Tag Archives: bodies

Your original blessing lives in your body.

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Little girl sitting in the forest with sun shining on her

You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.

~Mary Oliver, Wild Geese

These famous words of Mary Oliver perfectly express my wish for this first step in remembering. We start with the body. Your body. Most of us, by the time we get to midlife, have lost touch with our embodiment.

Why is embodiment the first, most crucial remembering? Because your body does not lie. Your body is tuned to truth. Your body is your soul enfleshed. When you were born, your body was a pure, true expression of your wants, needs, and desires. Babies don’t tell falsehoods. Not at first. Over time we learn to hide our true selves as necessary to keep our caregivers attached and our little kid selves alive.

That’s why, of course, you lost touch with your body. It’s really hard to hold your body’s inner truth and the outer lies you learn to tell to survive. Especially when you’re a child.

Good news! Your original truth is still alive and well underneath all the faking you’ve had to do for decades. Your original blessing resides in your body.

Often when we start our work together, my clients tell me that they’re fluent in their body’s language. They do yoga. They meditate. They eat right and they exercise often. But as we dig deeper, they realize they really have no idea what their bodies are trying to tell them. What they’re actually fluent in is their thoughts about their bodies. Their ideas about their bodies. Their judgments about their bodies.

We’re often much more adept at mindfulness than bodyfulness.

So task one is to re-inhabit your body. Your beautiful, sweet, holy “God pod.” This marvelous “meat sack” that means you’re alive on Earth. Because this meat sack in which your mind has its being is the key to the garden of delights which is your life.

Remembering the beauty and original blessing of your body can take some time. And it will probably feel uncomfortable to return home to all the pain and memories you’ve stored in your flesh. Getting back in touch with your truth as communicated by your body will almost certainly create some havoc in your life as usual. Perhaps that’s why you’re here. Because maybe you know, deep down, that a little havoc is just what you need to reset your compass to your true north.

Here’s an Embodiment meditation you might like to try. (Click here for video version.)
Grounding Cord, adapted from Shakti Gawain:

Sit. Take three breaths. Imagine a long cord extending from the base of your spine down into the Earth. You could imagine this cord like the root of a tree. (If you prefer to stand, imagine the cord extending from the soles of your feet down into the Earth.)

Now, as you inhale, imagine Earth’s energy coming up through the cord into your body, up and up with every inbreath. The energy flows into your body as it rises, and continues out through the top of your head. Do this three times.

Now, as you exhale, imagine that the energy of the sun and stars and planets is coming down through the top of your head, down your spine, infusing your body as it flows down into the Earth. Do this three times.

Now, be with both energies. As you inhale, be with the energy coming up from the Earth. As you exhale, be with the energy coming down from the cosmos.

Keep inhaling and flowing Energy up, exhaling and flowing Energy down. Feel both energies intermingle and flow throughout your body.

We are Earthlings, made of stardust. We are Earthlings, made from dirt.

Take three breaths to finish.

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Three workshops going deeply into the first three modules of my Self-Recovery Coaching Intensive: Embodiment, Awareness, and Ownership: July. Dates, times, and investment TBD. More info coming soon! Reply to this email and let me know if you’re maybe interested. (Today’s post is from the Embodiment chapter of my Coaching Intensive workbook-in-progress, delayed by Covid.)

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Photo Credit: Melissa Askew on Unsplash. 

Four healing shifts and a simple awareness practice.

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Sun shining through fingers

I’m convinced that healing happens as we make four simple shifts. These shifts aren’t rules. They’re more like touchstones. Truths. Signposts along the way of integrity. They’re not linear, but rather a spiral unfurling. They’re my attempt to “systematize Mystery.” 

  1. More soul, less façade. To orient ourselves more and more to the truths of our hearts and souls, and less to others’ expectations. 
  2. More acceptance, less resistance. To accept and celebrate the ever-changing nature of being embodied on this earth more and more often, and resist life’s inevitable changes less often.
  3. More intention, less reaction. To choose our thoughts with intention more often, and become caught in our emotions less often. 
  4. More creation, less victimhood. To actively create our lives more often, and less often behave as passive victims of other people, circumstances, or “fate.” 

Supporting my clients as they make these four shifts is the core of my coaching. These shifts are simple, but that doesn’t mean they’re easy. And we have to know where we’re starting from to get where we want to go.

Moving the dial on these shifts requires awareness of what’s happening in our bodies and our brains.

Powerful, lasting change begins with clearly seeing, acknowledging, and being with our current reality, and loving ourselves no matter what we find when we tune into ourselves.

My clients and I begin every session with a few minutes of tuning in. We stop, we feel our bodies, we breathe. This tuning in is non-negotiable. 

Here’s a simple two-minute awareness practice. You can do it anywhere, and you won’t need any special equipment. Don’t complicate it, or try to excel. Just do it.

1. Stop what you’re doing. Take three breaths, Feel your feet.
2. Scan your body for sensations.
3. Whatever you feel, simply allow it. Let the sensations be what they are.
4. Sit with yourself for two minutes. 

Do this practice as often as you remember. Set a reminder on your phone, if you want to. Journal just a few words about what you find, if you want to. Pay attention to any patterns you see, if you want to.

That’s it. That’s all. This simple awareness practice, just coming home to your body for a couple of minutes, is such a powerful place to start making important shifts. Your body is your life. Your body is a gift. Your body tells you what’s true and real and alive. 

Your body is your connection to your soul. Your soul is your connection to meaning, purpose, and deep joy. Everything starts with your body.

You might find as you do this practice regularly that you become aware of emotions and thoughts. If you do, you can jot them down if you want to.

All change, for conscious humans, begins with awareness.

I go a little deeper into one of the four shifts mentioned above in each newsletter, and suggest a practice, exercise, or journal prompt to explore it further. I value your feedback. 

I’m collecting everything I’ve written about these four touchstones into a short e-book. Your responses and questions will help me make that book clearer and more useful. Contact me here or leave a comment with your thoughts. Thank you! 

PS. I’m transitioning from a blog subscription to a newsletter, in order to serve my readers better. Please visit my website and subscribe to my newsletter to continue to receive posts. Thank you!

Photo credit: Daoudi Aissa on Unsplash