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Let Your Body Lead – A Movement Practice for Feeling with Jennifer England
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[00:00:00] Recently I talked with therapist, an ever curious human and author of Already Enough, Lisa Olivera Vera, and we were talking about how to befriend what we really don't wanna feel and how to do that so that we can experience more aliveness in our lives. And also to be present with everything that's happening and instead of avoiding or numbing or bypassing the difficult things, especially pain, physical or emotional. Lisa encourages us to listen more closely and she reminds us that feeling doesn't have to be something we need to figure out or analyze.
But something that we can sense into experience and even move with. So here's a simple practice to take into your week, and it's a movement practice. [00:01:00] So when you catch yourself in a moment, when you're feeling something really strongly. And it could be your exhaustion, your broken heartedness, your anger, or even confusion or numbness, like you don't feel anything at all.
I want to invite you to just notice what you're feeling in your body. See if you can track sensation, like is there nervous butterflies in your stomach? Is there tightness in your jaw or constriction in your chest? Is there kind of an electric feeling in your legs or another part of your body?
I want you just to see if you can notice the difference between sensation in your body, the physical felt sense, the emotion or the feeling that you're naming it, and then the [00:02:00] story or the thoughts that accompany it. And what I want you to notice is that this is a really strong feedback loop. The loop between sensation, the name, we give the sensations, and then stories we tell to ourselves.
And sometimes, it's super hard to do in the moment, but what I understand and know to be true for myself. Is that the more I tell a story, the more the sensations intensify, and there could be this sort of ratcheting up feedback loop that sometimes keeps me unable to access the true wisdom of what I'm feeling.
So instead of fueling the thinking mind, see what happens when you sink into movement. So to prepare, you're gonna need a few uninterrupted minutes, or even maybe interrupted minutes. Maybe your kids or partner or friends might join you and a song, any song that you feel drawn to, and I'd [00:03:00] suggest something that mirrors the tone or the intensity of what you're feeling.
It doesn't need to be calm or uplifting. It can be punk, angry, ragey, feisty music. But the point is that you're drawn to a song or some music that meets you where you are.
So whenever you're ready, you press, play on your song, and you simply allow your body to move in response to the music. Don't overthink it. You're not performing, you're not doing it right. You're not trying to look cool. This is simply a private, deeply alive moment between you and your feeling body.
And you might just wanna lie still on the floor and breathe with a hand on your body. Or you might just wanna move a little bit, sway your head, move your hips gently sway. Or you might wanna just shake it out and jump up and down and sort [00:04:00] of slowly let your body rev and express to move the energy in your body.
So know that whatever your body feels inclined to do is the wisdom. And I want to encourage you to just notice any impulse towards movement, and then to stay with it and follow it.
My hunch is that by moving and being in a somatic conversation, you could call it with your body, that your thinking mind is gonna soften. And your body and the sensations are going to have some freedom to move and a movement practice, whether big or small, can happen alone in your bedroom with your kids in the kitchen, or even with your dog, or your cat, or your sheep or your fish, whatever, more than human creature that might live with you.
You can practice it [00:05:00] even in a collective. And the idea here is that when we feel stuck in these feedback loops between our mind, our thoughts, and the sensations in our body and the emotion, the name, we give the sensation. When we get stuck in that and we feel cut off from the wisdom of our body, we can invite in movement to help us move and feel and sense in.
And what this helps us do is stay in relationship with what's most true. And it's a small and powerful way to grow. I. Our fluency and feeling by letting our bodies lead. And the benefit of this practice is that you return to feeling as a source of wisdom rather than running away from it.
So if you play with this practice, remember it's an experiment. You don't have to be a dancer of any kind. You don't have to have any formal training. You don't even [00:06:00] have to call yourself a living room dancer This is allowing your body to lead and your feelings to lead
where the feelings don't, rule you, but they invite you to deeper knowing.
Jennifer: A few final words about practice. Practice is different than a tool or a technique or simply a mindset shift practice is like an ecosystem unto itself. It's more like a world that invites your playful curiosity. It invites you to pay attention differently.
What can you learn, see, feel, sense from a new doing, a new action? What you'll experience will be different than me or a friend who does the same practice. It's experimental. It's designed to be fresh and alive, dynamic, and [00:07:00] relat. And what I emphasize is practice is a gift of learning from your own direct experience, not from experts, coaches, sages, teachers, but from you.
Practice centers, you as the awake, and attuned one that you already are. Practice is the invitation.
And direct experience is your greatest teacher. I'm Jennifer England. Thanks for practicing and being on this journey on the tension of emergence