When knowing something isn’t the same as knowing it.

My son was about five years old. I was lying on my bed. He was straddling mytorso, bouncing up and down on the bed and on me. Joy and silliness and boundless energy all wrapped up in one moment.

As I looked up at him, a knowing landed in my body in a way it had never landed before … there is nothing my son could do that would justify the things that happened to me when I was five years old. Absolutely nothing.

My son has always been high energy. Smart. Inquisitive. Always moving. Always making noise. Always seeking physical contact. Often exploring cause and effect. Easily bored. And not necessarily satisfied with rote explanations … for anything. I have been told he was a lot like me at that age.

Some years before that moment, in therapy, I had arrived at the intellectual awareness that I did not deserve the things that happened to me as a child. That it wasn’t my fault.

But it was another thing entirely for that knowledge to land in my body. It was like something I had been trying to come to terms with for years suddenly took root and anchored itself deeply within. A level of knowledge that meant I no longer had to try to convince my mind that it was true. I could now operate in the world from a different space. With less effort.

Have you ever struggled to take an action that you wanted to take?

Have you abandoned your best intentions when trying to create new habits or to change your habitual responses or patterned behaviors?

Have you charted a new course only to find yourself exhausted, depleted and demoralized (and back where you started)?

Have you beat yourself up for not having enough “willpower and discipline”?

Have you “known” something was true in your mind but could not seem to get that knowledge to translate into consistent action or a change in your own behavior?

The truth is that willpower is not an infinite resource. And it takes extraordinary energy to force your body to step forward again and again into a space it doesn’t feel safe to explore or expand into. Eventually, the body will contract back into the space(s) that feel safe and familiar, even if that isn’t what you actually desire for yourself.

Your mind’s logical understanding is not enough to sustain energy and action over time. And the truth is, the mind is just as likely to take you into space where you are ignoring your personal truth and well-being in favor of what you think you are “supposed” to want, do, believe, or achieve.

Depending on the depth and origin of the pattern you are trying to shift or the change you are trying to create, mindset may not be enough to get you there. Because there is a difference between knowing something in your mind and knowing it in your body.

And because your nervous system is doing its job and keeping you “safe” based on your own internal calibration, it will eventually interrupt any shift or expansion that is outside its current capacity.

If your nervous system believes that you cannot speak your full truth and be safe, you won’t.

If your nervous system believes that you aren’t allowed to take up space and ask for what you need and desire, you won’t.

If your nervous system believes you are safer making the same amount of money, or staying in the same relationship, or in the same job or business model, you will struggle to make changes even if you know they are to your benefit.

If your nervous system believes that you aren’t inherently worthy of more, it will operate from that space.

If your nervous system believes you have to show up in the world in a certain way in order to maintain your relationships, stepping into the full truth of who you are and your innate power and potential will be like Sisyphus rolling the boulder up the hill.

These beliefs are often not fully conscious. They are held within the body. And because they are invisible, we often do not realize that the biggest barrier between where we are and where we want to go isn’t so much “out there”. The call is coming from inside the house.

And when the nervous system pulls you back into “safety”, the contraction(s) can feel so jarring, that it might make you afraid to try again. Your mind might decide that you were stupid for trying or believing that something else
was possible.

And if you have been using your mind to try to “override” your body for a long enough period of time, you will have to restore your body’s well-being and energy before you can even attempt to begin again.

If you are charting a course into your future and you feel no resistance or disconnect between your body and your mind, that’s awesome! Keep going. If you feel like you are facing invisible resistance or if it feels like the parts of you are on completely different pages in terms of what you want or believe in your mind as compared to what your body can hold or sustain, exploring those disconnects and working to gently recalibrate your nervous system capacity to meet your desires could open up a field of possibility an ease you didn’t know was there.

Love,

Booth

p.s. Go here for more information on how somatic coaching can support you in stepping more fully into the life you desire. And if you feel a pull but aren’t sure if somatic coaching is right for you in this season, I would love to explore with you on a Discovery Call.