340 Esther Lemmens ~ How to Connect With Your Body’s Innate Wisdom

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Holly: Hello and welcome to the Into the Woods podcast, episode 340. This is your host Holly Worton and I am back with a new(ish) person. Today, Esther Lemmens is joining me for an episode. You may remember her from about a year ago, episode 284, when we talked about How To Express Yourself and Live A Purpose-Driven Life. Today she is back, and we are talking about body wisdom; which is something that I have personally struggled to connect with other the years and yet, I think it is really, really, important and it is something that I have been working on and I feel like it has been getting better and I am getting more connected with my body. So I think this is a really useful topic and I hope you find it interesting and useful.

So, a little bit about Esther, because she has changed things up a little bit since the last time she was on the show. Esther is still a visual arts lover, a book and word addict, a course junkie, an ethical eco-warrior, organic foodie, green tea connoisseur, holistic health geek, professional pedant, and crazy-cat lady with a zest for life. Her motto is “do your thing your way” and she is currently experiencing a business and personal transformation of sorts, moving from graphic design more into different ways of being creative through self-expression and writing.

Welcome back to Esther and I hope you find this episode really interesting and useful. What you are going to learn today: what is body wisdom and why is it so important? You are going to learn the different ways that the body talks to us. We discuss how empaths can use body wisdom to tell the difference between what is ours and what is not, because sometimes boundaries are hard to find, or be seen. We also discuss how we can get in touch with your body wisdom, and finally, you will learn, how you can be more embodied and what that means. So, without further ado I will hand you over to the conversation with Esther.  

Holly: Hi Esther.

Esther: Hi Holly.

Holly: How are you doing?

Esther: I am good, how are you?

Holly: Good, I am looking forward to today’s topic, because it is something that I have really struggled with and probably continue to struggle with!

Esther: I think you are not the only one! {Both: laughing}

Holly: So today we are talking about body wisdom, which is something that I think is really important and I think it is worth having a conversation about because it is something that I personally kind of don’t think about and then I keep getting reminded of it and I know it is something that I need to work on – so I suspect that it is something that other people need to work on as well.

Esther: Yes for sure, I think we take it for granted, I think most people do, to be fair.

Holly: And I think a lot of people are perhaps completely oblivious of it, because if you are not in touch with yourself it can be really hard to even know it is a thing, I guess. So, before we go off on a tangent, body wisdom, what is it?

Esther: Well, to me, it’s almost just like respecting the body’s intelligence and knowing and appreciating the value it has and what it has to offer us, because it is so easy to forget in our go, go, go society, in our culture. And if anything is up we are just meant to take a pill and crack on and keep hustling and all that stuff. Well, it is so important to listen to the body when it says, “slow down”, just slow down, otherwise it will punch you in the face!

Holly: {laughing}

Esther: If you don’t want to listen to the subtle nudges saying, “can you just slow down a bit? You have got a cold, you are not meant to be going at 100 miles an hour”, and I think the more we ignore it the stronger the signals will become. You see that a lot don’t you?

Holly: Yes.

Esther: So many people have to get serious health issues before they even realise: I really should have… they get a lot of hindsight then, don’t they? It is like, “Oh yes, my body has been telling me to do this, to slow down, to change my ways for so long and I have just been ignoring it.”

Holly: I agree, I definitely was one of those people for years who ignored it and I would get a cold and take a bunch of pills and mask the symptoms so that I could move on with life and get shit done. It worked for a time until I got really, really, half way to burnout I think. In my first company I was really, really, stressed, I was working stupid hours and my body, I was really not treating it well, and at that point in my life when I would get a cold, I learned that I either had to go to bed and rest, or the cold would last for a month. I think that was the first time where I really realised that if I take care of something now it will go away, it will heal and it will pass, whereas if I don’t take care of it right away it turns into this really extended thing that obviously makes life even more difficult.

Esther: Yeah, did you feel like you were resting because you felt you had to, or to get rid of this thing? There is almost a stage in between getting to a stage where you respect your body and maybe doing it because, “oh yeah I am supposed to rest and I know I am supposed to rest and I will do it, but grudgingly so,” you know?

Holly: Yeah I think I definitely saw it as resting was the pill that I was going to take so that I could go on with life rather than respecting my body and I don’t think I got to that point of: oh I am feeling tired, I am feeling burnt out, I need to respect my body and rest. I didn’t get to that point until recent years really.

Esther: And what do you think made you finally realise it?

Holly: I don’t know, I don’t know if it is all the personal development stuff that I have done over the years that has made me more aware of myself and how I function… or what it has been. Or maybe I have learned to respect my body more and love it more rather than being pissed off at it for not behaving properly, you know? Before I was like: damn you body, you are letting me down! Whereas now I think I perhaps more respect for it and so I can give myself permission to rest when I need to, rather than forging on.

Esther: I think a lot of it is linked to self-love and self-appreciation and stuff to be honest, yes.

Holly: If you don’t love yourself enough to give yourself permission to take the rest, take the break, it is like that you showing that you are putting other things higher priority: work is more important, other stuff if more important, whereas if you are not functioning properly…

Esther: You have got nothing to give, right?

Holly: Yes, exactly.

Esther: To anything, or anyone.

Holly: It is like that whole oxygen mask analogy that comes up so often, but it is so relevant, because if you are not okay… I don’t have kids, so I have no ideas of the magnitude of the responsibility of that! {laughing}

Esther: Totally, me neither.

Holly: Obviously you have to keep them alive and fed and everything…

Esther: {joking} That’s quite good if you do that!

Holly: Every on top of that there is an extra, taking them to football practice or whatever, that’s an extra. So if you can’t, if you are on the verge of burnout, you are maybe going to have to cancel some things that are extras, so that you can take care of yourself, so that you can continue, otherwise…

Esther: Yeah, I think it is a good example for the family as well, if you as a parent put yourself first sometimes then it sends the right message, doesn’t it? Rather than putting everyone else first and always giving, giving, giving.

Holly: Yeah, obviously you are passing those habits onto your children, whether there are good habits, or bad habits. If your kids learn that the way to live to live… the way adults exist, is in this completely frazzled, stressed out, state of mind that is what they are going to grow up to live. I am sure most people don’t want that for their kids.

Esther: Oh definitely yeah, but we are all living it in a way, especially in our culture and our society. Some things are the way they are with our jobs and our mortgages and stuff like that and pushing through and hustling and all that stuff. I think it takes a lot of self-awareness, for me that has increased as well lately. So the more self-aware I am, the more I love myself, the more I respect my body, it all goes together though, and it is all expanding, it is so expansive, it feels really expansive.

Holly: Yeah, it does. I also feel that it is like a muscle, the more that way listen to our body and give ourselves permission to rest, the easier it gets in the future. And self-awareness, as well, the more aware we become, the easier that is in the future, and the harder it is to ignore these things.  

Esther: Yes so I think that is a really big thing, because people might think: oh this body wisdom and some people have this gut feeling and they have intuition, but I don’t have that, I have never had it. That is like, maybe there are things that are innate but there is other stuff that can be learnt. Do you think there is a certain, I don’t know if that goes for gut feeling, is that something you think you can train, or train yourself in or learn to develop.

Holly: I do, in fact I wrote a book about it called, Business Intuition. {Both: laughing} So it was called Business Intuition, because that was back when I was doing business mindset, and I am actually going to release a second edition of that book this year, but the important thing is the things that I talk about in that book I think can be applied to just life intuition. And I absolutely think that it is something that you can work on, and develop, and it is like a muscle that grows over time.

Esther: I really like knowing that. I think some of it is to do with almost discovering a part of yourself that you might not know was there. That has been really big for me, my intuition and my guidance. I think it is something that has always been there but I have learned, over my lifetime, I have been overriding it with my brain, for so long, and that process is so fast that I have to catch myself – that is where the awareness comes in – I have to catch myself and think: hang on a minute! Is this my brain trying to rationalise things? And then I have to really consciously drop into my body, and connect in, and think: wait, wait, what is my body saying about this?   

Holly: So why is body wisdom so important, seeing as how it is something that we don’t talk about that often and we place so much more importance on intellect and head wisdom?

Esther: I think it is because the balance is so off, like you say, we are all in our heads, all the time, or a lot of the time. So it is not just about the opposite, dropping into our body and just sort of floating through life that way, that’s nice sometimes, but I think it is about just getting the balance right and I think the balance is way out for a lot of us, generally.

Holly: Yes and I think for me, times when I have made decisions, head-based decisions, in the past that haven’t gone well. Like when I have ignored the gut feeling and I have made a head-based decision that was wrong; I feel like sometimes my head-based decisions are coloured by my fears, my blocks, my limiting beliefs, stuff that gets in the way of making a proper decision. Whereas I feel like when I make a decision based on my decision or my gut, I feel that is something that comes from connection to my higher self and that doesn’t go wrong, I don’t think.

Esther: Wow, that’s an amazing insight really, isn’t it?

Holly: Yes it is, it is and that is why I always say that my gut is smarter than my head, because when I make gut-based decisions they always go well and when I make head-based decision sometimes they go well and sometimes they don’t. It depends on whether or not that head-based decision was aligned with the gut decision.

Esther: Right, so do you feel like intuition, or gut feeling, do you think that is the only way you get guidance from your body, or are there other ways?

Holly: There are other ways, but I would say for me that is the primary way. I really feel a clear sensation in my gut and that is kind of my inner compass, but I think other people, and I have talked about this so many times with so many other people, but some people talk about an expansive feeling or a contracted feeling. A contracted feeling is kind of more aligned with fear whereas an expansive feeling is more like: yes, let’s go down this path!

Esther: I get that that kind of feeling and also from a human design perspective, which I have been looking into lately, which is fascinating, I have got the sacral response, which is a real in the moment, a clear yes or no in the form of sounds. So if it is a yes for me I will just go, “mm mm” (for yes) and if it is no I will go, “mm” (no). It is a distinct difference and it varies person to person, so it is good to get to know that as well…

Holly: So does that just pop out of your mouth, you just go: mm mm.

Esther: Yes. The thing is I have to be careful because, like I said, my brain can override it really fast. Sometimes I have a friend of mine asking me yes/no questions and I can respond to them, I kind of know what she is going to say but I don’t know how she is going to word it and that kind of takes the brain out of it a little bit. She just asks me stuff and I will just go: mm mmm (for yes) or mm (for no). I recognise the answer and sometimes it is what I expect and other times it is not, and it is really weird.

Holly: How did you start doing that? Was it something that just happened involuntarily? Or it happened one day, and you were like: oh that was nice!

Esther: It was probably something that I had always done but never been aware of. I realised, when I looked into the human design thing further, and I noticed that is one of my strengths, one of my motors or whatever they call it, I don’t know much about it and it is a very vast subject. Then I realised: yeah I do that, so let’s use it more and I have to really learn to trust it more as well, because of all this overriding that I have been doing for so long, yeah.

Holly: So self-trust is a big part of this because I think we are so used to trusting our heads, but I think a lot of us aren’t used to trusting our bodies, so I think that is possibly another reason why we put so much faith into intellectual decisions, rather than body wisdom, what do you think?

Esther: It does take a lot of, not work necessarily, but yeah it takes a lot of awareness and I think initially the desire to connect more with it, because initially we don’t know what we don’t know… so how do you even begin? And I think the intention was for me to really learn to trust that and build on it more, so yeah.

Holly: So in terms of other ways that our body talks to us, I think we said emotion and I think for me sometimes it is hard to identify my emotions, but absolutely that is another way: is that the body, is that the mind? But I think sometimes we feel emotions in the body, and I think that is another way that our body can talk to us and give us signals.

Esther: Definitely, yes, it is all connected, the mind-body connection, we are not separate from each other, are we really. If you feel physically unwell it is easy then to feel mentally a bit low, or the other way round if you feel mentally low your body doesn’t feel as good and it influences each other so much.

Holly: Yeah and then the placebo effect, how does that come into it, because I am so fascinated by that. 

Esther: Me too!

Holly: And I think that is a very clear way that the body can talk to us, as well, telling us: this is the path.

Esther: Yes and the wisdom it has and the intelligence of it because it’s not used for nothing in clinical trials and stuff, on various levels. The fact that they even have to take it into consideration says a lot about body intelligence and body wisdom, in and of itself really. I love Dr David Hamilton’s books, he has written a lot about it, I don’t know if you are familiar with his work?

Holly: Not familiar with his work but familiar with his name.

Esther: So there was a book particularly that I really enjoyed called, How the Mind Can Heal The Body or How Your Mind Can Heal Your Body, or something like that. I really should have looked this up before we talked…

Holly: That’s okay, they will go in the show notes.

Esther: It was just fascinating. He is a scientist and he just breaks things down and makes it really simple for people who are not in that area, or don’t have that expertise, to understand which has been really, really, great. He has been collecting stories of people who have used things like visualisations, especially visualisations, and affirmations to heal themselves of all sorts of things. It has been fascinating to read about.

Holly: Well Louise Hay has a book.

Esther: That’s a similar title.

Holly: You Can Heal Your Life.

Esther: I think she has got one, You Can Heal Your Body, as well.

Holly: I am looking at my bookshelf as we do this! I had the Louise Hay book, I have had it for years and I liked it, I liked the concept of it, but I think I didn’t really take that on board until I did the PSYCH-K® Health and Wellbeing Workshop years ago and that was where I really learned the concept of how our body can use dis-ease, or create symptoms, as a way of getting our attention to send us messages. There is a very clear balance in PSYCH-K® where you can the body’s symptoms to get messages from it and figure out what exactly it is trying to tell you, and when you get the messages and when you balance those messages, the symptoms will often go away. It is really, really fascinating, and so it is looking at health from a very different perspective not as a pathological thing, but as: your body is trying to talk to you, it doesn’t speak English, so it needs to have some other language and that is dis-ease, unwellness, that kind of thing. So that was to me a big shift in perception of wellness and not being well.

Esther: Is PSYCH-K®, it has to do with muscle testing, right?

Holly: Yes it does.

Esther: For a long time, I have heard you talk about it so much and I kept thinking, “what is it, though?” And I couldn’t get my head around it. So it is a type of psychological kinesiology?   

Holly: Well, yes. It is not psychological, it is psyche. So PSYCH-K® uses muscle testing to help you connect with your body’s wisdom to help you connect with your subconscious mind and also your super-conscious mind and/or your higher self to get clear on blocks and limiting beliefs and then there are specific processes called balances, which help you reprogram belief statements or goal statements into your subconscious mind. They are kind of like affirmations, so instead of taking an affirmation and repeating it 1000 times through a process that lasts about 2-5 minutes you just program it into your mind. It is super-fast, super-easy to use, with yourself or with other people and for me it was absolutely life-changing.

Esther: I bet, yeah. Well, we have done a few sessions between us haven’t we? It is kind of interesting because although it works on the mind it is using the body, to influence the body, it is fascinating really.

Holly: It is. Muscle testing is one of those things that, if you have never experienced it, I think it is really easy to be sceptical. I had this video on YouTube and it ended up with 100,000 views and so of course that invited all kinds of people who were sceptical and so I got all kinds of horrible comments on it. Yeah, and my answer was always: try it, if it works for you great, if it doesn’t work for you, great, don’t do it. It is one of those things that it is so hard to explain unless you experience it because you are holding our arm up, you are resisting but then when you say a yes statement it resists, when you say a no statement your arm just drops. You have got to feel it to believe it or just have faith.

Esther: I have had some sessions of kinesiology on its own and I found that incredibly fascinating and I also tested that with friends, as a joke, they would be very sceptical. A friend of mine is allergic to bananas, so I tested his muscle, the muscle testing thing and pushing his arm down and he was fine and then I said: now, hold the banana and he could not hold his arm up! His mind was blown!

Holly: Because that makes no sense logically!

Esther: Yeah, exactly. So fascinating though.

Holly: I know, I love it. So with body wisdom, both of us could define ourselves as empaths and I am sure a lot of people listening to this are empaths as well. So how can we use body wisdom to tell the difference between what’s ours and what’s not because I know a lot of times I feel things, that aren’t mine, but it takes me a while to figure that out. I am kind of confused for a while: what is this? And then I will realise that it has nothing to do with me.

Esther: That’s where the subtlety comes in, isn’t it? Because if you get aches and pains or something serious then you know what is happening there is no denying it but there is also the more subtle guidance. I think that just takes practice, like you say it is kind of a muscle that you have to practice, to learn to get to know it, to become more aware of it and I think it just takes trial and error as well. Maybe you might think back and think: when I have made these decisions coming from this place it has gone well and when I have done this other thing it hasn’t gone so well. So I think that is how you get to know it and the signals that it gives you. Would you say so?

Holly: I think so, it is very much about awareness because my husband and I are both very empathic with each other, to the point where if he is having a bad day I will feel it. He has said: I am having a bad day; I really need you to kind of help lift me up rather than be down in the depths with me. And I am like: I know, but I am feeling it too.

Esther: That’s hard.

Holly: It is hard for me to remind myself that I need to I don’t know, kind of separate in that moment and then try to bring the energy up. It is really rough for me because I really feel his stuff.

Esther: I have that too; I think that is one reason why I need a lot of alone time as well.

Holly: Yes!

Esther: Because I need to just not be around people because it does influence me as well, I absorb and can feel their feelings, I get their ideas as well, the inspiration, I am thinking human design again. I have got this empty non-designed head centre, which means you take in a lot of inspiration and thoughts and all that stuff from other people. So, it is a matter of, all you can do is get to know yourself and I think also practice getting strong in your own energy, so you still have the ability to maybe deal with other people’s stuff. It is about balancing, I am okay with this amount of things, or this particular amount of thing for this particular amount of time and then I need to just be on my own and sit in a dark room and rock {joking}… Well ideally not!

Holly: If needed that is a great coping mechanism {laughing}! I think it is all about coming back to centre and coming back to self. My morning routine is very much a part of that, and I have really gotten off base with that for the last month. I haven’t gotten back into that for the holidays and I am feeling really off and I had a really rough chaotic week last week. This week I have got a really busy week and I know that if I were back in that practice of having my morning routine, of kind of having my alone time, spending time with myself, that would help but there is not time in the calendar. So I think I need to come up with some kind of mini routine or mini ritual which will help at least bring me back a little bit for those days or weeks when I can’t do my full thing.   

Esther: Yes. I have got a morning routine, actually I have got morning time blocked off. At the moment it is half past seven, until half past nine in the morning. That is kind of a self care block and I find I have got several options of things I can do, ideally I do a Tai Chi wake up routine, then I do a particular meditation to do with reiki and then I do a reiki self-treatment and then for a while I wanted to do all these things and I wasn’t doing all the things and I felt like I was failing my own self-care routine and then I thought: why don’t I just block the time off and I will do what I feel I need to do in the moment. And sometimes I just need to get on with stuff, sometimes I need to start writing things down because my head is buzzing with ideas. Other times I need to have a bath, it can just be whatever it needs to be on the day, it doesn’t have to be the same every day. That said I have been neglecting my meditations for a bit, but I am not giving myself a hard time about it because that doesn’t help does it? I will get back to it.

Holly: Yes, because you are doing other things.

Esther: For me meditation is a good way to connect into the body again, how do you do it?

Holly: So my morning routines, usually I would do my Druid ceremony, focus on my Druid work and sometimes do a plant-spirit-healing journey, sometimes I read a book, sometimes I take a bath, sometimes I… yeah mostly that stuff. Or journalling as well.

Esther: Love it!

Holly: Those are the kind of elements that I pick and choose based on how I am feeling. I have to remind myself; I have got two or three hours every day blocked out for that but if I don’t have a big chunk of time I could still fit in a 20-minute meditation or something.

Esther: Exactly, yes. I think we tell ourselves it has to be a certain way and it has to be this amount of time and…

Holly: I think anything is better than nothing, even if it is five minutes.

Esther: Absolutely I agree.

Holly: So we have been talking about how subtle some of these body transmissions, communications are. You mentioned reiki, so I think the ability to feel energy is another way that our body can communicate with us. So reiki, what is it?

Esther: {laughing} That’s the big question isn’t it? It kind of means life force energy, doesn’t it? I have been practising it for quite a while and the main thing, one of my teachers says, it is actually a journey of self-development and healing is a side effect of it. I have always really liked that. When I started I was told to do self treatments, that’s what you learn. I think I told myself, or I had this belief at the time, because you hear stories: I feel this, and I feel this energy and warmth and also this visualisation that went with our group sessions. I went to these reiki shares and people were having the most amazing almost acid trips on their reiki energy – colours and shapes – and I thought: I want to see colours and shapes and I was really gutted that I wasn’t and I thought… again, I had to come to a stage of self-acceptance and I thought: okay, I don’t see that, I don’t see that yet, I may never but that doesn’t matter I have got my own way of being in this journey.

Again, this is something that you can practice, not something that you need to be born with necessarily. If you have got that innately that’s brilliant. Then again, if you don’t use it, you might not know that you have it, it might be something that peters out and it is really sad to think of it. The more I used it, the more I practiced it, I thought: actually, I can feel these things. Sensations in the hands. For me at this stage even still, it is mostly warmth, or coolness, it always feels like a temperature thing, a bit of tingling in the hands but there are loads of other sensations that you could feel that I have heard from other people. Like, one lady said to me, when she puts her hands on somebody who has got cancer, for example, it feels like slugs under her hands. So that is just one example, I am sure it is different for everyone. There is so much more to that, there are always ways to expand on it and feel more…it doesn’t have to be like anyone else, it is just how you do it and feel it.

Holly: I think for me when I first did my reiki training it was so mind blowing that you have the ceremony and you have the attunement and before we had that, the day before, I felt nothing in my hands, the day of I felt energy flowing through my hands. It was like someone had switched on a switch and now I had access to this energy flow that I didn’t have access to before, it is so weird, and it is so subtle, and you don’t notice it unless you are paying attention to it of course.

Esther: I think you are probably…you are very sensitive to energy anyway.

Holly: Yeah.

Esther: When I first did my reiki attunement, my very first one, which was years ago, I don’t think I really felt any different initially and that happens as well and I thought: well, okay, now what? What is happening, what is going on? What am I meant to be feeling? So I felt a bit lost at the time. It took years before I started noticing stuff. That’s just not where I was at the time, I knew I wanted to do more with it. So yeah, for some people it is fast and instant and for others it does take a lot of practice. I think the good thing is not feeling like you are doing it wrong or you are failing, if it does take longer.   

Holly: It is going to be different for everyone. I think that is the important thing. For me, I often compare myself to other people when that is not very useful, because it is different for everybody.

Esther: It is easily done, isn’t it? A bit of comparison-itis.

Holly: So for people listening to this, how can they get in touch with their body wisdom. How have you, what practical things have you done over the years to get in touch with your wisdom?

Esther: I think one of the main ones for me was the meditation and starting to meditate and also I think the key to meditation is getting out of your own head. If you are: am I doing this right? What am I feeling… then you are still stuck in your own head aren’t you? I think a good way to do this is to just focus on the breath, the breath is this magical thing, really, I don’t even know how to describe it. That is the lifeforce piece of us, in the breath. And I have had moment where I noticed, I think one time was in an NLP class of all things, where the teacher wanted to demonstrate something, I can’t even remember what is was. I remember breathing in and I felt really, really, calm. And it was almost like there was a moment in between the breaths where there was this stillness and I almost felt like, that was it, I would never need to breathe again. It was really weird and interesting, and I have that sometimes still now, I notice the feeling between the breaths, and I am not worried about: oh, I need to take my next breath, or it is about time I take my next breath. I sit in it and when it is time to take my next breath, that is fine, my body knows it is not going to forget to breathe.

Holly: It is not like: I don’t need that; okay we will stop.

Esther: So that has been a really interesting experience and that suddenly happened one day and then more and more so. I think it is all stuff that builds on each other but there is definitely magic in the breath and that area. It is good to focus on and be with that and embody that.

Holly: I think for me it has been about having the alone time to connect with myself, journalling helps me connect with myself, it is about knowing myself. I think part of my connection, getting in touch with my body wisdom, it has been about knowing myself, knowing what is me, knowing how I function when I am in a good state. And what is my neutral state. Also, I have never really been big on meditating, I like the idea, I have done similar things to meditation over the years but when I was working with the Sufi group that I was with for 12 years, we had this 17-minute exercise that was kind of like meditation, there was a word that we repeated and a head movement and it was very much like meditation, so I think that was my first experience of something that was like meditation. I think that really helped me; I started with this group when I was in a really turbulent moment in my life and I think that was kind of the only time of the day when I was alone and calm and connected with myself and I really think that was what got me on the path of getting back in touch with myself and connecting with myself.

Esther: That’s a really good point actually as well, because I know that meditation is not for everyone. I know people who say: I tried to meditate, and I almost got a panic attack, it is really not necessarily for everyone. I think adding the sounds and the movement can maybe take us out of our head enough to just get into the zone of I don’t know what it is, it just does the job.

Holly: As you said, paying attention to your breath or repeating a word, when I wake up in the middle of the night, I don’t want my brain to start going off on: what I need to do tomorrow and I need to do this and I need to respond to this, and so I have this practice of just repeating the word “sleep”, over and over in my head until I fall back to sleep. It keeps my mind focussed on the thing that I want to do which is go back to sleep. So even doing that in the day, you could just repeat: relax, relax; or centre; or whatever, I don’t know maybe just try that for a few minutes and maybe that works for you. For me that just focuses my mind on the thing that I want to be doing.

Esther: I like that, I have heard other people do that actually and it really does work.

Holly: So I want to ask the question: how can we be more embodied? I think before we ask that question we need to talk about what does that mean, what does it mean to be embodied, because I keep having healers telling me: you need to be more embodied. I know that but it is something that I really struggle with. So, what does that mean to you, to be embodied?

Esther: Oh that’s a juicy question, what does that mean to me? To me it means tuning into it regularly and being aware of how it feels, maybe aware of what it needs.

Holly: Your body?

Esther: Yeah my body. It is just about an awareness and respect for it and valuing it and also my friend uses an expression that I really like, she says to “inhabit”, to inhabit the body. That makes so much sense to me it makes you be in it, yeah, that’s kind of what it means to me; and then by being in that state it just brings a lot of balance and peace to the mind as well.

Holly: So how can you tell when you are embodied and how can you tell when you are not?

Esther: Well, for me, it is definitely when I am in my head too much. I am restless and I am tense, and I feel like, like this sort of nervous energy about myself, it feels unpleasant and uncomfortable yeah and then I know I just need to stop, which is not always possible but even just regrouping and taking a moment can make all the difference. So that is how I know that I am not.

Holly: I really feel like this whole embodiment thing is something that I really struggle with. I tend to be very much in the head, I am very much connected to the upper chakras, and not so much connected to the lower ones. I feel that doing grounding exercises, or working with the lower chakras, is something that I, it really benefits me, and I need to remember to do more of because I can feel very… and not very solid and grounded in my body.

Esther: It is all about balance isn’t it? In the end chakras are in the body and it is good to inhabit all of them in different ways and have various forms of meditation, like the growing roots and stuff, out of your base chakra, out of your feet and stuff that’s really, really quite nice.

Holly: It is.

Esther: It feels really solid to me.

Holly: So what other tips do you have for other people who want to be more embodied, or feel more embodied or feel more in touch with their bodies? What can they do?

Esther: Well I think first of all approach it with kindness and compassion and you shouldn’t be too hard on yourself when maybe initially you think: I am not doing it right, or I don’t feel any different. We are all way too hard on ourselves really, aren’t we? So just take, even five minutes and build up slowly if you think you can’t dedicate x amount of time to it, like you said earlier, just even five minutes is something, better than nothing. Yeah, and just approach it like you would a friend or a child, you wouldn’t berate them for not doing something quick enough or good enough, it is just: okay try again tomorrow or try again later. Sometimes it is really interesting to find our self-talk and how we can, you wouldn’t walk to your best friend that way, the way you talk to yourself. That’s wow.  

Holly: I think that is a very, very, important point when you said you have got to befriend your body, this is all about kind of being in alignment with your body, working with your body, not treating it as an enemy, it is about loving and accepting your body, it is about self-love but it is about working in harmony with your body rather than being upset with your body because: oh damn it you have got a cold, why did you pick up that virus? Why are you doing this to me?

Esther: Yeah, you are letting me down!

Holly: You should be perfect…

Esther: So much of that comes from conditioning, and that is really hard to unlearn but I think awareness is key.

Holly: All right so do you have any final thoughts or tips or things that we need to share, before we wrap this up?

Esther: Yes, I think just check-in with yourself, like: how are you doing? Hello body, ask a question of your body: how are you doing? And it kind of seems like, that’s ridiculous and a no-brainier but it can be really simple.

Holly: And if you need to remind yourself to do this, put up a sign, or put up a block in your calendar, or an alarm on your phone or something to remind yourself to check in and ask these questions to your body and that will help you build the muscle to help you connect with your body more.

Esther: Definitely, yes.

Holly: All right, well thank you for joining me for this conversation, I really liked it.

Esther: Thank you for having me! That was fun!

Holly: Yay! So if people want to get in touch with you what is the best way to do that?

Esther: That is a good question. Since my business stuff is a bit up in the air at the minute they can reach me probably on Facebook. Also, [email protected], that’s the main email address that I am using at the moment.

Holly: All right. Thank you very much and if anyone has any questions please feel free to get in touch with Esther or with me and we can chat about body wisdom.

Esther: Yay!

Holly: Yay! All right have a good day!

Esther: You too, bye!

Holly: Thank you so much for listening, drop me a line and let me know what you thought of this week’s episode, you can email me: [email protected] or find me online and get in touch there, I would love to give you a shout out on the show. Also, I would love for you to join me on Patreon, if you head to http://Patreon.com/HollyWorton you can join me. Membership starts at just $1 a month and you get exclusive access to content I don’t share anywhere else including a monthly Q and A and sometimes afterthoughts for this podcast and journal prompts. So, remember to visit: http://HollyWorton.com/340 for the show notes on this episode. Thank you.