In my last post, I shared the missing piece I often see when speaking with patients about gratitude and affirmation practices. If you missed it, check out the post here 🙂
The short and sweet version is that embodiment is often the missing, yet most important piece of any gratitude or affirmation practice. We can shift the mind all we want but if that’s not being translated down into the body, then you’re not changing your energetic vibration and you won’t see the changes you could potentially be seeing with the embodiment aspect!
Over time, an embodiment can come if people begin receiving positive feedback from their environment. Yet other times, it seems as if people are saying these affirmation mantras over and over in their minds but they’re not seeing any changes in their day to day lives. This may be happening due to conditioning that has to be uncovered first. The body must deal with the wounds that created the belief around control, self-doubt, judgment, unworthiness, you name it.
There are 3 main pillars I work with when helping my patients de-condition their minds – creating a center of stillness, obtaining awareness, and choice.
Let’s break each one of these down.
De-Condition Pillar One – Creating A Center of Stillness
We start here because of how many people actually know how to self soothe? I wasn’t taught this as a child; my parents didn’t know how to self soothe themselves. I saw alcohol, running away and sleeping as the coping mechanisms – not very healthy and not constructive to my growth as a human. This pattern of not knowing how to cope has been happening for generations in my family. I’ve found that a lot of people had a similar experience. They see the destruction, they want to get out of it, but they don’t know how to. This is where I can help. I spend time working with people to find what they personally need in order to feel better, without the use of any other person, place or thing – empowering right?!
By having a center of stillness one can go to when triggered allows the second pillar to come through. An aside on the definition of triggered – any strong emotional reaction that creates stress, upset, the dis-ease of the body, it doesn’t have to be extreme.
De-Condition Pillar Two – Obtaining awareness
This can only happen when we’re in a calm enough state to create a vantage point on the stories playing out in our lives. Having a vantage point is exactly what obtaining awareness looks like. It’s the explanation in our minds of why we do the things that we do.
Active meditation and balancing the autonomic nervous system is a way to start gaining more and more aware of these patterns within us. I know what you’re thinking… meditation is too boring, too hard, and I’m just not doing it. I get it. I’ve thought the same thing. But when I started an active meditation practice, my thoughts changed. I was actually meditating and it wasn’t boring, it wasn’t super hard, and I actually looked forward to doing it. Yup – I LOOKED FORWARD TO IT!
Download this “How to Guide” for a step by step explanation of active meditation/balancing the autonomic nervous system in the way that I practice and teach my patients to practice. It’s only 2 minutes per day – and it’s powerful AF.
De-Condition Pillar Three – Choice
Once we become aware of the patterns playing out, we’re able to choose if we want to continue listening to them or if we want to act in a different way. This is the hard part. This is where change happens and you have the ability to become the person you are longing to be.
Sometimes it’s easy but other times you know that you could choose to use the tools in your toolbox but you just don’t want to. I want you to know, that’s 100% okay.
The goal is not to be perfect. The goal is to be okay with yourself no matter what stage of healing you are in.
If you’re stuck in an old pattern, and you want to stay there because it’s easier – stay there, surrender to it, realize that it’s what you’re choosing, and love yourself anyway. I’ve found that once we surrender to where we are and take ownership, we take back our power.
Let me know your thoughts regarding how to de-condition your mind in the comments below!
Meet the Author
Hi, my name is Sarah. I am a naturopathic doctor, reiki master, and intuitive empowerment coach. Through my naturopathic medicine internship, I began to realize that the body has a lot more to say than what I was conventionally trained to look for. I’ve found that the body stores many emotions, memories, and unhealed past events which all contribute to physical disease. I have a Bachelor of Biomedical Sciences and a Doctorate in Naturopathic Medicine. I love exploring the nearby forest preserves, and being outside, specifically in a forest. Learn more about me and read more of my work HERE. Check out my own site!
