Leaving the Church to Find God
Leaving the Church to Find God delves into the shadows of organized religion, guiding you past indoctrination and towards authentic spirituality. Join solo reflections, insightful interviews, and a supportive community on this transformative journey beyond the pews.
Leaving the Church to Find God
Embodiment: What is it? and How to be it?
What if your body, mind, and spirit could unite in perfect harmony? Discover how the ancient principles of yoga can guide you to this profound state of embodiment, where being fully present in your physical form meets mindfulness and soulful awareness. Imagine source energy as gold, and learn how each of us is a unique expression of this divine essence, experiencing life through our senses and emotions. We challenge traditional views that see the body as sinful, proposing instead that our physical existence is a sacred manifestation of source energy.
Explore the true power of your emotions with us. Anger, sadness, joy, and fear—all are vital indicators from our broader selves. Learn how these emotions communicate essential messages and guide us toward understanding our needs and desires. We discuss the societal conditioning that often leads to the suppression of these feelings, resulting in a disconnection from our gut and heart. By embracing our emotions, we can shift from a life led by past experiences to one filled with present possibilities and authentic existence.
Embark on a journey towards self-love and body alignment. Discover practical methods for achieving embodiment, such as somatic work, dance, and connecting with nature. Hear personal stories and techniques for aligning with your soul's desires, emphasizing the importance of nurturing your body through grounding, syncing with moon cycles, and self-massage. Whether you're seeking to reconnect with yourself or looking for practical self-care tips, this episode offers heartfelt insights and actionable steps to help you embrace your true self and lead a more empowered life.
If you would like to be a guest on this podcast or would like to support this work, visit www.leavingthechurchtofindgod.com where you can contact Melissa and or make a donation. Follow along my journey on IG at @authenticallymeli and find more in depth content on YouTube at Diary of an Authentic Life.
Aloha, godpod, welcome back. I'm so happy to have you here Today. I'm going to speak about something that's really, really important to me embodiment. So there's something recently I've come to understand because I've done yoga for a long time, and there is this principle of body, mind and spirit. And I think, like just me, being my human person, like a lot of us took this very literally and thought you know, body, mind, spirit is, you know, I get my body healthy and get my mindset right and get my spirit right, where I'm in alignment and body, mind, spirit, then I'm good. That's the union that we're looking for, right, because yoga actually means union. It's the union of body, mind and spirit. So what I've realized is that it goes so much deeper than that, that the body part is embodiment, the mind part is mindfulness, a gay presence, and the spirit part is understanding that there is a broader perspective, that is, our soul and letting that part of us lead. It's a union, literally, of my body being in this body, my mind being mindful, being able to use this calculator I have in my head to be mindful of the world around and within myself, and then mindful of the world around and within myself and then being led by my soul. That's a union like a balance of the three is really what we're looking for, right? So in embodiment, I just feel like these are all. So there's so much to talk about with these three parts that I'm going to actually break this into a three-part series. I don't know if I'll play them back to back or not, but there will be three coming and we'll have the other two, but I'm just really going to stick to this one today as much as I can.
Speaker 1:So what is embodiment? Embodiment, by definition, is a tangible or visible form of an idea, quality or feeling. It's the representation or expression of something in a tangible or visible form. So if we think about source energy, what is source energy? Some people call source energy God, some people call it the universe. I'm going to use source energy today because I feel like it just really maintains the context of what I'm talking about, and by doing that, what I'm referring to is that everything is energy, everything is made of energy and there is a source of this energy.
Speaker 1:Eckhart Tolle described it as gold. I felt like that was such a great metaphor because it really is like that, and I and I break that metaphor down so much, more and more, even though, gosh, the first time I read the Power of Now was almost 20 years ago. But I really love this metaphor of gold. So think about God, right, as gold, or source energy as gold, like there's all of the gold in the world, that's God. Or in the universe galaxy, who knows? I think maybe there's gold on other planets, but we've got gold, we got gold here, right. So they think that's God. And then, like, I could be a gold ring, I could be pure gold, but I'm not all of gold.
Speaker 1:So when I talk about us being God in the flesh or us being an extension of source energy, this is what I'm talking about. Like I am pure gold, but I'm not all of gold. There's more gold than just what's here in Melissa, right? And if we want to go deeper into that analogy, we could think about breaking it. Like, say, there's all of gold and then we break it down into gold bars, right? So we got a gold bar and then think of that as kind of like, maybe like a soul group, and then that soul group gets broken down into pieces and then those pieces get melted down and put into other pieces. And that's what soul groups are right, like there's this one hole, and then we just kind of go down into groups and groups and groups and groups, but we're all part of this whole right. So, no matter how you break it down, I'm still gold, I'm still God. Does that mean that I'm all of God? No, but I am God, so are you, and Jesus actually said this. There's still a scripture in there now and then about it, and there are also a lot of it that was taken out in the Gospel of Thomas. But we are God in the flesh.
Speaker 1:So embodiment is the representation of source energy and an expression of self in and through the body. So if we think about that definition of embodiment, that's what it is. We are a representation or an expression of something. That representation or expression is source energy in a tangible form. That's the expression of our physical bodies, right? So why? Why would God want to be a human? Well, I feel like it's because God wants to experience itself. Because we have all these amazing senses. We get to see all these beautiful colors and things and movement, and there's so many things that we can see. We get to smell. We can smell good smells, bad smells, but there are like millions of smells that we can smell. We get to feel. We get to feel all of these emotions, like this huge spectrum of emotions. But we also get to physically feel the sense of touch. We can sense things. We can feel things in the metaphysical. There's all of these senses that we have, that are part of us being a body, and God chose that, or source energy chose that in a way that, however you see, consciousness is happening, but in the expansion of consciousness, we were created, we evolved, we developed to be what we are in the way that we are, as an expression of source energy.
Speaker 1:In the church we're taught from day one that we're born, that we are born into sin, that because we have a body, that we are born into sin, that because we have a body, that we are bad, that everything that our body wants is bad for us. Basically, that the body is the source of bad. I saw a meme yesterday oh, it was so good. It was talking about how the first sin that a woman ever committed was eating. Right. And we can go into the patriarchy and all that later. But it's true, the original sin was like Eve eating an apple apparently right, that is such a human experience to eat, to taste, to use our bodies.
Speaker 1:So it's been framed to us from the beginning that our bodies are a sin, that our bodies are the problem, that our bodies are something that need to be accounted for, controlled, maintained, apologized for. There's so much bad connotation with the body because of this, because by being embodied, by allowing ourself to be a representation of source energy, our power is infinite. Our power is unlimited, and if you want to control people, you disempower them. And one of the quickest ways to do that you disempower them. And one of the quickest ways to do that is to disembody them. And we have been disembodied.
Speaker 1:I feel it started long ago, started so long ago, but we have been disembodied by the church to the point where I don't know if you've caught the episode with Dr Christina Cleveland, but we were even speaking of this and how she was working with Dr Tina Sherman-Sherer, I believe, and it was expressed that millennial women who grew up in the evangelical church, whether they were sexually abused or not, show all of the signs of sexual assault because they were sexually abused or not, show all of the signs of sexual assault because our bodily autonomy was so taken from us from the beginning. So, but whether you're in the church or not, especially being a woman, the patriarchy, all of it, like our bodies are just laced with shame. Our bodies are presented to us to be something that is to be controlled, to be manipulated, to be like watched over in this hypervigilant way, like we have to keep our body under control. Sexual feelings are bad, like sexual urges are bad. You know, the urge to eat is bad, the urge to do anything is bad. Even our emotions are used against us and our emotions are part of our body. There are no bad emotions.
Speaker 1:I'm just going to go ahead and say that there are no bad emotions. Are there emotions that are uncomfortable, painful even? Yes, absolutely, but there are no bad emotions. Now you might say, like what about greed or violence or intimacy? Those are not emotions. Intim might say like what about greed or violence or intimacy? Those are not emotions. Intimacy is a good one, but still those aren't emotions. Those are actions that cause an emotion or that are stemmed from an emotion, but the emotions that we have are indicators.
Speaker 1:It is a way that our soul, our broader perspective, my portion of gold, speaks to me, my human, through these emotions. It says to an example anger, especially the church. Gosh, the church loves to harp on anger and how evil anger is, but it's not true. Anger actually activates change. Anger is there to let us know that there is something that feels unjust or wrong, that we need to change. Rage, rage shows us where we're being neglected. When we go into rage, it's because there is some part of us that is being neglected that is just screaming and crying to be seen and to be fulfilled.
Speaker 1:Sadness Sadness is a reminder that we are finite. It's a reminder to look at what's good. It gives us a contrast of feeling. On the other side of sadness is joy, and our sadness shows us our joy. It moves us towards joy. It lets us know this is sad, this isn't joy. Like where, where can I move in my life to bring me back to joy? Grief Grief it's an expression of love. The depth of grief matches the depth of love that you have for whatever it is that you feel that you've lost. Confusion Confusion is a call to clarity. Joy is a reminder of the beauty that's available to us. Love invites us to lean in towards where that source of love is coming from Jealousy.
Speaker 1:It shows us what we really want. Being jealous of someone isn't bad. It is if you use that to try to take that person down or take that from that person. But when you use that jealousy as a cue to let you know that, wait, I'm jealous of that because I want that for myself, that's a beautiful indicator Fear. Fear keeps us alive in our bodies. It keeps us from unaliving ourselves. Right, all of these emotions have purpose. They're all part of our body. So when we start denying our emotions, then we start to become disembodied. This happens especially through the church. But just as humans in general Think about us as children, like when we're toddlers, we are in the feels right, we are very much in those feelings and we are in our gut feeling, the gut reactions.
Speaker 1:It's not a like, my feelings are hurt feeling. It is a gut feeling. I don't like this. This feels bad, this is not what I want. We get these gut reactions to our feelings. And what are we told? What are we told? We're told that they're bad. Don't cry right now. No, you're not supposed to cry about that. Oh, get over it, move on, it's okay, suck it up, suck it up, move on, you're okay, you're okay. You know we get told this and told this and told this and it conditions us to stop listening to that gut. It conditions us to stop listening to those feelings. And then when those feelings come up, we think, oh, that's bad, let me run from that feeling. Instead of leaning into it and seeing what it's trying to show us, we run from it and we hide it and we stuff it down and we cover it up. So then we continue to grow and this is our phase of being separated from our feelings, from our gut feelings, and then we get into our adolescence and then we start coming into our heart.
Speaker 1:If you think about the vagus nerve, this is how it begins, right? It goes from the gut up, through the heart, all the way up. So if we're thinking from the vagus nerve, we've already cut it off at our bellies. Right Now we go into our heart. We're in our adolescence and we feel, oh gosh, we feel, we feel everything with our hearts. All of the feelings are so big. They're big heart feelings. You know so much feelings. You've all been through adolescence. You know what I'm talking about, right?
Speaker 1:So these heart feelings, and we're told we're too emotional to get over it, to be an adult to not feel that way Over and over. We're shamed for our emotions, we are punished, we are tamed, basically from our hearts. So our gut emotions have been cut off. Now our heart emotions are cut off, and what that does is we keep moving up that vagus nerve and it puts us in our head. And, yes, our head is very useful. We kind of need this thing to be alive. But by our head I mean our minds. And while our minds have purpose, our minds are excellent for problem solving and like very tactical human things, our minds are not supposed to feel for us.
Speaker 1:Our gut and our heart is supposed to feel for us, but when we've cut those things off, then we're dependent on our mind and we spend our lives living from our mind, making decisions from our mind, weighing out pros and cons. Does this make logical sense? The problem with that is that everything that our mind knows is based on past experience. So all these decisions that we're making are being made based on past experience, not based on the infinite available abundance that's in front of us. But no, it's all based on our past experience, because that's all. Our mind has to go on, but we've completely become disembodied and we are living in our mind.
Speaker 1:At this point, the mind is making the choices. So if you could see like how this becomes a problem. Right, we start living our life. We choose our partners, we choose our family structure, we choose our jobs. We choose all of these things from our minds. And then we wonder why we're not happy. We wonder why we feel frustrated and stuck or no matter what we do, something's not right. It just doesn't feel right. This isn't what life is supposed to be like. Life is supposed to be fun. This isn't. Why is it so hard? It shouldn't be so hard. Why is everything so hard? Well, this is part of the design, the design of the manipulation of how the church and how society has used our bodies against us. If we're stuck in our mind and we're constantly trying to problem solve the cycle that we're recreating, then we're not making change, we're not revolutionizing, we're not evolving in the way that humanity is meant to evolve. We've gotten into this power dynamic, the struggle that we're in this is the design of the manipulation.
Speaker 1:Also with media. You know, the media keeps us distracted. The news keeps us filled with fear, so that we keep watching. The social media keeps us feeling insecure and like we're not enough and we get they use our dopamine against us. We get stuck in these cycles where we're not enough and we get they use our dopamine against us, like we use. We get stuck in these cycles where we're distracted. All of this is keeping us disembodied. We have been convinced no, thanks to patriarchy. We've been convinced that our bodies are a problem and that they're supposed to look a very specific way, and if they don't, then we need to change them, we need to fix them. We've got to keep all of these metrics really healthy and work ourselves into the bone until, like we're just like in this schedule, this routine of trying to tame and control our bodies.
Speaker 1:I don't want to skip past this. One of the things of going back to the church is that we weren't allowed to dance. I mean, we were allowed to dance if it was in spirit. Right, we're shouting, running around the church, but we weren't allowed to dance because that was like enticing men. That was moving our body in a sexual way. It was enticing men. Blah, blah, blah. Dancing is one of the quickest ways to get back into your body. I don't think that that is an accident.
Speaker 1:We are taught that sex is shameful and that we need to stay away from sex and all of our sexual feelings are bad and need to be repented for, and that ways that humans present in their bodies if it's not on this binary, then it's bad or it's wrong and just so many things that take us away from our body, that disembody us and that just keep us in our minds constantly in this struggle, in this cycle of trying to keep up, of trying to get it right. When we're living in our thinking minds, we're interpreting these emotions through a lens of comparison, so it's more of a signal. But when we're living embodied, we recognize these feelings as cues. They are always meant to bring us back to ourselves, to our own knowing. As we tune in, we become more attuned to these feelings. It's like you sharpen that knife, you sharpen that tool the more you use it, the sharper it gets right. And working with these feelings empowers us to live authentically because it lets us know what our broader perspective wants.
Speaker 1:So, going back to broader perspective, we're talking about the gold, right? My broader perspective is my portion of gold in this life, like Melissa's portion, my necklace or whatever I am, and that perspective knew when it chose to be me before it came into this life before it incarnated, that part of me knew what I wanted to experience in this life. So that that part of me chose who I would be born to, what body I would have, what experiences I would have, who would be in my life so that I could have those experiences that my soul wanted to have. Some people believe it's for the evolution of soul. Some people believe it's simply for the experience. I don't know, but I do know that I chose this life.
Speaker 1:There was something that really changed for me about that, because I used to be so hard on myself. I've struggled with my weight since I was about 10 years old. I was so, so hard on myself about my body and so mean to my body. I've, you know, dealt with disordered eating. I was anorexic for many years. I have been through all of that. But I got a lot kinder to my body when I realized that I chose it, when I realized that this is the body that my soul chose to live this life in. It's exactly the body I'm supposed to be in. I chose this body and it's perfect for me. It's gotten me exactly where I need to be. It's helped me experience exactly what I was meant to experience. This is my body and I love it and I'm going to take care of it. Once I had that understanding, it really changed things for me. I started looking at myself differently, I started speaking to myself differently. I just really started to come back into my body.
Speaker 1:So, going back to the soul part, this broader perspective, my soul chose this body and knew what it wanted to experience in this life. When I experienced discomfort, it's not wrong or bad, it's just the distance between where I am as the human and where my soul wants to be, the broader perspective, the bigger part of me. So the soul exists outside of the body. They say like three to five meters in every direction. I don't know how to measure this, but this is like what people say. But our body is in our soul, not the other way around. We're not just like a meat suit with a body and a soul inside of it. We're a soul carrying around a meat suit. So so my broader perspective knows what I really want. It knows the desires of my heart, my soul, because it feels what I feel, and when I don't want something it knows the opposite is what I do want. It starts creating and drawing in what I do want, right. So when I feel discomfort a feeling that would normally be perceived as bad or uncomfortable it's really the distance between my soul, what my soul knows I want, and where I am or what direction I'm going in. That's not meant to alarm me, that's meant to give me a cue to be like oh, I actually want to come back here because this is more alignment with what my soul wants.
Speaker 1:So people talk a lot in the new age world about alignment, being in alignment, and that's what it is. It's aligning yourself to what your broader perspective knows that you desire. It's not because this man up in the sky decided our purpose. And we're out here, little soldiers, living out a purpose that somebody else decided for us. That is not it at all. We chose this, the I am. I am Melissa. Who is that I? That I is the one who chose Melissa. So I know I'm getting deep in here y'all. This is just beginning. The more we bring ourselves into alignment with that body, the mind and the soul, the more authentically we are living. By living an embodied experience, we're able to enjoy the experience of being human.
Speaker 1:Coming back to this experience I had with choosing my own body. It's really helped me change to how I see myself. So now when I look in the mirror, I don't look for flaws. When I look in the mirror, I look for things that I love, and that has completely changed my mindset and everything. And I've actually I stopped trying to lose weight. I really just started listening to my body and eating what it was telling me and not feeling bad about it and just like really just nourishing myself, and when I eat I'm hungry, and when I'm tired I rest, and that's that's just the number one for me. And when I want to move, I, and that's that's just the number one, um for me. And when I want to move, I move, you know. So I started letting my body lead. I started coming back into my body and letting those cues lead me, and the irony of that is that I like weight is falling off of me. I've lost. I don't even know Cause, I don't weigh myself, but the last time I was weighed I had lost already over 30 pounds, just from not doing anything, just from being myself, from loving myself, from not trying to, like, force myself into compliance, just from acceptance.
Speaker 1:And so I'm actually working on a book. I'm working on life by books right now. They're all going to come out one day, I promise, but I'm actually working on one right now. It's, you know, get fit by being yourself, and that is is what's happening. It's by living authentically and living in alignment with my body, mind and soul that it's just happening naturally. And now, especially now that some weights come off, I just can't stop moving. I'm like wanting to go for walks all day long, stretching all the time, like I literally have caught myself doing karate punches in the air every day before bed, like I just have all this energy and excitement in my body. So, um, it's working. I can say that.
Speaker 1:But by living an embodied experience, we're able to enjoy the experience of being human. So I spent much of my life trying to control every part of myself to be what the world around me was telling me I was supposed to be. Now I understand that the whole time, like she was here for me, nudging me, waiting for me to listen, loving my body. It's not only made my mind love my physical form, but it has deepened the bond between my soul and my human. It's a harmony that I don't have the words to explain. It's an overwhelming feeling of love, of confidence, of satisfaction and of fulfillment just by existing. Like I big myself up so much, it's nuts, like seriously, and it's not a, I'm not trying, I just feel that way, like I'll walk by the mirror and my broader perspective just looks at me as like I love you, you're doing amazing, keep it up. Like I'm so proud of you. Oh, I love that about you and it's genuine, it's not forced, it's genuinely like a union of my body, mind and spirit. My broader perspective and I are in harmony and my broader perspective is super stoked about it, and so is my human. So it's all working really well.
Speaker 1:I've been saying like I feel like I'm having a love affair between my human and my soul, because that's what it feels like. It's just this happiness of like yeah, this is what we're doing, you know, not because I'm perfect or not because I figured it all out or got it all right, but just because I'm embodied, because I'm enjoying this experience of being me in this body. So how do we get there? How do we come back into our bodies? Well, there's a lot of ways. One that I found especially in the moment, is when I'm feeling overcome by emotion or distracted or just overwhelmed in any way, or just like not feeling present I go into my senses. What do I smell right now? What do I feel right now? What do I hear right now? What do I see right now? So I start going into my senses and getting back into my body. That's one easy, immediate thing you can do at any time.
Speaker 1:Another thing that has really really helped me to become embodied is dancing. Dancing is I. You know, I always said this. When I see hula, I tear up. I don't care if it's five-year-olds doing hula, it touches me. Something in my soul recognizes it and feels very happy about it. The way I see hula is like literally and it's funny because I described it this way before I started doing hula. And then, when I started doing hula, I realized that it was actually exactly what it is and it's just receiving the energy, the huna energy, the energy from the earth and expressing it in physical form, and that's why it's so touching and so beautiful. It's just this true embodiment of earth energy and it's just. It's just delicious. It's delicious. If you haven't seen a good hula, google Mary Monarch and start watching some videos and you will see what I mean. Chicken skin for days. But that's the thing is about dance.
Speaker 1:It's like, even with African dance I mentioned this a lot because it's been such a pivotal process for me is using African dance. When I listen to African, these very sacral opening, these pelvic opening movements, and then I start watching, like African dancing, like oh yeah, this is somebody. Some part you know is recognizing this. You know we all came, like humanity came, from Africa, right, so some part of me is recognizing this music and knows how to move to it. But there's opening and opening my pelvis, like for one, our sacral center is where our creativity comes from, right, but like opening that sacral center, it just releases something. It just in my intuition and my energy and it really, really, really brings me back into my body.
Speaker 1:There are other ways Somatic work. If you don't know what it is, look it up. I also feel like this is attributed to my weight loss is, instead of working out, I do these very slow, easeful movements that release cortisol from the body, release trauma from the body. I know that's a big part too of this transition for me is doing trauma work and really getting to my core. Wounds for me is doing trauma work and really getting to my core wounds and feeling those wounds, allowing them to be felt. I feel like all of this has worked in tandem to really it's bringing me into my highest version of self, and I freaking love it. I'm going to need this body working well, because I got stuff to do, y'all. So you know. Somatic work, yes, yes, yes, 100% do it.
Speaker 1:Being in nature, being in nature, I won't stop saying it. In fact, that just inspired me. I think I'm going to do a whole episode on it. Have I already done an episode on it? I don't know If I haven't, I am. If I have, I'm going to do it again.
Speaker 1:Being in nature, y'all. It is also an embodiment of source energy. This earth, this planet and every little aspect of it it's all an embodiment of source energy. So, being connected with that, realizing that we're not here alone or that we don't own this place, that we're not in dominion over it in the way that we're meant to just take it as our own. We're meant to work together as a community and by connecting with nature, by speaking to nature I promise you, if you listen, it will speak back by speaking to nature, by putting my feet on the ground and connecting with earth energy.
Speaker 1:Gosh, if I'm tired or if I have a headache or if I just feel ick, that's my answer. I take off my shoes and I go put my feet in the dirt, put my feet on the ground and let that energy come up through my body. That is a great way to get embodied, to swim, to be in the water. Gosh, feeling the water on your skin will bring you in your body in a second, especially if it's cold water. And one thing I didn't realize until I moved here, which is kind of ironic If you got mountains, you got waterfalls. There's mountains anywhere in your state or anywhere near you. There's some waterfalls. So I had only known I grew up just like minutes from multiple waterfalls. I had no idea I would have been there every time I turned around. Go get you and go get some of that ice, cold waterfall water. It will bring you back into your body like that. Or ice baths Everybody's doing that. Now, right, I don't know. I don't know if we're going to talk about that with embodiment, because I think I feel like I leave my body when I go in an ice bath. Oh, until I get out of it, and then I feel like a million bucks.
Speaker 1:But okay, the moon cycles. I'm going to speak from this, from being a woman. But men, this works for you too. You also have a moon cycle. We just are more aware of ours because we bleed. But, man, you also have a moon cycle.
Speaker 1:So someone told me this and I tried it and it works. Gosh, many, many years ago. And she said you know, if you start talking to the moon, your cycle will sync up with it. I'm like cool, so I did. I started talking to the moon and my cycles, like within one or two cycles I was on a full moon cycle, which means I start my menstruation the day of the full moon or in that like couple of days around the full moon. Now, at the time that was a lot for me. I wasn't embodied at all and it made me crazy. So it was a little too much. So I got myself off the moon cycle for many, many years but recently felt called to get back on it and I have. I've gotten myself back on the moon cycle and it's incredibly powerful. It increases the intuition to work in this cycle with the moon. But even like I said, if you're not bleeding, you can still do this. Just start talking to the moon and it will naturally happen.
Speaker 1:I know that sounds nuts, but y'all nature, it's not just like hanging out doing nothing, it's alive. It is aware of us. Someone posted a meme recently. It was like did you actually made it into a reel and reposted it Because I loved it so much? But it was. Did you ever wonder if the trees and flowers like to look at us too? You know, and they do, they do. I know this is going to sound nuts, but I don't care.
Speaker 1:I have this big fern. It's a huge fern I'm talking about like the. The stems, the leaves of these ferns are like five feet, like they're huge. The stems, the leaves of these ferns are like five feet, like they're huge. And this fern loves to aggravate me when I'm working in my yard and I will intentionally, or if I'm around my water heater. There's a certain it's in my laundry area, there's a certain area that I'm in and I'll intentionally stay away from the fern because it'll scare me. I always think there's a centipede on me and I think it gets a kick out of it or something, because no matter how far I stay away from this fern, it will find a way to touch me. It will touch me in the back, the back of my neck. It's always somewhere unexpected and it always makes me jump and I swear this fern is just like laughing inside.
Speaker 1:But I don't know if you've tried this. But you can literally go outside, go sit by a tree, give yourself a couple of inches, not something where it's going to happen, something that you sit by a tree. Give yourself a couple of inches, not something where it's going to happen, something you can't doubt, but also where it's possible. Don't go two feet away. Give yourself a couple of inches from like a limb and be like if you, if you're aware of me, touch me and just hold yourself. Still, I have never had this not work. It will move, the wind will blow, something will happen. It just kind of inches its way over and it will touch you.
Speaker 1:I promise, do it, try it if you don't believe me, but cycling up with the moon cycles has been really great as an embodiment practice for me, because I also schedule myself around the moon cycles. If this sounds like a lot, I actually created this back to nature planner and journal where every week of the moon cycle is labeled. So when you're making your schedule. You can schedule with the moon cycles, because the first week of our moon cycle is more for collecting on the things from our last cycle, starting new projects, all that you know, like really new freshness, right. The second week of our moon cycle is about investing in those projects, further deepening those projects. It's more of that movement, right, when you're doing the really energetic, active stuff. The third week gets more reflective. It's a reflective cycle when we're reflecting on our month and what you know we're going to do next, and then we go into our rest and planning cycle. So each week of the moon cycle has a different purpose. So by cycling ourself with the moon, it brings us back into embodiment in such a huge way that will make a very positive impact on your life.
Speaker 1:I promise, once I realized that I was not bipolar, that I just am really, really happy those first two weeks of the month and then kind of go into a resting state the other two weeks. I realized that it was. I know when my moods are going to happen. I don't feel like I'm on mood swings, because I exactly know how I'm going to feel, because it's based on the moon cycle. I'm not crazy, I'm not moody. I'm on the moon cycle, we all are, and when we don't realize it, the cycle that we're on it can just feel like it's hitting us out of left field. Now, I know these things. I can plan my life around it and I don't plan a lot of social stuff when I'm going to be in a resting and reflective time. I don't plan resting and reflective stuff when I'm going to want to be active and getting stuff done. I want to take advantage of that time to get stuff done and that way, when my resting time comes, I don't feel bad. I can just rest and enjoy it and appreciate it the art of doing nothing. So another one is yeah, so that's about working with your body instead of trying to control it.
Speaker 1:Another one is self-touch massage. You know, if you give yourself a hug if you're watching the video you can see I'm doing it right now If you give yourself a hug, it actually has the same effect as if someone else gives you a hug. You can like put your hands on your face. It's a great way to comfort yourself. I was using a lot of these tools during the pandemic, that first couple of months, when I didn't see or touch another human, my dog at the time was just like enough, lady, you've touched me enough. Like, leave me alone. So the self-touch is very therapeutic, but also like massage. Maybe I should do a YouTube video on that. I think I'm going to do a YouTube video on that. Keep an eye out. On self-massage, I learned that when I was in massage school and I actually still have all of the stuff, but I do it myself on how you can give yourself a massage and there are longer ways to do it. But I, you know, basically I have this oil, like castor oil mixture, I use when I get out of the shower and I massage it in. I massage it into my legs and my arms and I like really feel the muscles and massage it. You know that will bring us back into our bodies, just touching. But I'm going to do that. Keep an eye out. I'm going to make a YouTube video on self-massage so that we all have that Listening to your body and acting accordingly.
Speaker 1:If you're hungry, eat. If you're tired, rest. If you're energetic, go use that energy. You know, like, listen to our body. If something in our body is like that's a no, that's a hard pass, y'all listen to it. I went on a date gosh about a year ago and I knew within seconds I don't know how many seconds, but it was within seconds that that wasn't a match for me and practically everything would say that he was a good match. Like there are all these things lining up that would make that person a good match. But I knew immediately I was like in my body, was like nope, but I was like, okay, I'm here, we both come this way, I'm just going to humor it and it was a waste of an hour of my day. So it wasn't a waste because it told me that the answer's already there. So you know, I listen to that now and the more we listen to it, the louder it will get, the easier it is to listen to. Plus, you kind of build faith in it. The more you listen to it, the more you see how it works and then you're going to keep doing it because it works.
Speaker 1:And you know, prioritizing rest we're not machines. We're not born to produce, we're born to create and there is a big difference. So, allowing ourself prioritizing rest, prioritizing play, joyfulness, play Like. Remember being a kid? I've got the 90 days of play going on. It's free, you don't even have to give me your email address. Go find it. It's liveallowcom, up at the top. You can click on 90 days of play and all the stuff is there. Getting in your body, playing, finding joy Like these are ways to get embodied.
Speaker 1:Doing nothing, staring into space, like literally doing nothing. Yesterday I gave myself the whole day to do nothing because I was trying to work the night before and the inspiration wasn't coming. I was feeling like I know I have all these things I'd like to do, I'm just not feeling it. So I just stepped back and was like, okay, we're just going to take a break, and I didn't do anything else mentally the rest of that night. And yesterday I just insisted that I not do anything productive. I did go get groceries because I need to eat, but I really just gave myself time to not think. I didn't listen to any podcasts, I didn't even listen to music in my car. I just like gave my brain a break, gave myself a break to do nothing.
Speaker 1:Right, not allowing ourselves to be machines. We are not machines and not trying to restrict our bodies into submission. Right To try to fast ourselves into submission or cleanse ourselves into submission or work ourselves out into submission, like, just let our body be our wild bodies, right. And the cool thing about that is when you do, the health and all of that other stuff comes naturally. You don't have to try, it just comes. The more embodied I get, the more I just naturally do my oil pulling in the morning without even thinking about it, the more embodied I become. The more of a skincare routine I get, the more embodied I become. The more I move, the more I take care of myself, the more aware I am of what I'm eating. I'm not trying to do any of those things. I'm being embodied and that is the byproduct of it.
Speaker 1:So you know, I think about this with your body is like we have this saying in the South that you catch more flies with honey. And it's like how does it feel for you when somebody insists that you do or be something that you are not or that you cannot? That's how our body feels, right? We're trying to like you know you catch more flies with honey than you do vinegar. You pour vinegar on the body and you make it do all these things, try to force it and you're going to get resistance. But when you give it honey and you be sweet to it, then it's going to naturally want to show up for you, right? That's just. It's just. It all works together. We don't have to try anything in life.
Speaker 1:The more we be, the more authentic we become, the more all of the things that we want to be, do and have become a byproduct of that Kindness, softness, space, listening, moving, trusting, thanking your body, loving your body, being grateful to your body for getting you this far, for getting you from point A to point B, from letting you know when it's hot and that you need to cool off, or you would die, from letting you know when you're too cold and you need to get warm or you would die. Like thanking our body, being grateful to our body for what it's giving us. I've spent much of my life trying to control every part of myself to be what the world around me was telling me I was supposed to be, to be what the world around me was telling me I was supposed to be. But the more embodied I become, the more authentic I become, the more that I just love the way that I am, the way that I was born, the way that I am right now. Flaws, and all the more beautiful my life becomes, the more fulfilling my life becomes, the more fulfilling my life becomes, the more satisfying my life becomes, the more peaceful my life becomes. So it's about this, this harmony, this holistic approach of harmonizing the body, the mind and the spirit, having the embodiment, having the mindfulness, allowing our souls to lead. That's all together. I'm doing these as three separate things embodiment, mindfulness and being soul-led but they're all working together. One cannot exist without the other. So, thank you, thank you for being here, thank you for listening. I hope that this has come across in a way that makes sense, that's understandable. I really appreciate you being here, showing up with me week after week, if you are wanting to be. Oh yeah, I don't want to forget.
Speaker 1:One of the main, main main things that has really helped me is breath work. One of the main, main main things that has really helped me is breathwork. Doing breathwork has brought me into my body in ways that just really allows me to feel the feelings, the feelings that have been stored in my body for years and years that weren't able to be felt, because when we don't feel our feelings, they don't go anywhere. They just hide in our body, in our cells, and in breathwork those parts come out and I get to feel them and see them and love them, and that has been a huge part of my embodiment practice. So I am offering breathwork sessions Now.
Speaker 1:I am a trained breathwork facilitator. You can work with me in person. There's a whole protocol that I have for working in person, but we can also do it online. Protocol that I have for working in person, but we can also do it online. It is just as powerful, just as effective. So if you're interested in doing some breath work and working through that, you can get in touch with me online.
Speaker 1:Livealau, a-l-a-u. It's the alchemy of authenticity. Livealaucom you can contact me there. You can contact me on Instagram. At AuthenticallyMelly. You can contact me through YouTube. There's so many ways to get in touch with me.
Speaker 1:But if you would like to do some embodiment work, do some breath work together, I'm here for you. Let me know if you would like to work together in other ways, untangle some of the ways that you feel stuck in your business, in your life, in any areas of your life. If you're wanting some companionship on this journey back to yourself, I am here for you. I am offering one-on-one work together and leading you back to yourself so that your soul can lead your life. If you're interested in working with me in that capacity, just reach out here.
Speaker 1:If you want to support the show, it's in the outro, but just in case you skip it, get on there. Leave me a five-star review. Friends, I know you're loving the show because you keep coming back and watching it, so please leave me a review so that other people can love it too. Also, be sure to subscribe or follow, so that you don't miss an episode. That helps you and it helps me. So let's do it. Thank you so much. Thank you for being here. As always, I love you and stay authentic.
