When It’s Not Your Mindset
“The body says what words cannot.”
There are times when I work with a client and once they're aware of how they're thinking, they realize how it's affecting their emotions and behaviors.
They see how impactful making a shift can be.
With this insight, they move forward.
New thoughts. New choices. New behaviors. New results.
All by changing their mind.
But there are other times when it doesn't come that easy.
Even with awareness of their current thoughts and spending time in new, more powerful thoughts, they can't shift their feelings and beliefs. They struggle to take new actions or see themselves differently.
This is when we know it's a story living in the body. A pattern of the nervous system.
What do I mean by that?
Throughout our lives, and especially when we're young, our life experiences shape our nervous system.
Emotions are energy in our body. Sensations that signal a need.
When that need isn't met, the energy doesn't get released. It gets stored in the body.
This is true for our survival energies too: fight, flight, freeze, fawn. Those energies exist to move us into action, and when we don't, or can't, take that action, the body remembers what it couldn't do.
These become stored patterns in the nervous system and repeat in our lives until they get completed in the body.
We can't think our way out of these patterns.
Coaching is amazingly effective. It creates a generative brain state, so you can get clarity, find solutions and possibilities, see new perspectives, and be supported as you put them into action. In coaching, we're using the power of your brain.
Ishtara, the body-based movement practice I teach, works differently. We work with the body and the nervous system directly, connecting to the emotions and patterns that live there, working with them at their source: the body.
Using movement, we bring completion to these stories so the body can live in a new experience, not just hold a new thought.
Many of my clients do one or the other - coaching or Ishtara.
Some do both, and that creates really powerful transformations quickly.
Here's a recent example:
One of my coaching clients, a successful professional, found herself in a work situation that was increasingly untenable, her confidence waning. When she considered other options – looking for other jobs or starting her own business – she had very clear ideas but would get overwhelmed and stalled out by deeply embodied fear, guilt and disappointment.
Then she learned the Ishtara method. She began to meet herself with love in a way her body could feel, not just thinking about it. She didn't run from her emotional experience and instead learned to move it in her body.
She reconnected to her power and confidence without pushing away the fear and sadness. She did all of this in the sacred container of the group class format and was celebrated and deeply seen.
She integrated all of it.
Shortly after completing level 1 of Ishtara, new job opportunities came on her radar that weren't there before. She had the courage to apply. She rocked the interviews and landed two offers. All within a matter of weeks. She chose one that was perfectly aligned with her experience and expertise. The cherry on top of this delicious sundae was that it paid more than the job she'd been so afraid to leave.
How did this change happen?
She worked with her mind AND her body to listen, heal and create.
Now, with a devoted Ishtara practice she can turn to anytime, she is bringing completion to those old stories and patterns in her nervous system and rewriting them.
Where is that place in your life where your brain knows exactly what to do, and your body has a different opinion?
Is it speaking up in meetings?
Is it asking for what you need in your relationship?
Is it owning your expertise and raising your hand for a leadership role?
Is it feeling more in control of your money?
Is it becoming more visible to grow your business?
You might not notice it as fear or freeze. You might just feel overwhelmed. Like you should be doing more or doing it better. Maybe it feels like you've lost touch with your confidence or even your sense of self.
Whatever you call it, however it feels, it's not something the mind can resolve alone. It needs the body too.
This fall season I'm opening a few small group spots for Ishtara Foundations: Body Story (level 1) + Body Personality (level 2).
>> click for more information >>
Four women per group, 2 six-week sessions (level 1 + level 2), taught live over Zoom.
If you've done the thinking work and you're still stuck in your body, reach out. Let's talk about whether it's a fit.
Don’t just think about it. Move.