March 15, 2024 • 32 mins
Ever noticed how changing your body posture can instantly shift your thinking, speaking, listening, and/or your current emotion or mood?
Many of us move through our days on autopilot, letting old habits dictate our actions, emotions, thoughts and our ability to communicate. It's easy to feel like we’re not choosing, we’re just going through the motions without making real progress towards our goals and dreams.
In this episode, we’ll explore the third and final circle—our body, or biology. We'll unpack the concept of "embodied habits" and see how our daily actions, even the smallest ones, are rooted in deeply ingrained patterns. But it's not just about recognizing these embodied habits, it's about understanding how to change them to new habits that work better for us!
You'll learn about a groundbreaking framework called “The Five Rings Model” by Dr. Stuart Heller that reveals how our typical body disposition - our posture and movements - can lock us into certain emotional states and behaviors, and how adding other dispositions to our daily repertoire can lead us to a more fulfilled and authentic life.
I'll share personal stories and insights on how recognizing and altering my own embodied habits has led to significant changes in how I think, feel, and act.
Tune in to discover practical tips and exercises to start noticing and changing your own stubborn, entrenched habits that don’t work for you for personal growth.
- Mark
Let’s connect:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markrobertsonpcc
Email: mark@coachmark.com
Website: www.coachmark.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Mark Robertson (00:00):
Welcome to Wake Up and Pay Attention. The
(00:02):
podcast fueling positive changefrom the inside out. I'm Mark
Robertson, your host. With over25 years as a professional
coach, I'm thrilled to explorethe personal growth tools that
have helped me and hundreds ofpeople just like you design and
awaken to their best life. Ifyou've ever felt overwhelmed and
unfulfilled, like you're justgoing through the motions day
(00:23):
after day, maybe you're afraidone day all the balls are going
to drop, you're in the rightplace.
Together, let's expand our selfawareness and make sustainable
shifts that improve ourcommunication skills,
relationships, and overall wellbeing. This is a judgment free
zone where openness,understanding, and support rule.
(00:44):
So grab your headphones and getready, it's time to wake up and
pay attention. Hello, everyone,and welcome to Episode 5 of Wake
Up and Pay Attention. I'mexcited about continuing this
journey with you today. Andgetting into things today.
Before I dive into the topic,which today's topic will
actually be the third circle ofthe three circles, we've been
(01:07):
talking about the body or ourbiology. I want to say once
again, thank you for thecontinued feedback, it's been
incredible continues to beincredible. So keep it coming in
whatever way you have text,email, phone calls, I've heard
from a lot of folks so both alot of positive feedback and
some constructive feedback. Andso just keep it coming, love to
(01:31):
hear it.
I want to touch on theconstructive a little bit in
this sense. Why is feedbackimportant in our lives. It's
really been helpful to receivesome of those suggestions.
Because I'll harken back tosomething that I covered. I
think in the second episodearound the language claims,
which is one of the languageclaims is you can't change what
(01:52):
you don't see, you can't changewhat you don't see. And so
that's really the value offeedback in our lives is, again,
they're just sometimes aspectsof ourselves that we can't see.
And so those who are willing andcourageous enough to give us
feedback are really helpful inthat regard. And so I've gotten
some great suggestions on thingsto add or things to change that
(02:14):
would make the podcast better.
And so things that I literallydidn't see or don't know yet
And so today we'll touch on thefinal circle our body, or
about doing this that werereally helpful. So again, keep
that coming. To dive into today,I'll start where I seem to be
biology. And what I want tocover today will be first I
landing on starting, which iswhere are we headed today. As I
really want to talk about,there's the temporary coherence
mentioned, we today's episode,we'll continue to deconstruct
(02:36):
the observer that you are thatwe've been talking about flexing
of those three that goestogether in the moment of
the big eye muscle. So noticingthe smaller observer that you
are, which are the three circlesremember, language, emotion, and
language, emotion, and body. Butmore importantly, in the
body.
coaching, where I really work alot with my clients, especially
(03:03):
when they're stuck or wanting tomake change in an area they've
struggled to, is on the morehabitual coherence of those three.
So the patterned ways over time,and particularly the habits that
(03:25):
they built in their life tobecome the observer that they
are. The habits of thinking,feeling, and moving or acting.
So those are the three circlesin action. That your way of
being. When I think body, Iimmediately think habits. And
we'll talk about that today aswell. So the second thing that
we'll look at or what I callembodied habits and the power of
(03:48):
those and I'll give you someexamples and from my life and
show you the power of ourhabits.
And then the last piece will beto touch on a framework or model
at a really high level that themost influential body coach or
somatic coach that I've ever hadin my life through this journey
Stuart Heller has given to meand our work together. So I want
(04:10):
to give you a high level senseof that which might equipped you
with some tools at that point tobegin noticing your body
different and begin working withit if you so choose.
So to get started, remember thatwe have the three circles
language, emotion, and body. AndI want to reiterate the message
that when you change one, you atleast temporarily change the
(04:34):
other two. So when you changeyour thinking, your internal
conversation or how you speakout loud, at least temporarily
you will shift your emotionalstate and you will shift your
body. We all already sort ofnaturally and intuitively do
this. But I just want tore-emphasize the power of that
in terms of what we're doinghere which is trying to create
(04:56):
change or growth or learning.
What we do is we end up noticingand then we choose to practice
(05:31):
differently in any of thoseareas, and you often will start
When I was in high school, welived in Altus, Oklahoma, like I
told you, my dad was in themilitary, he was in the Air
Force. So we went out to AirForce Base. And I remember this
vividly, one day, we were in myfriend Mark's house. So
interestingly enough, I had twoother friends. And they were
named Mark and Mark. And so itwas often a joke, at that time,
(05:55):
like a hair, lip, dog, Mark,Mark, Mark. But anyway, we were
in Mark Wilson's house. And Iremember being in his living
room was the three of us where Iwas like standing in line. And
to see an immediate temporaryshift in those. So let's talk
his mother said to me, lookeddirectly at me and said, hold
your shoulders up. And I waslike, what? I was like I do.
And then I looked at, I noticedI don't she was, she didn't say
(06:15):
much more, I may have saidsomething. But it was like she
had noticed that I tended toslouch. And I didn't even notice
that about myself. But it wasrepresentative of that coherence
that I'm talking about. Mycoherence at 16 or 17 years old,
it was already taking shape. Andshe saw it in my body or
posture, had all three of thosecomponents. So I'll talk about
(06:35):
about that. I think the firstthing that I want to talk about
those now. What was the languagecomponent? I, on some level
later identified that I lived inan internal conversation of
there's something wrong with me.And I think I alluded to that in
an earlier episode.
So that private conversation waspowerful for me. Until
logically, we call that I had amaster assessment or judgment
(06:58):
about myself, much like a whatwe would call a core belief that
was driving all the otherbeliefs in my life and driving a
lot of my thinking, which wasthat there was something wrong
with me. You can imagine thenthat the emotion that went along
is not so much the temporaryshift and those which can happen
with this was like a mood ofinadequacy, or hesitation in my
life, I would say that at thattime, I lacked self worth self
(07:19):
confidence. And that was thecorresponding emotional state
that I lived my life in.
And then the body that went withit was what she commented on, I
had slouch, rounded shoulders.In a way my chest was closed, of
sort of curving back upon myselfand I lived that way in life. I
(07:40):
held myself back, I washesitant. In fact, it literally
quite a bit. But it's reallymore the habitual, embodied,
showed up in a lot in school.And in other areas of my life, I
just didn't speak, I was veryquiet. Just kind of funny now,
because some of my friends wouldsay it's hard to shut me up at
times, I became, I think, alearned introvert due to that
(08:00):
relationship with my father andbeing what I felt was being made
wrong or judged and validatedall the time, I learned to be
quiet, that was safe.
Whereas now I realize I'm prettymuch a natural extrovert, and
long term observer that we'dbecome over time, the way our
draw energy from being withpeople, being in conversation,
engaging, so much more vocalthese days. But then, that body
(08:23):
went with that language and thatemotion. And so that's what I
want you to understand withregard to that became my day in
day out long term coherence, thehabitual observer that I was. So
I want to shift gears now in thesecond part, and really talk
about, as I mentioned earlier,when we think of the body, I
immediately think of the wordhabits.
(08:43):
way of being starts to settle inand take shape over time. And
And so I call them a lot thesedays, when I work with my
clients, embodied habits, howdeeply embodied or deeply
entrenched are your habits inlife. And what I mean by that is
literally not just habits fromthe actions that you take, but
habits of all three of thesecircles, how habitual or
(09:05):
entrenched have you become, inyour beliefs, your internal
conversation, your thinkingabout yourself and others in the
world. You're speaking willbecome very habitual. What are
I'll start with a story.
the habits of the emotions thatyou tend to live in? And the
body? So body specifically, likehow do you sit? Typically, how
do you stand typically, what'syour posture? How do you move?
(09:29):
I think we all know that when welook at other people in life,
So much so that some morningsyou almost gotten your car you
they move differently than wedo. And that can become very
habitual. There's a saying evenin our culture, humans are
creatures of habit. I think manyof us understand it from that
language. So when I saycreatures of habit, what do I
mean? Think about it. Do youdrive? In the same way when
(09:50):
you're going somewhere, do youdrive the same route over and
over back when we used to go tooffices for work? Did you drive
to work the same way every day?
started and then all of a suddenyou were pulling in the parking
lot and you don't realize howyou got there. Like your body
drove you there. Your habitsdrove you there. Where do you
(10:11):
tend to sit? Many of us in ourhome sit in the same places,
I've got my chair, that's mylocation, we tend to sit by the
same people. When we're in groupsettings, we become habitual.
Another phrase for this, I thinkis we call it that people
understand is that's our comfortzone. So our habits have us
(10:32):
become very comfortable. But howdo we build habits.
So this is at the essence of mywork as an executive coach,
because a lot of times we'retrying to change old habits, or
what I like to I got this fromStuart Heller, and have
uninstalled the old habits. Sowe want to examine them. And
then notice the parts that wewant to keep or preserve. And
(10:54):
then the parts that we want tochange, we almost have to put
her arm around them, makefriends with them first and say
thank you for serving me andit's time to go so that I can
construct a new habit.
One fundamental way that you'vealready heard me mentioned, what
does that mean for human beings,it means you're going to have to
take on new learning, in orderto build new habits. And so I
(11:16):
like the simple definition,again of learning is time and
practice. So that means thatover some period of time, I'm
going to have to start topractice new ways of thinking
and speaking language, new waysof living in certain emotions
and moods, that's the emotionalcircle. And new ways of moving
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and engaging my body in waysthat will start to create
learning and a new way of being.
So that's what I mean byembodied habits. There's another
saying, like, be careful whatyou practice. That's what you'd
become. Okay. And so a few morepoints about embodied habits, I
have found that our habits havegreat power. Stewart, I think
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says this a lot, or at leastthis is what I've heard from
him. In many ways our habits arechoosing, we're not choosing,
our habits are so embodied andtrashed or ingrained, we've
practiced them over and overagain, that they're driving us
more than we're actuallyactively paying attention and
choosing in that moment.
In fact, there's research from aneuroscience standpoint, many of
(12:22):
you have probably heard thisthat the more we practice
something, the more it becomes agroove or a rut in the synaptic
connections of our brain, themore electrical impulses travel
down that route over and overagain. I almost think of it as
grooves or ruts in our brain ina way that it begins to wire our
(12:45):
brain, and wire our way ofbeing.
And so again, learning or growthor change is rewiring. And we're
learning a ton more, and I'm notan expert here. But it's we're
literally learning to rewire ourbrain. And I wonder even in this
moment, if any sort ofsignificant habit change means
we've also rewired our brain.So, just some things to think
(13:09):
about. What do I mean by ourhabits have great power. I'll
give you another story. Iremember back years ago, there
was the time when I was in gradschool, and I came back in I
lived in an apartment onFairfax, for several years while
I was in grad school. So my bodygot used to going and coming
from that apartment driving acertain way as I mentioned
And then had a friend who wasgetting married, and he offered
earlier.
(13:34):
for me to live in his condo, andso I moved into his condo, it
happened to be one street overon Clint Avenue. Funny thing
happened after I moved into hiscondo for a few weeks. This
literally happened several timesas I was driving home from
somewhere. I drove instead to myold apartment one street over
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and didn't even realize it. Iwas pulling into the parking
lot. And parking when Irealized, oh, I don't even live
here anymore. So how did thathappen? Literally my body, the
habits were choosing the drivinginstead of me.
And so I want you to see that.We are very habitual. I think
there's so many ways in whichour body is driven by habit.
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Think about like you brush yourteeth the same way. Have you
ever tried brushing your teethwith the opposite hand? It's
weird. It's uncomfortable. Weshower, we towel off much the
same way. They're just aplethora of habits. So I'm
asking you to begin to noticewhat are your embodied habits?
Are they working for you or notworking for you? In addition,
(14:38):
what I'll say is that if youchoose to undergo growth or
learning in any area, thatchange is going to take time and
practice.
So what I would invite you to dois make sure that you're patient
with yourself. Usually we can'tchange these overnight,
especially if it's deeplyentrenched and you've been doing
it for decades. And in addition,if it's developmentally a medium
(15:02):
or difficult change, you'regoing to have to be patient in
your practice, there will bemissed steps, a couple steps
forward one step back, you mayhave to redesign some of those
practices, but we got to bepatient with ourselves.
And also, I think inorganizational settings, I've
talked with leaders about if youwant your people to change their
behavior, you've really got tobe patient with them as they go
(15:26):
about changing this. And you'vegot to support them in some
manner. Either you support themor find other ways to support
them as they go through theprocess. Because you're really
asking them to get out of theircomfort zone again and again,
until the new habit becomescomfortable and replaces that.
So the last thing I'll say as itrelates to embodied habits is I
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think many of us stay insituations, relationships, jobs,
other situations where we'resuffering. We intellectually
logically know we're suffering,but we don't get out because our
body is comfortable, our bodyknows what it feels like. And it
stays there. Because trying tochange that would be too
(16:10):
uncomfortable.
Sometimes when we do undertakechange, initially, we don't have
a lot of success, or we don't doit perfectly. So we retreat back
to what is known the old habit,what's comfortable. In many ways
that change and retreat backthen areas that aren't that
significant. But if you thinkabout it, in damaging
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relationships, jobs where we'rereside, and miserable, when we
retreat back, we're continuingto stay in that situation and
suffer and trap ourselves.
So that's the notion I'd like totalk about with embodied habits.
The last piece, in today'spodcast I would like to talk
about is with regard to thesomatic work or body work that
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I've done with Stuart Heller. AsI said, already, he's been the
most influential coach for me inthis area. And so let me tell
you how that happened. Backyears ago, when I was going
through education from living,which I mentioned on the first
podcast, which was where I wasexposed to the ontological
distinction, they offered a bodyworkshop or a body course. And I
took it with Stuart down inBaton Rouge, Louisiana.
(17:15):
And one of the most strikingexercises that he had us do,
that landed on me was, he washaving all of us as participants
walk around in an oval, or acircle almost, and just keep
walking, we're trying to visitdifferent emotions. So remember,
language, emotion, body, they'reconnected. So we were exploring
(17:37):
and having fun visitingdifferent emotions. There were a
range of different emotions. Andwe were having fun moving in and
out of those and experiencingthose, like taking on the body
of those emotions. And what Inoticed for myself was, when he
asked us to do the emotion ofhappy, it was really hard for me
to access it. And even if I wasable to, I couldn't stay there
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longer than a second or two. Itwas weird. I was like, wow, why
can't I visit happiness? What isgoing on here?
And I remember later in thecourse, I was sharing with him
my experience that all theseother emotions I kind of knew I
was familiar with, but happinessI couldn't get to. And he
coached me, he brought me up infront of the room, and he
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coached me. And what I rememberis he basically was like, stand
how you normally stand, and Itend to stand with one foot back
behind me, and I kind of leanedback, as I mentioned to you
earlier. And he had me literallyjust tried goes, okay, move
forward, bring your chest up,open your chest up, put yourself
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on your front foot. And he said,imagine holding a beach ball,
like your arms are out in frontof you, and you're holding a
beach ball. So I did that. AndI'm not kidding. The moment I
did that I was moved forward,chest up. And I held the beach
bar, I broke into an immediatesmile. It was shocking. It was
stunning. It's I couldn't helpbut smile. And I was like, wow,
(19:03):
what happened. And then he hadme moved back again to my
typical place. And thathappiness went away. It moved.
I remember I settled intosadness, amazingly. And I'll
tell you now, we were standingreally close when he looked at
me and he said, you're notmessed up. There's nothing wrong
with you. And I literallystarted to lose it. Because he
(19:26):
tapped into that coherence thatI was talking about. Earlier of
that master assessment, there'ssomething wrong with me. And he
let me stay there for a minute.And then he said, okay, now move
back forward, where you werelike you're holding the beach
ball. And I did. And thatsadness went away.
It passed. And the happinessstarted to come back. It was
(19:48):
extraordinary. But one of thetakeaways I had from it was, oh,
this emotion of sadness thatI've often visited in my life
isn't permanent. It doesn't haveto stay there. I can begin to
learn how to be more happyliving happiness more often was
amazing. And literally from thatpoint forward, for a while I was
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trying to open up my chest andhold myself up more, so much
that I've retreated back to whatwas familiar and comfortable my
old coherence even within thatcourse, so much so that a few
hours later, he looked at me andsaid, hey, Mark, hold your chest
up, open your chest up. I hadliterally just fallen back into
that without even noticing.
(20:29):
I had already spent 27 or 28years in the other posture, so
it was gonna take a while. Solet me talk to you a little bit
about what I realized later,what's happening. I ended up
doing another body course withStuart years later, and also had
(20:53):
him work with me one on one on acouple of different occasions,
over 15 or 20 years. And in theprocess, I learned what I call
and I think he still calls ithis five rings model.
He may call it somethingdifferent these days but it
essentially is a framework inthe way I like to think about it
as if you've ever hunted andyou've had a rifle and you're
looking at scope, are youlooking at binoculars scope,
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there's crosshairs. So it's thephrase, I think of what is that
it's a circle, as divided by avertical line and a horizontal
line, split them evenly. So youhave four quadrants, and then
you have where the crosshairsmeet, which is the fifth spot.
So you can think of as rings thefive rings model.
And the way it works is that soin the center where the
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crosshairs are is what he calls,I think space, I think of it as
sort of neutral and center, whenyour body's in the neutral or
center position. Everything tothe right of the vertical axis
is called forward or front,those two positions in and
behind the vertical axis isback. If you look at the
horizontal axis, everythingabove is up, those two positions
(22:00):
are up and the other twopositions are down.
And so the meaning of those fourcreates different body
dispositions. And I won't gointo it too deeply. Today, I
just want to give you enough tounderstand what the work he did
with me. But he used theelements for these. So that top
right quadrant, which is forwardand up is called fire, that's
(22:21):
fire. The bottom right quadrant,forward and down is ground. The
back, back and down, bottom leftquadrant is water. And then the
back and up position is wind. Soyou've got firewater, wind and
(22:41):
ground, you've got the fourelements and then neutral. I
love that framework, because itcan remember that.
And so we literally are talkingabout moving your center of
gravity forward or back and thenup or down in your body. So it's
sitting standing moving withthat orientation creates four
(23:01):
different body dispositions. Andfrom that, you literally can say
or feel different things.Remember the coherence language,
emotion, body, you experiencedifferent emotions. And you can
say or you think, or you speakdifferently from each of those.
Fact I would say whateverdisposition you're in, the other
ways of feeling and thinkingaren't even available. That's
(23:24):
the power and a lot of some ofthe work that I do in my
coaching.
So what I noticed was for me wasthat the coaching Stewart did
for me was I tended to live inback and down, which is water.
And so that takes the shape ofkind of a concave body. If you
think of the tides come in, theygo out, they come in, they go
(23:46):
out. So that was great for me.It has interesting emotional
states that go with it, the sortof positive version, when you're
back and down and do life a lotin that is your open. It makes
for great listening. It's partof what has made me a great
coach. I think that negativeemotion, though that can show up
and that is afraid, is fear.
(24:08):
And so that it was a predominantmotion that I lived in a lot in
my life with regard to my dad.And so it made sense to me
finally. And then when he movedme forward, like I was holding
the beach ball, he moved me fromlower left back and down to
upper right, forward and up.That's fire. So he had me be
(24:31):
more fiery and guess whatemotions go with fire. The
positive quote unquote, ishappiness. And so that's all he
did was move my body there andall of a sudden, the emotion
followed the quote and quotenegative emotion if you live in
that forward in that position alot of times is anxiety is being
anxious.
(24:52):
And so each of thesecorresponding body dispositions
has a certain state or emotionassociated with them. Again,
fire forwarding up. So if you'rea fiery person, you have access
to happiness, and anxiety a lot.If you're a backhand down person
like I was you have access toopenness, or fear a lot. If your
(25:14):
back and up, which is wind, youhave pretty easy access to being
peaceful, or the negative sideis more frustration or
frustrated. If you're moreforward and down in life, you're
a grounded person, solid. Wewould say you have access to the
emotions of calm or sad.
So if you notice I mentionedsadness earlier. So I tended to
(25:37):
live much of my life in the downbody positions, either water or
ground. So what did I need mylife I needed more forward, I
So again, each of thesedispositions has a positive
needed more fire, which quiteinterestingly, I would say right
now was, that was my father'sdisposition was fiery. And so
valence or a negative valence toit, which represent certain
naturally, I kind of rebelledand went the other way. And
that's something I want you tothink about is when we look at
(26:00):
that framework, by the way, thecentral the crosshairs, where
states or emotional states. Andso what tends to happen,
they meet, of space kind of hasthe disposition of of satisfied
in life, or the quote and quote,negative version of that is
actually, I think, and Stuartmight come on here and tell me
needy.
differently, but is we tend topredominantly take on one body
(26:30):
disposition, and we often have adeficit of the one that's across
For me with the water, I waslike, open, great listener open
from it. So water often has adeficit of fire. Fire often has
(26:50):
a deficit of water, wind, a lotof wind often has a deficit of
ground needs to be grounded. Andpeople that are very grounded,
to all points of views andperspectives. But I had trouble
(27:10):
need to have more wind orflexibility in their life, which
choosing and moving forwardquickly, which is fire. Okay. So
I hope this framework makessense. The last piece I'll give
you, I wasn't planning on goingquite this deep with this
makes sense, right? If you'revery grounded, and solid person,
framework. But I'll give you onemore piece, which is like, fire
is persuasion, itsdetermination, its resolution,
we need that in life, you haveto go to the body of forward and
what that means in life is youmay become too rigid, too
(27:32):
up or fire. Ground, forward anddown is more stability. If you
want to take a king or queenposition, that's where your
structured to attach to rules,and you need more openness and
power lives in life, then you'llneed more ground. And you've
seen this with people who arefluttering all over the place
flexible, windy, they need to begrounded and tethered more.
flexibility in your life.
(27:52):
Actually, I'll say this aboutwater, it is more the position
of openness. It's also calledthe lover archetype. Really good
from listening and connectingwith people. And then the wind
is more flexibility. It's alsothe archetype is the Joker. And
it's really great forbrainstorming. And if you think
about it, and many of usintuitively do that, when we're
(28:13):
brainstorming, we move around,we go back and up, our head
lifts up, we're looking up atthe sky, like what's possible.
That's the natural flexibility.
So again, many of us tend tosettle into one over life,
that's our habitual coherence.And we probably need more of the
others in our life that can helpus be more agile, and to meet
(28:34):
the demands of our life. So thelast piece I'll say around that
is just you know, I've beenworking to reshape my posture
now for three plus decades, hadsuccess as I've learned and
grown. But I think in the lastthree years in particular, I've
had a lot of success of openingmy chest up more and standing
out, I'll give shoutouts to mytrainer, Josh Lee here in
Nashville, who's really helpedme strengthen my core, my upper
(28:57):
body, and especially my backmuscles in a way that my chest
can be more open.
And I can access happiness, theemotion of happiness more and
the moods of optimism andambition and excitement. So I
hope that makes sense, at leastfor now, as we move into this
territory. So to close fortoday, what did we talk about a
(29:19):
summary like, we talked aboutthe temporary coherence of
language, emotion, body versusthe habitual, and habitual is
often the one where we feelstuck. And that's where we often
want growth. We talked aboutembodied habits, how powerful
they are, how deeply entrenchedthey can become through time and
practice. And like they almostdrive us at times we make
(29:39):
choices we realize we shouldn't,but have some grace with
yourself because that might be adeeply embodied habit. It takes
time to change.
And then we talked about thefive rings piece in my work with
Stuart but gave you a little bitof a framework to think about
firewater when ground and spaceto begin noticing yourself so to
close for today, your homeworkas it seems to be I'm tending to
(30:03):
ask you to do now is still,first and foremost, start to
notice your body. Start tonotice, what are the entrenched
habits you see about yourself asyou move through your day that
work for you, and which ones arethe ones that you've been trying
to change or want to change thatyou haven't had much success for
(30:23):
some time.
Maybe I've given you a new wayto look at them and see them and
how you might go about changingthem. And so begin to notice
those habits and just as again,as non judgmental, as can just
notice and go, oh, that'sworking for me, or that's not
working for me. And perhaps inlater episodes, we'll go deeper
and get into kind of breakingthis down a little bit more, but
(30:45):
your homework for now, noticeyour body. And if you so choose,
you notice something. Tryshifting, try sitting
differently, standingdifferently, moving differently
in the world, actingdifferently. Drive a different
route to your favoriterestaurant, hang out with
different people, move out ofyour comfort zone, engage your
(31:06):
body in a more powerful way andsee what happens.
So that's it, everybody, that'sEpisode 5, the body of Wake Up
and Pay Attention. I wish youthe best over the next week or
so. I hope you're well and wewill talk again very soon. Well,
my friends, that's a wrap fortoday. I'm so grateful you join
(31:27):
me. And hope you feel energizedby the insights we took a deeper
look at together. If anythingresonated with you or inspired
new thinking, drop me a note.I'd love to hear your biggest
takeaway. Please join me nexttime as we dive deeper into this
never ending journey of selfdiscovery. Until then, be well,
be present, live fully, andauthentically. Wake Up and Pay
(31:50):
Attention.
Welcome to Wake Up and Pay Attention. The
(00:02):
podcast fueling positive changefrom the inside out. I'm Mark
Robertson, your host. With over25 years as a professional
coach, I'm thrilled to explorethe personal growth tools that
have helped me and hundreds ofpeople just like you design and
awaken to their best life. Ifyou've ever felt overwhelmed and
unfulfilled, like you're justgoing through the motions day
(00:23):
after day, maybe you're afraidone day all the balls are going
to drop, you're in the rightplace.
Together, let's expand our selfawareness and make sustainable
shifts that improve ourcommunication skills,
relationships, and overall wellbeing. This is a judgment free
zone where openness,understanding, and support rule.
(00:44):
So grab your headphones and getready, it's time to wake up and
pay attention. Hello, everyone,and welcome to Episode 5 of Wake
Up and Pay Attention. I'mexcited about continuing this
journey with you today. Andgetting into things today.
Before I dive into the topic,which today's topic will
actually be the third circle ofthe three circles, we've been
(01:07):
talking about the body or ourbiology. I want to say once
again, thank you for thecontinued feedback, it's been
incredible continues to beincredible. So keep it coming in
whatever way you have text,email, phone calls, I've heard
from a lot of folks so both alot of positive feedback and
some constructive feedback. Andso just keep it coming, love to
(01:31):
hear it.
I want to touch on theconstructive a little bit in
this sense. Why is feedbackimportant in our lives. It's
really been helpful to receivesome of those suggestions.
Because I'll harken back tosomething that I covered. I
think in the second episodearound the language claims,
which is one of the languageclaims is you can't change what
(01:52):
you don't see, you can't changewhat you don't see. And so
that's really the value offeedback in our lives is, again,
they're just sometimes aspectsof ourselves that we can't see.
And so those who are willing andcourageous enough to give us
feedback are really helpful inthat regard. And so I've gotten
some great suggestions on thingsto add or things to change that
(02:14):
would make the podcast better.
And so things that I literallydidn't see or don't know yet
And so today we'll touch on thefinal circle our body, or
about doing this that werereally helpful. So again, keep
that coming. To dive into today,I'll start where I seem to be
biology. And what I want tocover today will be first I
landing on starting, which iswhere are we headed today. As I
really want to talk about,there's the temporary coherence
mentioned, we today's episode,we'll continue to deconstruct
(02:36):
the observer that you are thatwe've been talking about flexing
of those three that goestogether in the moment of
the big eye muscle. So noticingthe smaller observer that you
are, which are the three circlesremember, language, emotion, and
language, emotion, and body. Butmore importantly, in the
body.
coaching, where I really work alot with my clients, especially
(03:03):
when they're stuck or wanting tomake change in an area they've
struggled to, is on the morehabitual coherence of those three.
So the patterned ways over time,and particularly the habits that
(03:25):
they built in their life tobecome the observer that they
are. The habits of thinking,feeling, and moving or acting.
So those are the three circlesin action. That your way of
being. When I think body, Iimmediately think habits. And
we'll talk about that today aswell. So the second thing that
we'll look at or what I callembodied habits and the power of
(03:48):
those and I'll give you someexamples and from my life and
show you the power of ourhabits.
And then the last piece will beto touch on a framework or model
at a really high level that themost influential body coach or
somatic coach that I've ever hadin my life through this journey
Stuart Heller has given to meand our work together. So I want
(04:10):
to give you a high level senseof that which might equipped you
with some tools at that point tobegin noticing your body
different and begin working withit if you so choose.
So to get started, remember thatwe have the three circles
language, emotion, and body. AndI want to reiterate the message
that when you change one, you atleast temporarily change the
(04:34):
other two. So when you changeyour thinking, your internal
conversation or how you speakout loud, at least temporarily
you will shift your emotionalstate and you will shift your
body. We all already sort ofnaturally and intuitively do
this. But I just want tore-emphasize the power of that
in terms of what we're doinghere which is trying to create
(04:56):
change or growth or learning.
What we do is we end up noticingand then we choose to practice
(05:31):
differently in any of thoseareas, and you often will start
When I was in high school, welived in Altus, Oklahoma, like I
told you, my dad was in themilitary, he was in the Air
Force. So we went out to AirForce Base. And I remember this
vividly, one day, we were in myfriend Mark's house. So
interestingly enough, I had twoother friends. And they were
named Mark and Mark. And so itwas often a joke, at that time,
(05:55):
like a hair, lip, dog, Mark,Mark, Mark. But anyway, we were
in Mark Wilson's house. And Iremember being in his living
room was the three of us where Iwas like standing in line. And
to see an immediate temporaryshift in those. So let's talk
his mother said to me, lookeddirectly at me and said, hold
your shoulders up. And I waslike, what? I was like I do.
And then I looked at, I noticedI don't she was, she didn't say
(06:15):
much more, I may have saidsomething. But it was like she
had noticed that I tended toslouch. And I didn't even notice
that about myself. But it wasrepresentative of that coherence
that I'm talking about. Mycoherence at 16 or 17 years old,
it was already taking shape. Andshe saw it in my body or
posture, had all three of thosecomponents. So I'll talk about
(06:35):
about that. I think the firstthing that I want to talk about
those now. What was the languagecomponent? I, on some level
later identified that I lived inan internal conversation of
there's something wrong with me.And I think I alluded to that in
an earlier episode.
So that private conversation waspowerful for me. Until
logically, we call that I had amaster assessment or judgment
(06:58):
about myself, much like a whatwe would call a core belief that
was driving all the otherbeliefs in my life and driving a
lot of my thinking, which wasthat there was something wrong
with me. You can imagine thenthat the emotion that went along
is not so much the temporaryshift and those which can happen
with this was like a mood ofinadequacy, or hesitation in my
life, I would say that at thattime, I lacked self worth self
(07:19):
confidence. And that was thecorresponding emotional state
that I lived my life in.
And then the body that went withit was what she commented on, I
had slouch, rounded shoulders.In a way my chest was closed, of
sort of curving back upon myselfand I lived that way in life. I
(07:40):
held myself back, I washesitant. In fact, it literally
quite a bit. But it's reallymore the habitual, embodied,
showed up in a lot in school.And in other areas of my life, I
just didn't speak, I was veryquiet. Just kind of funny now,
because some of my friends wouldsay it's hard to shut me up at
times, I became, I think, alearned introvert due to that
(08:00):
relationship with my father andbeing what I felt was being made
wrong or judged and validatedall the time, I learned to be
quiet, that was safe.
Whereas now I realize I'm prettymuch a natural extrovert, and
long term observer that we'dbecome over time, the way our
draw energy from being withpeople, being in conversation,
engaging, so much more vocalthese days. But then, that body
(08:23):
went with that language and thatemotion. And so that's what I
want you to understand withregard to that became my day in
day out long term coherence, thehabitual observer that I was. So
I want to shift gears now in thesecond part, and really talk
about, as I mentioned earlier,when we think of the body, I
immediately think of the wordhabits.
(08:43):
way of being starts to settle inand take shape over time. And
And so I call them a lot thesedays, when I work with my
clients, embodied habits, howdeeply embodied or deeply
entrenched are your habits inlife. And what I mean by that is
literally not just habits fromthe actions that you take, but
habits of all three of thesecircles, how habitual or
(09:05):
entrenched have you become, inyour beliefs, your internal
conversation, your thinkingabout yourself and others in the
world. You're speaking willbecome very habitual. What are
I'll start with a story.
the habits of the emotions thatyou tend to live in? And the
body? So body specifically, likehow do you sit? Typically, how
do you stand typically, what'syour posture? How do you move?
(09:29):
I think we all know that when welook at other people in life,
So much so that some morningsyou almost gotten your car you
they move differently than wedo. And that can become very
habitual. There's a saying evenin our culture, humans are
creatures of habit. I think manyof us understand it from that
language. So when I saycreatures of habit, what do I
mean? Think about it. Do youdrive? In the same way when
(09:50):
you're going somewhere, do youdrive the same route over and
over back when we used to go tooffices for work? Did you drive
to work the same way every day?
started and then all of a suddenyou were pulling in the parking
lot and you don't realize howyou got there. Like your body
drove you there. Your habitsdrove you there. Where do you
(10:11):
tend to sit? Many of us in ourhome sit in the same places,
I've got my chair, that's mylocation, we tend to sit by the
same people. When we're in groupsettings, we become habitual.
Another phrase for this, I thinkis we call it that people
understand is that's our comfortzone. So our habits have us
(10:32):
become very comfortable. But howdo we build habits.
So this is at the essence of mywork as an executive coach,
because a lot of times we'retrying to change old habits, or
what I like to I got this fromStuart Heller, and have
uninstalled the old habits. Sowe want to examine them. And
then notice the parts that wewant to keep or preserve. And
(10:54):
then the parts that we want tochange, we almost have to put
her arm around them, makefriends with them first and say
thank you for serving me andit's time to go so that I can
construct a new habit.
One fundamental way that you'vealready heard me mentioned, what
does that mean for human beings,it means you're going to have to
take on new learning, in orderto build new habits. And so I
(11:16):
like the simple definition,again of learning is time and
practice. So that means thatover some period of time, I'm
going to have to start topractice new ways of thinking
and speaking language, new waysof living in certain emotions
and moods, that's the emotionalcircle. And new ways of moving
(11:37):
and engaging my body in waysthat will start to create
learning and a new way of being.
So that's what I mean byembodied habits. There's another
saying, like, be careful whatyou practice. That's what you'd
become. Okay. And so a few morepoints about embodied habits, I
have found that our habits havegreat power. Stewart, I think
(11:59):
says this a lot, or at leastthis is what I've heard from
him. In many ways our habits arechoosing, we're not choosing,
our habits are so embodied andtrashed or ingrained, we've
practiced them over and overagain, that they're driving us
more than we're actuallyactively paying attention and
choosing in that moment.
In fact, there's research from aneuroscience standpoint, many of
(12:22):
you have probably heard thisthat the more we practice
something, the more it becomes agroove or a rut in the synaptic
connections of our brain, themore electrical impulses travel
down that route over and overagain. I almost think of it as
grooves or ruts in our brain ina way that it begins to wire our
(12:45):
brain, and wire our way ofbeing.
And so again, learning or growthor change is rewiring. And we're
learning a ton more, and I'm notan expert here. But it's we're
literally learning to rewire ourbrain. And I wonder even in this
moment, if any sort ofsignificant habit change means
we've also rewired our brain.So, just some things to think
(13:09):
about. What do I mean by ourhabits have great power. I'll
give you another story. Iremember back years ago, there
was the time when I was in gradschool, and I came back in I
lived in an apartment onFairfax, for several years while
I was in grad school. So my bodygot used to going and coming
from that apartment driving acertain way as I mentioned
And then had a friend who wasgetting married, and he offered
earlier.
(13:34):
for me to live in his condo, andso I moved into his condo, it
happened to be one street overon Clint Avenue. Funny thing
happened after I moved into hiscondo for a few weeks. This
literally happened several timesas I was driving home from
somewhere. I drove instead to myold apartment one street over
(13:55):
and didn't even realize it. Iwas pulling into the parking
lot. And parking when Irealized, oh, I don't even live
here anymore. So how did thathappen? Literally my body, the
habits were choosing the drivinginstead of me.
And so I want you to see that.We are very habitual. I think
there's so many ways in whichour body is driven by habit.
(14:17):
Think about like you brush yourteeth the same way. Have you
ever tried brushing your teethwith the opposite hand? It's
weird. It's uncomfortable. Weshower, we towel off much the
same way. They're just aplethora of habits. So I'm
asking you to begin to noticewhat are your embodied habits?
Are they working for you or notworking for you? In addition,
(14:38):
what I'll say is that if youchoose to undergo growth or
learning in any area, thatchange is going to take time and
practice.
So what I would invite you to dois make sure that you're patient
with yourself. Usually we can'tchange these overnight,
especially if it's deeplyentrenched and you've been doing
it for decades. And in addition,if it's developmentally a medium
(15:02):
or difficult change, you'regoing to have to be patient in
your practice, there will bemissed steps, a couple steps
forward one step back, you mayhave to redesign some of those
practices, but we got to bepatient with ourselves.
And also, I think inorganizational settings, I've
talked with leaders about if youwant your people to change their
behavior, you've really got tobe patient with them as they go
(15:26):
about changing this. And you'vegot to support them in some
manner. Either you support themor find other ways to support
them as they go through theprocess. Because you're really
asking them to get out of theircomfort zone again and again,
until the new habit becomescomfortable and replaces that.
So the last thing I'll say as itrelates to embodied habits is I
(15:48):
think many of us stay insituations, relationships, jobs,
other situations where we'resuffering. We intellectually
logically know we're suffering,but we don't get out because our
body is comfortable, our bodyknows what it feels like. And it
stays there. Because trying tochange that would be too
(16:10):
uncomfortable.
Sometimes when we do undertakechange, initially, we don't have
a lot of success, or we don't doit perfectly. So we retreat back
to what is known the old habit,what's comfortable. In many ways
that change and retreat backthen areas that aren't that
significant. But if you thinkabout it, in damaging
(16:30):
relationships, jobs where we'rereside, and miserable, when we
retreat back, we're continuingto stay in that situation and
suffer and trap ourselves.
So that's the notion I'd like totalk about with embodied habits.
The last piece, in today'spodcast I would like to talk
about is with regard to thesomatic work or body work that
(16:53):
I've done with Stuart Heller. AsI said, already, he's been the
most influential coach for me inthis area. And so let me tell
you how that happened. Backyears ago, when I was going
through education from living,which I mentioned on the first
podcast, which was where I wasexposed to the ontological
distinction, they offered a bodyworkshop or a body course. And I
took it with Stuart down inBaton Rouge, Louisiana.
(17:15):
And one of the most strikingexercises that he had us do,
that landed on me was, he washaving all of us as participants
walk around in an oval, or acircle almost, and just keep
walking, we're trying to visitdifferent emotions. So remember,
language, emotion, body, they'reconnected. So we were exploring
(17:37):
and having fun visitingdifferent emotions. There were a
range of different emotions. Andwe were having fun moving in and
out of those and experiencingthose, like taking on the body
of those emotions. And what Inoticed for myself was, when he
asked us to do the emotion ofhappy, it was really hard for me
to access it. And even if I wasable to, I couldn't stay there
(17:58):
longer than a second or two. Itwas weird. I was like, wow, why
can't I visit happiness? What isgoing on here?
And I remember later in thecourse, I was sharing with him
my experience that all theseother emotions I kind of knew I
was familiar with, but happinessI couldn't get to. And he
coached me, he brought me up infront of the room, and he
(18:19):
coached me. And what I rememberis he basically was like, stand
how you normally stand, and Itend to stand with one foot back
behind me, and I kind of leanedback, as I mentioned to you
earlier. And he had me literallyjust tried goes, okay, move
forward, bring your chest up,open your chest up, put yourself
(18:39):
on your front foot. And he said,imagine holding a beach ball,
like your arms are out in frontof you, and you're holding a
beach ball. So I did that. AndI'm not kidding. The moment I
did that I was moved forward,chest up. And I held the beach
bar, I broke into an immediatesmile. It was shocking. It was
stunning. It's I couldn't helpbut smile. And I was like, wow,
(19:03):
what happened. And then he hadme moved back again to my
typical place. And thathappiness went away. It moved.
I remember I settled intosadness, amazingly. And I'll
tell you now, we were standingreally close when he looked at
me and he said, you're notmessed up. There's nothing wrong
with you. And I literallystarted to lose it. Because he
(19:26):
tapped into that coherence thatI was talking about. Earlier of
that master assessment, there'ssomething wrong with me. And he
let me stay there for a minute.And then he said, okay, now move
back forward, where you werelike you're holding the beach
ball. And I did. And thatsadness went away.
It passed. And the happinessstarted to come back. It was
(19:48):
extraordinary. But one of thetakeaways I had from it was, oh,
this emotion of sadness thatI've often visited in my life
isn't permanent. It doesn't haveto stay there. I can begin to
learn how to be more happyliving happiness more often was
amazing. And literally from thatpoint forward, for a while I was
(20:09):
trying to open up my chest andhold myself up more, so much
that I've retreated back to whatwas familiar and comfortable my
old coherence even within thatcourse, so much so that a few
hours later, he looked at me andsaid, hey, Mark, hold your chest
up, open your chest up. I hadliterally just fallen back into
that without even noticing.
(20:29):
I had already spent 27 or 28years in the other posture, so
it was gonna take a while. Solet me talk to you a little bit
about what I realized later,what's happening. I ended up
doing another body course withStuart years later, and also had
(20:53):
him work with me one on one on acouple of different occasions,
over 15 or 20 years. And in theprocess, I learned what I call
and I think he still calls ithis five rings model.
He may call it somethingdifferent these days but it
essentially is a framework inthe way I like to think about it
as if you've ever hunted andyou've had a rifle and you're
looking at scope, are youlooking at binoculars scope,
(21:17):
there's crosshairs. So it's thephrase, I think of what is that
it's a circle, as divided by avertical line and a horizontal
line, split them evenly. So youhave four quadrants, and then
you have where the crosshairsmeet, which is the fifth spot.
So you can think of as rings thefive rings model.
And the way it works is that soin the center where the
(21:37):
crosshairs are is what he calls,I think space, I think of it as
sort of neutral and center, whenyour body's in the neutral or
center position. Everything tothe right of the vertical axis
is called forward or front,those two positions in and
behind the vertical axis isback. If you look at the
horizontal axis, everythingabove is up, those two positions
(22:00):
are up and the other twopositions are down.
And so the meaning of those fourcreates different body
dispositions. And I won't gointo it too deeply. Today, I
just want to give you enough tounderstand what the work he did
with me. But he used theelements for these. So that top
right quadrant, which is forwardand up is called fire, that's
(22:21):
fire. The bottom right quadrant,forward and down is ground. The
back, back and down, bottom leftquadrant is water. And then the
back and up position is wind. Soyou've got firewater, wind and
(22:41):
ground, you've got the fourelements and then neutral. I
love that framework, because itcan remember that.
And so we literally are talkingabout moving your center of
gravity forward or back and thenup or down in your body. So it's
sitting standing moving withthat orientation creates four
(23:01):
different body dispositions. Andfrom that, you literally can say
or feel different things.Remember the coherence language,
emotion, body, you experiencedifferent emotions. And you can
say or you think, or you speakdifferently from each of those.
Fact I would say whateverdisposition you're in, the other
ways of feeling and thinkingaren't even available. That's
(23:24):
the power and a lot of some ofthe work that I do in my
coaching.
So what I noticed was for me wasthat the coaching Stewart did
for me was I tended to live inback and down, which is water.
And so that takes the shape ofkind of a concave body. If you
think of the tides come in, theygo out, they come in, they go
(23:46):
out. So that was great for me.It has interesting emotional
states that go with it, the sortof positive version, when you're
back and down and do life a lotin that is your open. It makes
for great listening. It's partof what has made me a great
coach. I think that negativeemotion, though that can show up
and that is afraid, is fear.
(24:08):
And so that it was a predominantmotion that I lived in a lot in
my life with regard to my dad.And so it made sense to me
finally. And then when he movedme forward, like I was holding
the beach ball, he moved me fromlower left back and down to
upper right, forward and up.That's fire. So he had me be
(24:31):
more fiery and guess whatemotions go with fire. The
positive quote unquote, ishappiness. And so that's all he
did was move my body there andall of a sudden, the emotion
followed the quote and quotenegative emotion if you live in
that forward in that position alot of times is anxiety is being
anxious.
(24:52):
And so each of thesecorresponding body dispositions
has a certain state or emotionassociated with them. Again,
fire forwarding up. So if you'rea fiery person, you have access
to happiness, and anxiety a lot.If you're a backhand down person
like I was you have access toopenness, or fear a lot. If your
(25:14):
back and up, which is wind, youhave pretty easy access to being
peaceful, or the negative sideis more frustration or
frustrated. If you're moreforward and down in life, you're
a grounded person, solid. Wewould say you have access to the
emotions of calm or sad.
So if you notice I mentionedsadness earlier. So I tended to
(25:37):
live much of my life in the downbody positions, either water or
ground. So what did I need mylife I needed more forward, I
So again, each of thesedispositions has a positive
needed more fire, which quiteinterestingly, I would say right
now was, that was my father'sdisposition was fiery. And so
valence or a negative valence toit, which represent certain
naturally, I kind of rebelledand went the other way. And
that's something I want you tothink about is when we look at
(26:00):
that framework, by the way, thecentral the crosshairs, where
states or emotional states. Andso what tends to happen,
they meet, of space kind of hasthe disposition of of satisfied
in life, or the quote and quote,negative version of that is
actually, I think, and Stuartmight come on here and tell me
needy.
differently, but is we tend topredominantly take on one body
(26:30):
disposition, and we often have adeficit of the one that's across
For me with the water, I waslike, open, great listener open
from it. So water often has adeficit of fire. Fire often has
(26:50):
a deficit of water, wind, a lotof wind often has a deficit of
ground needs to be grounded. Andpeople that are very grounded,
to all points of views andperspectives. But I had trouble
(27:10):
need to have more wind orflexibility in their life, which
choosing and moving forwardquickly, which is fire. Okay. So
I hope this framework makessense. The last piece I'll give
you, I wasn't planning on goingquite this deep with this
makes sense, right? If you'revery grounded, and solid person,
framework. But I'll give you onemore piece, which is like, fire
is persuasion, itsdetermination, its resolution,
we need that in life, you haveto go to the body of forward and
what that means in life is youmay become too rigid, too
(27:32):
up or fire. Ground, forward anddown is more stability. If you
want to take a king or queenposition, that's where your
structured to attach to rules,and you need more openness and
power lives in life, then you'llneed more ground. And you've
seen this with people who arefluttering all over the place
flexible, windy, they need to begrounded and tethered more.
flexibility in your life.
(27:52):
Actually, I'll say this aboutwater, it is more the position
of openness. It's also calledthe lover archetype. Really good
from listening and connectingwith people. And then the wind
is more flexibility. It's alsothe archetype is the Joker. And
it's really great forbrainstorming. And if you think
about it, and many of usintuitively do that, when we're
(28:13):
brainstorming, we move around,we go back and up, our head
lifts up, we're looking up atthe sky, like what's possible.
That's the natural flexibility.
So again, many of us tend tosettle into one over life,
that's our habitual coherence.And we probably need more of the
others in our life that can helpus be more agile, and to meet
(28:34):
the demands of our life. So thelast piece I'll say around that
is just you know, I've beenworking to reshape my posture
now for three plus decades, hadsuccess as I've learned and
grown. But I think in the lastthree years in particular, I've
had a lot of success of openingmy chest up more and standing
out, I'll give shoutouts to mytrainer, Josh Lee here in
Nashville, who's really helpedme strengthen my core, my upper
(28:57):
body, and especially my backmuscles in a way that my chest
can be more open.
And I can access happiness, theemotion of happiness more and
the moods of optimism andambition and excitement. So I
hope that makes sense, at leastfor now, as we move into this
territory. So to close fortoday, what did we talk about a
(29:19):
summary like, we talked aboutthe temporary coherence of
language, emotion, body versusthe habitual, and habitual is
often the one where we feelstuck. And that's where we often
want growth. We talked aboutembodied habits, how powerful
they are, how deeply entrenchedthey can become through time and
practice. And like they almostdrive us at times we make
(29:39):
choices we realize we shouldn't,but have some grace with
yourself because that might be adeeply embodied habit. It takes
time to change.
And then we talked about thefive rings piece in my work with
Stuart but gave you a little bitof a framework to think about
firewater when ground and spaceto begin noticing yourself so to
close for today, your homeworkas it seems to be I'm tending to
(30:03):
ask you to do now is still,first and foremost, start to
notice your body. Start tonotice, what are the entrenched
habits you see about yourself asyou move through your day that
work for you, and which ones arethe ones that you've been trying
to change or want to change thatyou haven't had much success for
(30:23):
some time.
Maybe I've given you a new wayto look at them and see them and
how you might go about changingthem. And so begin to notice
those habits and just as again,as non judgmental, as can just
notice and go, oh, that'sworking for me, or that's not
working for me. And perhaps inlater episodes, we'll go deeper
and get into kind of breakingthis down a little bit more, but
(30:45):
your homework for now, noticeyour body. And if you so choose,
you notice something. Tryshifting, try sitting
differently, standingdifferently, moving differently
in the world, actingdifferently. Drive a different
route to your favoriterestaurant, hang out with
different people, move out ofyour comfort zone, engage your
(31:06):
body in a more powerful way andsee what happens.
So that's it, everybody, that'sEpisode 5, the body of Wake Up
and Pay Attention. I wish youthe best over the next week or
so. I hope you're well and wewill talk again very soon. Well,
my friends, that's a wrap fortoday. I'm so grateful you join
(31:27):
me. And hope you feel energizedby the insights we took a deeper
look at together. If anythingresonated with you or inspired
new thinking, drop me a note.I'd love to hear your biggest
takeaway. Please join me nexttime as we dive deeper into this
never ending journey of selfdiscovery. Until then, be well,
be present, live fully, andauthentically. Wake Up and Pay
(31:50):
Attention.
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