What is your relationship with your body?
Is it a deep, sensual loving romance?
Or
A despicable, miserable, rotten, hateful one?
Or
Maybe somewhere in between?
If it’s anything less than a love affair, you might be missing out on a powerful channel of connection to your own intuition. After all our bodies are what we get to inhabit for this human journey. It is how we experience our life and is always accessible to us when we seek wiser council. Without this channel you are missing out on the key to jumping out of the rut you often find yourself in when you are struggling to create the success you seek.
You can feel an awkwardness, an unwillingness to be vulnerable and try something new. You might feel like you are a klumsy, ugly fool in a room fool of gazelles. You internalize it, stay in your own comfortable rut, in your body and in your mind, and voila you experience the same, less than satisfying results over and over again.
You may think it is just about your body, but its not. It shows up in your career, your business, and the work you’re most meant to do in the world. More specifically in the obstacles you are encountering as you yearn to discover and create the career and business you most desire.
How do I know this? I have had a love/hate relationship with my body for my entire existence. The first few decades were almost purely hate. The last decade or so has been living into and inhabiting my body in a new, gentler, more compassionate way.
Even with this new level of compassion, the invitation to experience movement as a means to untap blockages in my business or my life makes my blood run cold. And run cold it did, once again at the recent live event I attended hosted by my coach and mentor. The dreaded words “tonight we will be sweating our prayers doing an experiential exercise in body movement called the five rhythms” came out of her lips and I instantly shut down. Here’s what went through my head:
- I already know that body awareness is beneficial please don’t make me do this.
- Oh my god do I really have to??!?!
- Here we go again, another retreat in which I get to be tortured with body movement or dancing so I can feel awful/nothing/out of place/self-conscious wishing I were somewhere other than here.
Can you relate to ever having these feelings?
So what did I do? I showed up fully to the best of my ability in my body, mind, and soul that evening and allowed myself to have an experience. I did so by being willing. Willing enough to open (even if just a crack), willing to feel whatever I was feeling, and willing to allow whatever insights, lessons, or breakthroughs might show themselves however big or small, if any at all.
Why is this important? Because when you are not willing to break your normal patterns, no matter how big or small, you will stay exactly where you are, end of story. If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten. No growth, no evolution, no outer results (goals achieved, money received, etc., etc.).
So what happened that night? I felt awkward, trapped in my head, comparing myself to others, jealous of the gorgeous, fluid guest faculty member (and professional dancer), tired, bored, awkward, weird. But you know what? I also noticed how different states of body awareness can silence the mind. I could also clearly see how some of my own disconnects with my body play right into current obstacles I am experiencing. And, I also felt a sense of release, presence, and non-attachment at times that felt really great.
So does this mean I am going to suddenly love dancing or experimental body movement? Probably not (but I can tell you many years after leaning into this practice and healing of body image sometimes I actually really enjoy dancing from time to time!). But I am able to tap into the awareness and ability to break repetitive patterns that aren’t serving me more quickly because I’ve experienced what it is like to do so at a cellular level – in my body, in my being, in my soul, not just in my head. An intellectual understanding of anything is only 50% (or less) of the solution you seek.
Here’s my coach’s request to you… ask yourself:
- What is my relationship to my body right now? On a regular basis?
- In what area of my life/given situations do I instantly react to by shutting down?
- How does shutting down in this way serve me? (And don’t say it doesn’t because if you are doing it, it is serving you or you wouldn’t keep doing it, even if the way it serves you is simply to keep you in the illusion of safety or familiarity).
Be honest with yourself and see what shows itself… it just might surprise you.
If you are ready to open the door even the tiniest of cracks to break out of the same old patterns please reach out to me. I’d be happy to schedule a complimentary Intuitive Intelligence™ Activation Session with you… click here to schedule one.