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3 Tips for Cultivating Witness Versus Wallow Consciousness

Recently I noticed myself wallowing in some feelings of sadness. The sadness was brought on by me comparing myself to a woman who I was perceiving as more successful than I. As a result I was actively self deprecating and feeling inadequate. Yes, I confess that sometimes I do let comparing myself to others get me down, and it can be a real drag. Fortunately lately I’ve had the insight and awareness to witness what’s happening instead of let myself be pummeled by the self pity that often in the past would ensue. Though I still felt the sadness, I was also able to be with it in a way that allowed me to honor my feelings instead of be a victim to them.

Here are 3 practices that I use to get me into the witness and out of the wallower.

1. Feeling & Sensing; Notice your feelings and their corresponding sensations instead of the narrative in your mind that justifies the feeling. Letting go of the story and being a witness to sensation and feeling, brings you to truth that empowers you instead of story that debilitates you.

2. Be Self Referencing: Acknowledge self referring vs external referring behavior. Are your choices motivated by your inner preferences or by outside standards? Witness your tendency towards one or the other to identify whether you are living and choosing authentically for you.

3. Take Responsibility: Do you take responsibility for your life or do your tend to blame people or circumstances outside yourself. Witnessing why things are the way they are, with you as the director and the producer of your life, not just the lead actor, will encourage “yummy” way quicker than the victim “yucky” experience of your life’s dramas.

The cultivation of witness consciousness is an ongoing practice. We have to stalk the wallowing tendencies and be gentle when we find them, witnessing even that with a loving “ah so”, and choose to dance in the light of the witness helping to dismantle the darkness of the wallower.

Leela Francis is the founder of Vividly Woman. An embodiment Expert, facilitator and coach, she inspires the values of the divine feminine in work and in play.

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Ignite Your Embodied Power – Step One

The first step to igniting your embodied power is distinguishing between feelings, thoughts and sensations.

So first of all, when I say feelings I’m talking about your emotions, like happiness, sadness, anger, joy, etc.
When I say thoughts I’m talking about the thougths that you think. For every emotion there is a corresponsding thought that goes with it, for instance, I’m happy because I finished work early enough to go for a walk. The thought is everything that comes after the because.

When I say sensations, I mean the felt sense experience of your body, the language of your body. For every emotion there is a corresponsding sensation. For instance, I’m sad and I sense it as a heaviness in my chest.

Most of our states of being arise in conscious awareness as emotions. We notice an emotional change and typically go directly to the thoughts that justify those emotions. The problem with that is that your emotions are amazing sources of power. This is especially so for women. Women are profoundly guided and motivated by our empathy and our emotional awareness. We’ve all heard the story of the mother lifting the car off her child’s body. So to go from our emotions directly into our head and our thoughts causes an immediate disconnect, a cutting off of this infinite source of power that is our emotions. Instead what we could do to harness that emotional power, is go to the body sensation that corresponds to the emotion.

When I take you to steps 2 and 3 we’ll look at that more closely, but for now I just want you to start to pay attention to these 3 distinctive dimensions of your being, your feelings, your thoughts and your sensations.

The easiest way to get into this habit is to go to your journal or a note book and take 3 pages. At the top of one write “I feel”, at the top of the next one write “I sense”, and the top of the next one write “I think”. And as often as you can, when you notice a feeling arise, go to your journal and record the 2 other states of being that correspond. To that feeling.

This very simple distinction has made a huge difference in my life. I’m an emotionally passionate woman, I celebrate my emotions, and now that I know the difference between my feelings thoughts and sensations I can tap into the power of my emotions instead of over ride them with my thoughts. And you’ll understand this for yourself as we move forward over the next few weeks.

So practice this distinction exercise for a week or so and we’ll re-connect with the second step to ignite your embodied power which will start to put this in context for you.

Until next we connect be well and make love to your life!
Namaste,
Leela

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