What is opening up for you, in your body and in your mind? If I did not know any better, I would say that this way of coming into a twist, and melting into that shape, is your felt sense doing its magic. So pure, so soft, so welcoming.
You were always meant to move
Would the thought of practicing yoga from a felt sense create a world of the utmost freedom and capability of carefully listening to your body’s desires or needs? Or would it leave you petrified and scared of not «doing it» correctly and moving in wrong ways?
Let me share a little secret with you. You were always meant to move intuitively. You were always meant to create more space in your body and become more attuned with your mind. However, you were never meant to force your body into any pose or perform in any way on the mat. In yoga, you can never do anything wrong. Instead, you should always feel invited into finding your own ways of moving, thinking, and feeling. Of letting your felt sense guide you so that you can set yourself free, feeling empowered and resilient.
What if you were invited to move more intuitively? To move your body in the ways you were always meant to move, intelligently using your innate knowledge and wisdom. To move in ways that feel nurturing, supportive, and gentle. To move in ways that make you trust your body, and at the same time, create a flow on your mat that is soft and sweet. To move in ways that feel right for you.
How would that make you feel? Your body was always meant to move from its deepest desires and wishes towards a greater understanding of who you really are. When you are invited into moving freely on the yoga mat, whether it be finding your own ways of entering and coming out of asanas, or simply listening to what feels yummy and desirable for you at that very moment, you are doing nothing but what your body was designed to do.
With that, you also open up the possibilities of understanding yourself in this world in a more compassionate way. You create spaces for meeting people, challenges, relationships, friends and folks with a deeper understanding of where you belong, and what matters to you.
A safe space for exploration and meeting yourself
In my world of teaching, yoga is meant to be a safe space for exploration. We spend time on our mats together, with me inviting you into soft movements, seeking your true voice, and experiencing what really matters to you. It is almost like the stories of your true Self that have been kept in your body can finally be told and come fully alive. Because the movements have their origin from a deeply felt sense. They are invited to express themselves there, with your body-mind as their vessel, and you are fully present in the rawest, most honest, and vulnerable way it creates to express yourself so openly.
I simply cannot think of a yoga practice more beautiful and passionate than that. The felt sense guides you home and safely lets you arrive with your Self, your body speaking your true language.
Read more from Henriette Edvarda Berntsen
Henriette Edvarda Berntsen, Yoga Teacher & Women’s Rights Advocate
Henriette Edvarda Berntsen is a certified Embodied Flow yoga teacher, master trainer, and women's rights advocate devoted to heart-centered healing and embodied living. With over 30 years of teaching experience, she blends intuitive movement, breath awareness, and traditional yoga practices to help people reconnect with themselves and what truly matters. Her work is rooted in the belief that healing begins when we listen to the wisdom of the body, heart, and intuition. Henriette is also a passionate advocate for respectful and compassionate care for women, using her voice to raise awareness around women's rights in healthcare, pregnancy, and birth.
