How Aware of Your Body Are You?

The body . . .  what’s that??

The upshot is that you probably spend most of your time in your head, concerned with thoughts, facts and figures; conceptualizing and analyzing.​

TIP​ Increase your self awareness​ by developing a practice to recognize your bodily sensations.

​Your tendency to ignore bodily sensations and neglect emotions has worked​ well for you in certain situations. You may have learned that feelings are inappropriate and just “get in the way” of accomplishing goals. Or perhaps you associate feelings and recognizing sensations with being vulnerable and your belief system views vulnerability as negative. For some, the experience of feeling emotions and/or sensations is simply too painful.

Keep in mind that your body is an integral aspect of who you are. By disconnecting from your emotions and sensations you miss out on valuable information that will help with being self-aware and being able to regulate yourself. The result might be that you have difficulty having compassion with yourself or connecting with others, or perhaps you experience physical and emotional issues such as chronic pain, sickness or burn-out. Ask yourself if you are numbing somehow. Common ways people tend to do that are by working too much and too hard; using alcohol or recreational drugs to excess; excessive exercising or overeating; always looking for excitement or being “on the run.”

The first step to re-establishing the connection with your body is becoming aware of sensations. External and internal bodily sensations are sources of information that are constantly present. You can practice embodied self-awareness by taking a moment to notice things like:

Temperature​
Do you feel hot or cold? Where do you notice temperature differences? Can you feel the temperature in the air? ​

Breathing​
What is the rhythm? Where do you feel your breath? Can you change the tempo of your breathing? Take a deep breath and exhale slowly. Notice how it feels.

Smells
What does the air smell like? Do you like it? Does it change as you move from one place to another?

Pressure
Are your feet flat on the ground or are just your toes or only one foot touching the ground? Place both feet equally beneath you: Do you notice a difference in your sensations or thoughts?

Tension/relaxation
Are you experiencing tension or pain anywhere in your body? What part of your body is the most relaxed? The most tense?

Familiarize yourself with your body

Our 4-step process will guide you along the path to becoming increasingly in tune with all of the information available your body provides. For your level of awareness, taking time to familiarize yourself with your physical sensations throughout the day will increase your ability to self-regulate and improve your connection with others.

Becoming aware of sensations
Use this PDF to help you do that:

       Download Sensations PDF

Getting out of your head

Take your journey even further by using our free “Head to Center” audio file. We guide you through the experience of getting you out of your head, the first step to reconnecting with your body. Do you think you’ll notice a difference between being in your head and being in your body?

          Get your free audio experience 

Why do my emotions carry me away?

Great! You are able to connect with your body and notice when something is going on there.  

TIP: Increase your self-awareness in relation to others by learning how to interpret the messages your body is sending.

So you’re noticing what’s going on. But it might not be so easy for you to use that information effectively. Taking care of yourself in relation to others can be a challenge for you. Perhaps you experience difficulty setting your boundaries, expressing what is important to you or sharing how things impact you. Or maybe you have a tendency to react quickly, are easily triggered or find yourself regretting what you said or did. In relationships you might notice that you are either too dominant or too modest. You find yourself reacting, rather than responding, and you often feel defensive or are in denial, which makes effective communication difficult.

Ask yourself if you are allowing your sensations to go unchecked. Do you find yourself imagining different responses long after a conversation has taken place? Do you wonder why you are so exhausted at the end of a day? Your placement in this category indicates that you have an awareness of your physical sensations, but have difficulties working with them in an effective way. You might think that the way you react is just part of who you are and something you just have to deal with. But you can actually change things to your benefit if you can become more aware of your bodily sensations in relation to your emotions.

Align Your System

You’ve got the idea of how to get out of your head. The first step in our approach. So now your challenge is to identify your emotions, recognize the effect they have on your system, and to access your center. Being as specific as you can about your sensation and emotions increases your self-awareness and decreases your energy expenditure. When you can be precise about how you are doing at any moment in time you communicate more effectively and can give yourselves exactly what you need!

Building your emotional vocabulary

Regularly check in with yourself and name the way you feel in the present moment. Doing this builds a new vocabulary that refines your embodied awareness and continues to build authentic connection with others. Choose particular moments throughout your day to ask yourself the following questions:

1. What are the two words that best describe how I feel right now? Do I feel nervous? Alive? Confused? Loving? Interested? Angry? Anxious? Peaceful?
2. Where in my body do I sense that feeling and what physical sensations are associated with it? ​Where is tension increasing? What parts are spacious? Are parts of my body becoming more hot or cold?

Here is a worksheet if you need some emotional prompts:

Download the free Emotions List.

Reclaim your center

Discover the benefits of reclaiming your center. Being aware of the information of your body as a first step to restore your balance, we found that connecting to your center is a powerful way to get yourself back in the driver seat.  Take the next step in our approach ‘Reclaim Your Center’ using our free Centering Guide. With the basics under your belt, centering becomes the next foundational skill for increasing ease and flow in your daily life!

       Get your copy here!

How can I be calm & composed, even under pressure?

Congratulations! You are able to identify your emotions and sensations and connect them to one another.

TIP​ Develop your ability to respond rather than react by practicing being balanced and centered, even under stress and pressure.

You easily recognize when you are uncomfortable, appreciate sensations when they are present, and utilize your awareness to improve your quality of life. As anywhere in life, though, we can always benefit from refining our practice to have an increased sense of relaxation, energetic engagement, and establish a balance between your needs and the needs of others. While you feel comfortable in most circumstances, you find that you lose touch with your values and desired qualities, especially during difficult conversations at work or with family and intimates. You generally feel pleased with who you are and how you engage in the world, but you get the feeling you could do better.

Getting more in sync, even in difficult situations, will strengthen your energy and increase your ability to make a positive contribution to the world. Is it time for you to refine and deepen your practice?

Refine your understanding, strengthen your skillset

Engage in regular check-ins throughout the day and increase your awareness of your body during interactions with others. Make a choice to create a more relaxed connection by altering your embodied presence. (Re)connect with your values to clarify what is meaningful in your life and learn how to utilize the alignment between your thoughts, emotions and actions.

Connecting to what matters

Consider these additional activities:

• Choose a value or quality that you want to experience more frequently. Where in your body do you sense it? How does thinking about the opposite of that quality affect your body? By experiencing both qualities you will notice more quickly when your thoughts, feelings and actions are not aligned with your values.
• Spend time in the morning and the evening to identify your emotions.
• Develop somatic practices that support the values or traits that you want to enhance.

Use the values checklist PDF to kickstart your reconnection to what’s meaningful in your life:

       Download the free Values Checklist

Understanding your nervous system

In our approach of Embodied Exploration™ we found that understanding the intricate connection between your thoughts, feelings and actions in interaction with yourself and the world around you is crucial for staying true to yourself. So next to being aware of your whole systems information and your own center, it’s important to know what gets you off balance and how to get yourself back.

In our mini-course Get the Body Online you experience the first fundamental steps for the third phase in our approach: Understand your Nervous System. You’ll experience how the connection between your body and mind affect the way you interact with yourself and the world around you. It will give valuable tools to look at your daily encounters in a different way.

        Get the course here

Build your inner strength

If you are the type to dive right in, check out our powerful 8-module course. This course connects all the dots and gives you easy and ready to use tools to enhance the connection with yourself and to what matters most in your life. You can do it all by yourself of join our Do-It-Together group sessions!

      Find out more about the course