Practicing Courage - An Embodied Movement Journey

This is an audio practice that you can use to gain awareness, capacity, and energy through an embodied exploration of how you relate to an area of your life that you wish you had more courage in. I guide you to lean into the physical sensations and effort in the body, and then to start to open them up through movement, breath, and sound.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to your practicing courage audio practice.

So for this practice you're going to want to work with a situation where you want to have a little bit more courage,

A little bit more capacity,

Something that feels challenging but choosing something that feels right size for you to work with today.

So take some time to bring to mind,

To find,

To choose a situation or an area of your life for a moment where you wish you had access to a little bit more of your full courageous capacity.

You can pause the recording if you need some time to find something.

So for this practice you're going to want to start seated and we're just going to begin to warm up the chest and the heart.

So start touching that area,

Rubbing the heart and starting to breathe into your heart space using a nice open mouth breath connected,

No pausing at the bottom or the top.

Using this breath to start to awaken energy and aliveness in the heart space.

You can start to gently do some rib circles,

Starting to open up the chest,

The heart,

The breath,

Really following whatever movement feels good for you here.

So it might be rib circles,

Might be cat-cow,

Might be twisting side to side.

Just continuing that breath,

Continuing to really drop the awareness into your chest,

Into your heart.

It might feel good to tap or to rub this area,

To make sound,

To bring vibration to it.

Just warming up this space for a few,

Really feeling the breath as this awakening juice that's bringing aliveness to this space that we can really shut down in when it comes to courage,

When it comes to challenge.

So taking a few more moments,

Warming up this area and once you feel complete in that,

You're going to come to stand,

Finding your feet,

Taking a few nice full breaths and you're going to start to bring to mind this situation that you want to work with.

You're going to start to really see it,

Where you are,

If there's another person there,

Seeing their face,

If you're about to do something,

Sit down at your desk,

Go into work,

Pick up the phone,

Just really paying attention,

Starting to really step into this scenario,

Noticing everything about it.

And you're going to begin to scan the body,

To notice what's happening at a body level,

Noticing where there's tension,

Or where you're contracting,

Gripping,

Holding,

Tightening,

Noticing where the effort is in the body,

Noticing the overall shape that you take in this situation,

Noticing what's happening in the emotional landscape,

How you feel,

Noticing what's happening in the thinking,

In the thought channel,

Really feeling the overall experience.

What you become.

Do you become small?

Small?

Insecure?

Do you become frozen?

Frustrated?

Do you become righteous?

Rigid?

Are you trying really hard?

Just noticing what do I become?

And then starting to really embody what you become.

Really lean into the effort,

Emphasize the sensations,

The contractions,

The thoughts,

The feelings.

Let yourself really become what you become in this situation,

And to over-effort it for just a few breaths.

You can even play with trying to move around your space,

Move around the world,

Feeling what it's like,

Really giving full permission for this experience.

And as you lean into it,

As you become it,

As you start to move around your space as this,

You're going to begin to deepen your breath.

You're going to just start to find,

To feel,

To sense,

How this wants to start to open up.

Where you can start to soften,

Where you can bring in more breath,

What movement starts to happen,

What feeling starts to arise.

Really being curious here,

So not rushing to get out of it,

To shake it off,

To shift it,

To really let the body naturally start to unwind this energy,

And feel what's trapped.

Feel the energy that's trapped,

Move with it,

Breathe with it,

Really letting the body lead.

Continuing to follow whatever thread is here,

Whatever emotion is arising,

Whatever energy is happening in the body,

Whatever movement is wanting to happen,

Maybe words and expressing and sound,

Really giving yourself full permission to be with whatever is here,

As a body,

Making it as physical as possible,

Dropping all the awareness down into the body.

Continuing to move,

To breathe,

To sound,

Following what's here,

Opening up,

Meeting what is here,

As a body.

Continuing to breathe,

Continuing to really track,

To bring the awareness into the body,

Anytime it starts to get pulled somewhere else.

Keep coming back to the body,

Keep following what's here.

You're going to start to mix it up,

To maybe move in ways you don't normally move.

Maybe bring in some more animal qualities,

Growling,

Crawling,

Hissing,

Maybe hopping from space to space,

Turning 180,

360,

90,

Behaving and bringing in some qualities that are different from what you normally do.

Walking backwards,

Moving with your eyes closed,

Moving with your eyes open,

Bringing in some playfulness.

We can get so serious about these situations and about courage,

And this space around us can start to feel really small.

So,

You're literally mixing up the world around you,

Interrupting history.

So play here.

Follow your impulses,

Be silly,

Be weird,

Bringing in lots of breath,

Lots of sound,

Lots of permission.

And then you're going to slow it down,

Find your feet again,

Take a few breaths,

Take a few breaths,

Dropping the awareness down into the sensations in the body,

Feeling the temperature,

The tingles,

The movement,

Really feeling what's here at a body level,

What it's like to be you,

What energy has been awakened.

You're going to bring back to mind this situation and I want you to feel,

Sense,

Start to get curious about what you want to feel in that situation,

What you want to embody,

What you wish was there,

The quality of energy that you want to have in your body.

What does that courage feel like?

Or maybe it's a sense of playfulness or lightness.

Maybe it's this warm,

Open-hearted,

Loving,

Sweet,

Kind quality that you want to have.

Maybe it's that you want to feel like an adult or you want to feel big and strong and capable.

So starting to bring to mind the qualities of energy and the feelings that you want to have in this moment,

In this situation.

Starting to breathe into them,

Starting to evoke them,

Starting to embody these qualities.

How would you move?

How would you sound if these energies were alive in your body right now?

Can you start to really encourage them,

To start to let them take up more space,

To let them start to move you around the space,

Continuing to really fill yourself up with these qualities.

Feeling it as a body.

What is the energy,

The sensations,

How does your body move,

Sound,

Breathe?

Fully dropping in,

Fully embodying to the best of your ability right now.

Bringing in that this too is an experience.

That these qualities are also here.

That your body also has this capacity.

Playing here for a few more moments,

Breathing,

Moving,

Sounding,

Embodying what you want,

How you want to feel these qualities,

These energies,

This way of being.

Starting to slow it all down,

Taking some nice full breaths,

Feeling the sensations in the body,

The movement of energy,

Just noticing what it's like to be you.

Starting to move into some rest and integration,

Finding a place to lay down,

Staying with your body,

Staying with the sensations,

Imagining all of this energy that's opened,

Being absorbed into your bones,

Really trusting that the energy is going where it's needed,

Trusting the body's capacity to really integrate,

To digest,

Feeling yourself being held by the earth,

Letting yourself receive this practice.

Taking one last full deep breath into your body and this completes your audio practice.