Using Your Body as Chief Decision Maker

One of the primary reasons people seek out a life coach is to help them solve a problem that seems unsolvable. They’ve thought and thought and thought about it until they’re absolutely tied in knots. In this state, they either end up seeing that every possible situation or outcome could be possibly correct, or they can’t see even one single path forward.

As a Wayfinder trained life coach, I believe that’s “stuck-ness” is almost always because they’ve thought about the problem so much. Yes, they’ve over-thought it. 

Indeed, our brains and all their big problem-solving abilities can often lead us into more confusion than we had when we first encountered the problem or situation. Brains are great. Thoughts are great. But you can’t always trust them. 

What you can trust, instead, is your body. Everyone has an inner body compass that, when you tune into it, will always point you to your own “north star.” In Steering by Starlight by Martha Beck lightly plagiarizes the Buddha when she writes "...enlightenment always tastes of freedom. Not comfort. Not ease. Freedom."

What a beautiful -- and so very, very true -- statement. I have tasted this freedom myself, and it’s what led me to become a life coach. And I can tell you, it is definitely not always easy and often more scary than comforting. But freedom is worth it, completely.

So what does freedom feel like to you? Do you know, physically, what this feels like?  How do you know you’re following the right path toward your own north star? Whatever it is to you, it will be yours and yours only. No one else will feel exactly the same way as you do when you’re headed toward your north star.

The best way to begin to work with your body as the decision-maker, rather than your brain (or at least the tie-breaker between your own conflicting thoughts) is to learn how to meditate to tune into your body compass and to practice doing so regularly. 

A type of mindfulness meditation, a body-scan, is a great starting point: sit in a supported and comfortable position, and breathe deeply and fully from the abdomen three times, inhaling and exhaling completely. In that relaxed state, begin mentally scanning your body, from the left toes, up the left leg, through the hips and belly, down the arm to the fingers, across the chest and around the back, and down the right side the same way. Take special note of any bodily sensations that seem especially intense or noticeable and then sit with that sensation. Can you describe the color, shape and size of the sensation? Does it have defined edges? Does it have weight? How does the sensation change when you sit with it and really work to understand it? What does it want from you? What is it trying to tell you? 

With this sort of regular body scanning practice, it’s entirely plausible that you’ll find your body has been trying to send you messages for some time. And once you learn to sit with those sensations, understand and address them, you’ll be well on your way to honing your own body compass.

Though this may be scary for some people, at first, be gentle and treat yourself with kindness, taking each meditative session only so far as you feel comfortable. Over time, this practice will be the first step to having a powerful tool within yourself that will help you taste freedom. 

I love this line from the poem “Go to the Limits of Your Longing” by Rainer Maria Rilke, and like to use it as a reminder:

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.

Just keep going. No feeling is final.