Courageous Conversations with Lionheart Coaching Co
Courageous Conversations with Lionheart Coaching Co
The Body Knows | Ep 049
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How often do we get caught up in the daily hustle and bustle, forgetting to check in with ourselves? If you're like me, the answer is all too often. Today, we'll uncover how our experiences, trauma, and emotions are held in our bodies, both energetically and physically, and how stress, anxiety, and depression can impact our overall well-being.
In this discussion, we explore the importance of genuine self-connection, asking questions that will help you identify your current emotions and needs. We'll talk about the crucial role emotions play and the need for giving our bodies rest. Sharing my personal experience with recurring 'low days,' we'll investigate the patterns in our emotional landscape, learn how to recognize them, and discuss steps towards healing and breaking these cycles.
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Listening to Your Body
Speaker 1We do hold our experiences, our trauma, our emotions in our bodies, energetically and physically. Welcome to courageous conversations with Lionheart Coaching Co. I'm your host, mandy Woodard, and my goal with this podcast is to empower you to own your story and to live courageously in your relationships, with your goals and any adventures you might go on, and especially in your healing and self-discovery journey. I want to show you what's possible through what I teach and share and through the stories of others. Alright, my friend, let's get started. Hey guys, welcome back to the podcast. It is episode 49 and it is December 5th, 2023.
Speaker 1I kind of giggled when I was thinking about the day that this would air and I realized that it's actually my due date with my second son. He will be 13 this Saturday because, yeah, no, he did not come on time. None of my kids came on time. They all made me wait for them. They were way too cozy in the womb and so he came, I guess, four days late, while he was born at 1 am on the 9th. So, but I'm excited to celebrate with him this weekend and I can't even believe that I have two teenagers in my house. It's not like you would imagine and I know I don't like to tell horror stories. I don't like to tell scary stories about having teenagers, because there's so much fun fun in it. There's things that you can do that you couldn't do when they were toddlers. But I would be lying if I didn't say that over the last couple of weeks, as I've been unpacking Christmas stuff and setting stuff out and seeing their little ornaments that they made with their pictures when they were little, it just I found myself in tears this past weekend because I just cannot even believe how fast time is going. But that's not really what we're here to talk about. Today's episode I'm actually going to talk to you about what is your body telling you and I know that I've kind of hit on this topic a few times, but it's come up a lot lately in conversation, and when that happens it usually is a sign that I need to share it with everybody. So it came up for me, it's come up in client sessions, it's come up in other conversations. So here we are. That's what we're going to talk about today.
Speaker 1Before I jump in, though, I did want to invite you to head over to my website. It go to lineheartcoachingcodecom and then click the contact me section. Make sure you're on my newsletter, my mailing list. I haven't sent one out in a little bit because I'm reconstructing some things, some things behind the scenes, but I will tell you that I have a free guided Reiki meditation that you will receive once you get on the mailing list. You'll get an email asking do you want to be on the mailing list? I do this double whammy check in because it will ensure that it doesn't go to junk or spam. So go and then you click approve to that and then you'll get another email with a link for the meditation.
Speaker 1And I've had a lot of responses on this meditation about how it's helped them really drop in and release some things. It's been the big one Releasing things they didn't realize they were holding on to. So I share that and it's like the perfect transition to go into our conversation today. So I don't know if you've ever heard of the book the Body Keep Score. I have it and I've looked through it many times, but it is a heavy read. It's like it's going to take me a little bit to get through it. I've had it for a couple years though, to be honest with you. But there are things within that that I talk about regularly with you guys when it comes to holding emotions in your body and the energy, the impact. I spent a whole episode talking about Boyoke, which is stuck energy, a few weeks ago, so maybe you want to go check that out.
Speaker 1But you know, as I was sitting here mapping out what to say and what all I wanted to share, I decided to look up the percentage of the population that is dealing with anxiety and depression, and it's literally half the population. Half the population, deals with anxiety and depression. And then I said, well, what about just stress? So I typed in stress and it's 55% is handling heavy amounts of stress every day. And I just I know how easy it is to get swept up in the stress of life, of daily life, and I also know that we need to implement some strategies to help us bring ourselves back down, because your body, it can't handle such high amounts of stress all the time. And so as I looked, I looked this number up and then I got to thinking you know what has happened?
Speaker 1And I do feel like a large part of it is we've gotten so far away from ourselves. We have become our cultured self versus our authentic self and with that we are wearing these masks. We are trying to be things that we just aren't. We're living lives that are stressing us out and wearing us down, and it's not even what we really want, or maybe it is, and you just need to make a few adjustments. Maybe you just need to shift a few things around. You need to cut off some relationships, you need to declutter your house, you need to evaluate the people you're surrounding yourself with.
Speaker 1I do think that that is a piece of it, but it's not the whole. It's not the whole thing that we have going on. But when we get so far away from ourselves and we get caught up in the noise of life, we don't hear the messages that our body is trying to tell us. And what we know, though, for sure, is that we do hold our experiences, our trauma, our emotions, in our bodies, energetically and physically. So your brain gets altered when you go through a trauma and it changes the way you operate. And in order to heal that and process that, there are many different ways, but I wanna talk to you today about releasing the emotions that are in your body and maybe even just getting to a point where you can practice listening and getting curious.
Speaker 1When something happens Like you keep getting a snuffy nose or you keep getting a sickness over and over again Maybe it's a cold there is something that you need to listen to, there's something you need to tap in and get curious about. It doesn't necessarily mean there's something majorly wrong. It's just that your body is going to tell you what you need to know. For example, I wanna share this story with you. I was listening to Caroline Miss, who I've spoken about many times. She's one of my favorite spiritual teachers, so definitely go look her up. She talks about the archetypes, though, and we all have a series of archetypes, and some of us a lot of us have the wounded child, and before she realized this, before she had that intuitive guidance on the archetypes and the window child, she was giving a talk somewhere and she was talking about having gotten sick multiple times. She kept getting whooping call, and someone in the audience spoke up and said why do you keep getting childlike illnesses? It was in that moment that it clicked for her that she had something from childhood that she needed to process and work through, because she kept getting these childlike illnesses, specifically around her throat area.
Speaker 1So when I say sickness over and over again. Sometimes, yeah, you're just getting sick and you need to get your immune system in check and do all the things to feed your body so that it can be well. Maybe you're not sleeping enough, eating right, getting the right supplements, but sometimes it is a matter of having things trapped in your energetic body, in your physical body, and it's coming out in that way. So when you start to notice something feeling off, that's a great time to get curious, and I do know that's not always easy, especially if you struggle to trust yourself or to trust your body. But there's one thing I know, and it's your body will know what it needs before you do Like, for example, sometimes we don't realize how hungry we are until our belly is growing like crazy. We don't realize how tired we are until we sit down for a minute, and then it's like, oh my gosh, I'm so exhausted I don't want to get up. Or how much we needed the freedom to move until after you've started dancing, and then it's like, wow, I really needed that.
Body and Emotion Check-In
Speaker 1Your body always knows before you do and it's always talking to you, just as your intuition is. We just need to get quiet long enough to listen. When was the last time you slowed down long enough to do a full body check-in where we can intuitively ask ourselves what we need or what needs released. Sometimes you don't know why. Sometimes you need to release something, but you're not. You don't really know why or where it's from, and that's okay. You don't always have to know in order to process something or to let something go, but we do have to feel it to heal it. I love that phrase feel it to heal it.
Speaker 1So do a little check-in and see what comes up. Maybe you can even do this right now with me for a moment. In fact, why don't I go ahead and just ask some questions and, if you feel safe and like you want to, you can go through and answer them in your head too. You don't necessarily have to write anything down. So, okay, let's do this.
Speaker 1How do you feel right now? Do you notice if there's an immediate need? Are you tired, hungry? Maybe you need some movement? Do you feel heavy or contracted, closed off, closed fists? Do you feel hot or cold in any area or any particular spot? Do you notice any pain? What emotions do you have coming up at the moment? Can you breathe into the parts of you that need some attention. Maybe send a little light and a little love to those spaces. So, just as you're sitting here and hearing these questions, notice anywhere in your body where you might feel a little bit of stuck energy or that heaviness, or notice anything at all, and as you check in, can you ask what those spaces need from you?
Speaker 1Maybe you just need to let yourself cry for a bit. Maybe you need to go for a walk. Sometimes we just need connection and a hug from someone. Maybe we need to take some time to journal about it. But I do know this the opposite of repressing is expressing. So when we repress our emotions and they stay stuck in our bodies, it can literally make us sick, and chances are. If you're feeling anxious, if you're feeling depressed, if you're feeling stressed out, it's because there's some stuff stuck in there that needs to get out. And expressing it doesn't always have to be in the form of talking about it or crying or any of those things. It can be in the form of art, it can be in the form of creation, expressing yourself in whatever way you see fit, and then the next thing that you're gonna wanna do for yourself is allow for some rest.
Speaker 1We need to be able to hit the reset button more than we do. We don't let ourselves reset enough, we don't go to bed on time. And do you know, actually it is so vital to get to bed before 10 pm. I do tell all my clients this when we talk about routine, it's because your body's natural melatonin for one releases between 10 pm and 2 am and if you miss the window you'll notice, you'll get like that second wind and then you'll be hyper or wired or you can't fall asleep. So being in bed and ready for sleep by 10 is super important. But it also is important because at each hour of the night, like in the wee hours, your brain is emptying out information from the day before. It's like going into the storage system and if you're not asleep and it can't do that, then your brain can't fully reset for the next day. So that's on a day to day.
Speaker 1But also we need winter. We need to be able to go into winter and have that inner winter. A lot of times we think in the winter time we get, um, we get the what's it called the blues, the winter blues, and I think a lot of times it can be true, it depends, I believe, on your upbringing, and if you had, if you had, a hard childhood. I also think the lack of vitamin D plays a factor here. But uh, for the most part, we need winter. We need that opportunity to slow down and really allow our bodies to go into full rest, full rest mode, so that we can emerge in the spring, or even maybe before the spring, and have these new beautiful leaves and flowers to show, so to speak.
Speaker 1The other thing I want to say about getting curious and into your body is something else you can start to do is take note when you are feeling a certain way in the moment and begin to piece together an outline of timing, so like, if you notice that you feel low or in a low maybe, keep record of it, keep a journal and after so much time you could kind of lay it out on a timeline and see if you notice a pattern, because we do operate in cycles. Our body also remembers things from the past and that's when we really will start to feel it. It's like if something happened a certain time of year or even a certain time of the week, your body remembers that, it's registered it, so you may notice there is a repeat cycle of something happening around that same time and as soon as you can get curious on it and start to dive into that, you can then start to feel your way through it so that you can heal it and maybe even disrupt that pattern of whatever is happening. I will tell you. For example, I notice that if I'm going to have a low day, chances are it's going to be on a Sunday, and I actually really noticed this pattern when I was pregnant with my daughter. But it has carried through, even as recent as this past Sunday. So I have not fully worked my way through. You know, we heal in layers. I've healed layers and layers and layers of this part of me and we don't get to decide when the healing is done. We don't get to say, okay, that's it, I'm good now. I mean you can, chances are, if it's not done, you're going to know it. So Sundays seem to be the day for me and I know why. I think I'm still processing a good bit of it.
Speaker 1But the other time period for me is the week between Christmas and New Year's, and I do hear a lot that people share this with me, like I'm not alone in that time period where it just feels Ugh, but see, for me, I know what's going on. I totally get it now as an adult. And so my birthday is December 30th and I am a child of divorce and there were just so many different years where that time was so hard for one reason or another. Maybe because I was alone, because I had a single mom who was working, and then my sister would go with her dad, my brother would go out and do his thing, so I'd be alone in that time period, which now sounds like a dream. No, I'm just kidding. As a child it wasn't fun to be alone at that point. Or I had to go with my dad and I missed my mom, but I also missed my dad. So it's like this tug and pull. There's so many different things that would happen in that time period and it's stuck with me. It really feels like it's stuck with me and I have been working year after year to shift and to change that so that it doesn't have to feel so hard every year, and I've built up this toolbox. Last year wasn't so bad at all, honestly.
Speaker 1So anyways, usually if there's a point in time when things feel hard, it probably points back to a season of your life that didn't feel so good, and typically that's in childhood. So our option at that point is to feel it so that we can get through it, because the only way out of something, the only way past it, is to work through it. Now I share all this with you because I just wanted to kind of have this conversation and also encourage you to take care of yourself and to listen to your body. We want to not ignore the messages and the things that it's telling us, your intuition, especially getting out of your head and into your gut and really being able to listen to what it is you need to hear, and just keep honoring it over and over and over again. Continue to honor it.
Speaker 1Okay, my friend, this is a shorter episode today and I hope you're okay with that. It is kind of a crazy time of year, so to be able to do the podcast at all, I'm really making sure that I'm making it a priority. I hate when I don't get to get my episodes out, but even if that means a shorter one, I think that's okay. But I hope you're doing well. I hope you're taking care of yourself this holiday season and until next time, please remember you are loved, you are valued, and you are valued and you are appreciated. Bye now.
