Sensuality As Medicine - Insight Timer Live

In this recording of an Insight Timer Live event from August 2021, Catherine guides you in exploring your relationship to pleasure, which is the body sensation of our needs being met in the moment. Together, we work with gentle, non-sexual self-touch to bring tenderness towards ourselves, build our capacity to experience more goodness, and heal traumatic imprints that have kept us closed. We then move into a loving shadow work exploration to help soften the resistance to meeting our own needs.

Transcript

All right,

Welcome everyone to sensuality as medicine.

And I was talking before we started this recording about how the word sensuality lands in your body,

What feelings it brings up for you because for the overwhelming majority,

It's an extremely complex bodily experience when you just say the word sensuality to yourself.

So everyone do that right now,

Just sensuality.

How would you name the feelings that are coming up within you when you say that word sensuality?

For me,

There's disgust.

There's both this desire,

But if I'm honest,

Like any kind of desire I have for sensuality feels like it's a quieter voice than the disgust that kind of comes to the forefront,

Yeah.

Yeah,

So people are saying excitement,

Curiosity,

Guilt,

And forbidden,

Yeah,

So I want everyone to know that there is absolutely no right way to think,

To react to the word sensuality.

It's so unique to each and every one of us,

Unique to how we were raised in our own culture,

In our family,

Our relationship to ourselves and our own bodies,

Our experience with religion and how any religion we might've been part of has approached the body.

It's gonna be extremely unique to you,

So there's absolutely no right way here.

We're going to be meeting ourselves exactly where we are with this concept.

I see a few of you are saying like,

Feels nice,

Feels peaceful,

And that's wonderful too.

So yeah,

Across the board.

So especially if you,

Again,

People across the gender spectrum will feel a lot of complexity and even dread or disgust about sensuality.

If you are a woman,

It's endemic.

So for a lot of different reasons,

The female body has been vilified and actually associated with evil for thousands of years.

And so particularly for those of us who were raised as female,

Who identify as women,

Like identify with the feminine,

This tends to be particularly tricky,

Particularly guilt-inducing,

Particularly dread-inducing to think about sensuality.

And so let's talk about,

There's lots of comments going and I'm so grateful for my wonderful assistant,

Catherine,

For answering questions as I think about where to go next.

Because it's so complicated.

There's a mountain that we could do today,

But I really want to dive in very quickly to actual body-based practices so that we can get out of our head and into the place where we experience sensuality in our bodies.

So I want to be super clear about what I mean by sensuality too.

So sensuality is our body's experience of our needs being met in a particular moment.

So pleasure sensuality is our body's experience of our needs being met in a particular moment.

It may or may not include sexuality,

But sensuality comes in many,

Many,

Many different forms.

And it's simply the experience of our needs.

It's the felt embodied sense of our needs being met.

And a massive number of us have huge issues with speaking up for our needs being met.

You know,

Most of us,

Especially if you were socialized as female,

We have no idea how to directly ask for our needs to be met.

Like,

Yeah,

Like Diane says,

I have no clue what that feels like.

You're absolutely not alone.

You know,

Like how often do we use the language?

I need X,

Just plain and simple,

Right?

Or I want X.

How often do you speak in those terms?

Again,

Especially if you were socialized as female.

For people socialized as masculine,

Like it's much more socially acceptable and actually it's admired to say like,

Okay,

Right now I need you to do this.

Or right now I really need this,

Right?

This direct kind of assertive communication.

But for those socialized as female,

Or culturally it could be through your culture,

Regardless of your gender,

But it might be less appropriate for you in your culture to communicate your needs directly,

Or it might be more okay,

Right?

So just filter this through your own experience always.

But I know for me,

I got zero modeling,

Actually from both of my parents,

Zero modeling of what that language could look like,

Of what direct communication of needs could even ever look like.

So I never saw the feminine or the masculine asking directly for what they need.

And so needs and sensuality are woven together.

They're the same continuum of feeling in our body.

Sensuality is the felt sense of our needs being met.

And so,

And Rahul,

Yeah,

You say,

The cultures play a big role,

Absolutely.

So just know that I have my own biases,

Right?

Like as someone who lives in the United States of a Northern European ancestry.

So just filter this through your own experience,

Of course.

And so,

Gosh,

I lost my train of thought.

Oh yeah,

So one of the reasons I'm so excited about talking about sensuality and pleasure,

Cause it's really,

That's,

When I say those,

They're basically the same word,

Sensuality,

Pleasure.

They're both our body's experience of our needs being met in a moment.

I'm so excited to bring this into the discourse of healing,

Because what I have learned in my own education,

In trauma healing,

You know,

Somatic body-based trauma healing,

Is that we actually need pleasure in order to heal from trauma,

Because healing from trauma,

So what's the goal of healing our trauma?

Is it just to be healed?

Well,

No,

The goal of healing trauma is to reclaim our aliveness.

The goal of healing trauma is to reclaim our full aliveness,

To reclaim the flow of energy,

Of life force energy through our bodies,

Because when we undergo trauma,

And those of you who know my work know that I use a very broad definition of trauma that's more and more at the forefront of neurophysiology,

Psychophysiology,

Trauma studies in general,

Is like a whole wide spectrum of experience can be traumatic,

Not just a shock trauma or an accident or war,

Or those things we might traditionally think about as traumatic,

Like a big event.

You know,

Like childhood abuse,

Including childhood emotional neglect is also trauma.

And for those of us who are trauma survivors,

Which is pretty much everybody,

If you use this wider definition of trauma,

We had to close our hearts in order to survive our upbringing because it wasn't safe.

Or another way to put that in like nervous system terminology is,

And by the way,

By nervous system,

I'm talking about your physical nerves,

Like the sympathetic and parasympathetic branches of the nervous system.

So in nervous system terminology,

We had to narrow our capacity in order to survive.

So we couldn't be wide open,

We couldn't experience the whole range of human experience and get acceptance at the same time from our caregivers.

So we had to narrow ourselves,

We had to become hyper vigilant,

We had to behave in a very certain way in order to get that approval and thus to feel safe or safe enough in our growing up.

So what happens is that like Peter Levine,

Who's the famed trauma expert,

Founder of Somatic Experiencing,

He describes it as like trauma survivors,

If you think about a river of life force energy moving through our bodies,

We had to narrow the banks of the river in order to survive.

So that's why we tend to be high strung,

Hyper vigilant,

Anxiety prone,

Things trigger us all the time,

Right?

We're just,

We're high strung because we have that narrow riverbank,

We have a very narrow capacity to handle the flow of life through our bodies.

We had to narrow it to survive.

And so trauma healing,

So the building of resilience and capacity is widening.

So Peter Levine says it's like widening the riverbank very,

Very gradually.

Widening,

Broadening our capacity to allow life to move through us and to feel safety or safe enough with more life energy moving through us.

Or you could say in spiritual terms,

Opening our hearts,

Right,

So trauma healing is about opening the heart and allowing very gradually more and more life force energy to move through us.

And sensuality pleasure energy that is life force energy moving through our bodies.

And it feels so threatening to so many of us because we had to shut that down to survive.

So any kind of like,

Like if you imagine like a recent experience of pleasure you had where you almost were desperate to make it stop,

Does anybody relate to that?

Or to get it over with?

Even something as simple as someone giving you a beautiful compliment,

Were you actually able to receive that full compliment and really like just let the impact of that compliment seep into all of your cells and just take in that compliment without deflecting it,

Without saying like,

Oh,

This dress is so old or oh,

If you only knew,

You know,

How nervous I was or like,

Yeah.

So know that that too is pleasure.

Like that too is widening the riverbanks,

Even something so simple as receiving a compliment and just saying thank you,

Period,

Letting it seep in.

So we're gonna experiment today with really,

Really simple,

Like pleasure experiments,

Sensuality experiments.

And we're just going to notice what happens in your body and then sit with that and experiment with widening.

What would it mean for you personally to broaden the riverbanks for yourself,

To widen your capacity,

To hold more,

To hold that pleasure a little bit longer,

To hold the feeling in your body?

Because we're not just talking about this in our heads today we're really gonna be feeling the sensations in our body and experimenting with holding on to it instead of distracting,

Moving away from it,

Excusing it,

You know,

Et cetera.

It's gonna be really challenging for many of you.

So again,

This is being recorded and if anything feels like it's not the right thing for you to do right now,

Know that you can always tune into the recording if you want to do it more deeply later.

Okay,

So here's a little overview of what I have planned for today and knowing that it could shift and change depending on what resonates with folks here.

But here's my plan is to first guide everyone in identifying an anchor of safety in or around your own body so that in the event that anything feels like too much today you can switch your focus and go back to that anchor and hang out there.

So you have somewhere to go in or around your body.

And then we're going to be just experimenting with something so simple as the feeling of holding your own hand.

We're gonna be experimenting with things like stroking your own hand just very,

Very gently.

Maybe touching our face very gently.

Maybe the inside of the wrist.

That's really the extent of our practice today.

But it might bring up a lot for you.

And in fact,

I'm pretty sure it will.

The more you allow yourself to get into your body and the experience and allow the sensation,

The more it might bring up for you.

Because I know that even something as simple as this can be very deeply triggering for some people.

You know,

I actually saw a sensuality coach myself.

And we did just like that or up,

You know,

Up the arms and onto the neck.

We were just experimenting with tender self touch.

And it was one of the most triggering experiences that I've ever had in a healing session.

And I had to really be gentle with myself,

You know.

So we're not gonna do everything that we did in my personal sensuality coaching session.

We're just gonna do just a tiny,

Tiny bit and just see how that lands in your body.

And then what we might do,

Seeing where the time is,

But I would like to just really,

As we do these experiments and tender self touch,

Notice where resistance comes up in your body,

The feelings of you or,

This is weird.

Or if you find yourself really getting distracted and not being able to focus on it,

Whatever resistance might come up for you,

We're gonna bookmark that.

And then maybe do a little shadow work with that resistance.

So encounter that resistance as a figure,

Talk to it,

Do some really loving integration work with it.

So that's on the table for today.

We will see what we get to.

But yeah,

So first and foremost,

As we prepare,

And feel free to ask any questions,

You know,

About what we're doing today.

Before we dive in,

I'd like everyone,

Because this is of course,

A practice of sensuality,

I'd love you to make yourself even more comfortable right now.

Get some water,

Get a blanket.

Get something beautiful to put in your space.

So I'll show you what I have.

So I have this beautiful nautilus shell that's like my single most favorite possession.

I have a lot of Libra in my chart.

So I'm a Virgo Sun with Libra rising,

Venus and Libra.

So it's like,

Have to have the beauty around.

Have to have my earrings.

I also have this beautiful rose essential oil that smelling it just really brings me back to my senses in this moment.

So if you have anything like that,

Anything to add a little bit of extra beauty or comfort to your environment,

Just go ahead and get that for yourself now or tune into,

Do you have any needs that need to be met right now like thirst or hunger or warmth?

Or do you need to use the restroom or as they say in Canada washroom?

So make yourself even more comfortable and even more surrounded by beauty right now.

This is a question that I do my best to ask myself multiple times a day.

I ask myself,

How can I make this moment even more enjoyable?

How can I make this moment even more enjoyable?

And hi to those of you who are just coming in.

We're just about to start our practice,

So good timing.

All right,

So first thing that we're doing is to really tune into an anchor of safety in or around our bodies.

So before we start,

Just get really real with yourself and think,

Does it feel accessible for me to locate a place within my own body that feels good,

Neutral or just less bad?

Does that feel accessible?

Or does it bring up a lot for you to even think about tuning into your own body and maybe this place needs to be outside your body like a beautiful piece of art or something you can look at that brings up feelings of pleasant,

Neutral or less bad.

So this can be either within your own body if that feels accessible or if not,

Like if you're a survivor of trauma and it feels too much to go in your own body,

You can find this anchor outside of your body.

So what we're gonna do is I'll ask you in a moment to experiment with closing the eyes if that's comfortable for you and locating that place either within your body or if it's outside your body,

You can of course keep your eyes open and locate that place.

So for me,

If I'm going in my own body,

The place that I'm finding that feels good or neutral is this sensation of warm tingling in my hands.

And so what I'm going to do,

And you can do this with me if you like,

Is really bring your whole awareness to that place either within or outside of you now.

And name what you feel.

Is it warmth,

Tingling,

Pulsing?

I've worked with people who the only place that felt less bad in their body was their left toenail or their hair,

Or maybe they're tuning into the strength of their back body.

For a lot of people,

The back can be a refuge,

A refuge of support and strength.

So just tune into that place in your own body or outside of your body and notice what putting your awareness there brings up.

What are you feeling?

And now see if you can amplify that good or neutral or less bad feeling a little bit more.

Just imagine it taking up more space.

Imagine softening around the edges of it so it naturally expands.

Maybe like a warm glow in that place.

And recognize that this place can be a refuge for you at any point if anything in our practice today feels like it's too much or any time in your life when something feels too much,

You can drop back in right here to this place within your body.

To this place within your body or outside of you.

Just take another minute here to really revel in this sensation.

See if it wants to expand anymore.

We're already practicing our sensuality practice right now,

Our pleasure practice,

Just simply by softening around the contours of this pleasant or less bad feeling and experimenting with holding,

Holding that feeling of goodness in our bodies or around our bodies.

Can you hold that feeling of goodness within?

Do you notice that your mind tends to want to flit away and distract?

And that's completely normal.

The practice is always just to very gently bring it back,

Just like you would do in a mindfulness meditation,

Noticing thought and just gently without any judgment,

Bringing it back again and again to this felt sense of pleasure,

Goodness,

Neutrality,

And just breathing into it.

So just take one or two more big,

Deep breaths,

Just allowing,

Reveling in this felt sense of goodness.

And then when that feels like it's complete for now,

Knowing that you can spend the whole session today there if you want,

But you can go back at any time.

So you can,

If that feels complete,

Come back.

If your eyes were closed,

You can open them and just take a few looks around your space to bring yourself back to this time and place.

So just allowing your gaze to move around the room.

If you're a movement-oriented person and you want to get up and shake,

Move in any way,

You're more than welcome to do that too.

Okay.

So again,

We just experimented with finding this anchor of safety or neutrality within or outside of us.

And this is a place you can return to it anytime that things might feel like too much or simply anytime where you feel like anything is forced today and anytime you feel like you're forcing or trying hard,

I invite you to switch your awareness back to that refuge.

Because as you know,

If you follow my work,

I'm 100% against trying.

No forcing,

No trying.

This is all about flow,

Flow with what feels right for you.

All right.

So the first experiment we're gonna do with tender self-touch is we're just going to hold our own hands in any way that occurs to you.

So maybe it's like this,

Like I have both my palms together or maybe interlacing fingers feels right for you or you might just try both kinds.

And notice the difference.

Like we're used to,

You know,

If you're on insight time or if you're a meditator,

You probably know prayer hands,

Right,

Like you're familiar with this gesture,

But there's something categorically different about getting our fingers intertwined as well,

Right,

Holding our own hands.

Now we're supporting ourselves,

We're connecting to ourselves and not to God or the universe,

Right,

With these prayer hands.

So if it feels right for you,

You can close your eyes with your hands in any kind of holding your own hands here and notice what is the quality of the way that you're contacting yourself right now.

Does it feel like you're touching dead meat?

Is there no aliveness here?

Is there a numbness?

Is there a sense of caressing yourself tenderly in the quality of your touch?

Just think about if someone was holding your hand with the same quality of touch,

How would that feel?

Would it feel warm and tender?

Would you feel safe with this person if they were holding your hand like you're holding your own?

And now see if you can adjust the pressure or the intention as you hold your own hand so that it's as if someone else is very lovingly holding your hand,

A kind of connection that does inspire feelings of tenderness and safety.

And this might not even feel possible for you and that's okay.

You can go back to your refuge or you can just not do this and listen.

I'd love to know what this might bring up for you in the comments if you feel like sharing.

Like for me,

When I tune in and I'm holding my own hand,

It's like at first it kind of feels like I'm holding like a dead fish,

But if I really put my awareness there and my intention and if I have the pressure and the intention of someone who like is holding my hand with tenderness and love,

Like I can get there,

Right?

I can hold myself like this.

So Catherine says,

I noticed initially I was squeezing my hands too hard together,

Yeah.

Susan says,

Tears.

Roz says,

I have a numbness.

Meg says,

I feel strong and there for myself.

I love that.

Rita says,

Comforting,

Yeah.

And notice too,

Does your body want to get in on it?

Like,

Do you kind of feel like curling,

Like curling your head over,

Like curling in towards your heart?

Just notice what your body naturally wants to do here in response to holding your own hands.

So whatever you're experiencing,

Know that it's just right,

It's just right for you.

There's no right or wrong.

If you feel strong and there for yourself,

That's great.

If you feel a numbness,

That's great too,

Because that's real for you and it gives you very valuable information.

Noel says,

Initially uncomfortable religious trauma,

But then gentle yet firm support.

Yeah,

You're not alone in that religious trauma respect.

That's for darn sure.

Anushka says,

What if I'm feeling slight discomfort,

Anxiousness?

Yeah,

That's normal,

That's completely normal.

And if it ever feels like too much,

Please come out of it.

You know,

Please like move through it,

Take any movement or breath that feels like you're kind of doing it.

You're kind of coming back to neutral.

It's normal,

But just think,

Just think about this,

Like,

Think about the fact that it creates anxiousness to hold your own hand.

What does that tell you about yourself?

What does it tell you about how you learned to love yourself or not,

To be there and support yourself,

To meet your own needs?

That should tell you a lot about your own relationship to your own needs,

Right?

All right,

So if this feels complete for you,

You can just kind of like,

I feel like rubbing my hands together to kind of move that energy.

However you wanna move to kind of move that and come back to center,

You can do that now.

Diane says,

Feels like a stranger.

Hmm,

Yeah,

That really resonates in my body too.

Feels like a stranger,

Yeah.

Yeah,

You had to be a stranger to yourself to survive your upbringing,

Diane,

Yeah.

It wasn't safe to support yourself,

It wasn't safe to say no,

Wasn't safe to have boundaries,

Because remember a boundary is how we meet our own needs in relationships.

Yeah,

Boundaries and sensuality are just two wings,

Two wings of self love and action.

Yeah.

So Donna says,

It helps me to have the experience,

The felt experience of my spirit or soul connecting to my body with love.

Yeah,

I love that,

Beautiful.

I'm really happy that a few of you have had the experience of actual tenderness toward yourself,

Like this is something that I do in my meditation practice.

I mean,

All the things I'm sharing with you today are things I do with myself,

Especially when I feel like I'm up in my head or I'm worrying about something.

If I'm circling around in places that don't feel right,

Like if I need to ground and come home to myself,

I'll usually hold my own hand or I'll hold my hands on my heart or I'll stroke my palm like we're gonna be doing next.

Like these are all beautiful ways to really deeply come into the moment,

Deeply come home to yourself,

Deeply ground into that sensual present moment connection with your body.

So the next experiment we're gonna do is with an open palm.

So with your dominant hand,

So for me,

That's the right hand you're going to be very like with very gentle,

Tender curiosity,

Just stroking the inside of that non-dominant palm now.

So just opening up that non-dominant palm to whatever extent feels right.

And just really experimenting with where does it feel good to stroke your own palm?

Like where does it really feel good?

So identifying those places,

Like for me,

I don't have as much sensation like around the thumb,

But like right in the middle or especially like right on the inside of my wrist that has a lot of sensation.

Just experimenting with where does it feel really good to create the sensation on your own hand,

On your own palm,

And breathing into the resistance that might be coming up for you now.

So do you feel like this is,

Are there thoughts that this is weird?

Is there a distraction?

Are you checking your email or your phone?

Just notice the resistance that might be coming up and accept it,

It's totally okay.

So Grace says most of it has too much sensation.

Yeah.

So your thumb feels better.

Yeah,

So just experiment with what feels like just the right amount of sensation.

And Diane says,

I can't tolerate a light touch,

But if I massage it,

Then it's okay.

Yeah,

So there's no right or wrong here.

What you're going for is actually identifying what feels really good for you right now in this moment,

Without any idea of what you should feel as good or shouldn't feel as good.

You're just going with what actually feels good for you right now.

And then working on staying there,

Working on can you just keep giving yourself that good feeling?

Catherine says this practice is so simple,

Yet so powerful.

Yeah,

Diane says can't keep this up too much.

Yeah,

So go ahead and stop.

And Diane,

I would recommend you return to that anchor of safety,

So return to that refuge.

So if this feels like too much,

Again,

Like I said in the beginning,

This can be a very triggering experience.

So make sure that,

Like it looks very simple,

But this act of meeting our own needs is so unbelievably loaded for so many of us,

Whether it's like religious trauma,

Whether it's sexual trauma,

Whether it's just emotional,

I say just emotional neglect,

Like it's nothing,

Right?

But whether it's emotional neglect where you couldn't stand up for yourself or meet your own needs growing up,

Yeah.

So Diane says,

Staring out the window and tears are coming up beautiful.

Yeah,

I love how you're taking care of yourself like that.

Yeah.

So again,

Noticing is there any point where this might feel like you're forcing something and if it is just shake it out,

Come back to yourself,

Like if you're ever forcing yourself like if you're ever forcing anything,

This goes for doing any kind of healing work.

If you're ever forcing anything,

You're outside of your window of tolerance.

You've exceeded the capacity of your nervous system to really be present.

So that means that you need to stop and take a break.

Yeah.

Kelly says,

Try not to judge my hands.

I'm self-conscious about them and I love it when someone holds my hand.

Yeah.

Just holding all of that experience with love,

Like it's okay to,

Like there's a reason you're judging your hands.

You know,

It's that internal police that we talked about last week in healing the inner critic.

We have judgment for a reason,

You know.

And you can also enjoy when someone holds your hand.

Yeah.

So if this feels like it's done for you now,

You can shake it off.

You can rub your hands together.

However you want to move through it.

Linda says,

My head turned towards my right shoulder,

Like snuggling as soon as I started.

Yeah,

That's beautiful.

Like our bodies sometimes really intuitively know what we need and if we're able to listen and follow what our bodies need,

That can be an extremely healing process.

Yeah.

So this next one,

This next movement I learned when I was a teenager going to a Tara Brach meditation retreat.

So I was really lucky to go on retreat with Tara Brach when I was like 17 years old and it was like 2000 and I guess I was older,

I was like 19.

It was like 2004 and her book,

Radical Acceptance had just come out.

And so she wasn't really famous or that famous yet.

And I went on retreat with her and she led us into something that changed my life because it was so uncomfortable for me.

And that was stroking our own cheeks like this.

So I have Tara Brach to thank for this one.

So and I remember for me just there were so many,

Like it was the tidal waves of tears just came out of my body when I did this the first time.

So let's experiment with that.

So you can see what feels right for you.

Sometimes the back,

Like I'm taking basically two fingers,

The back of two fingers on just the side of my cheek or maybe the inside of two fingers on the side of your cheek and just see how much tenderness and gentleness you can bring into your touch here of your own cheek.

Imagining that maybe you're touching a beloved child or partner or a beloved animal and you just really want to communicate to them how much you care about them.

See if you can bring that quality into your own touch.

Maybe even closing your eyes.

And you might stay with the cheek or if something else feels like it's calling for your touch,

Like maybe I have two hands on my forehead now,

Just really gently,

Gently,

Gently touching with so much care or maybe just holding your own face like you would someone who's so beloved to you.

Whatever feels right for now,

Just breathing and noticing what's coming up in your body and stopping if it feels too much or if it feels like forcing anything.

If moving your hands feels like too much,

You might just experiment with holding with this intention,

This really,

Really tender,

Loving intention toward yourself.

And breathing.

Yeah,

So Robert says yes to those powerful,

Powerful,

Loving intentions.

And then you're just going to be like,

Yeah,

So Robert says yes to those powerfully healing to care for yourself in this way.

Diane says wiping away tears.

Diane or anyone else,

I wonder what would happen if you didn't wipe away the tears,

If you let them fall,

Knowing that there's a powerful release happening,

There's grief,

Like sometimes this brings up massive amounts of grief.

See if you can allow what feels like it's right to allow for now.

Dee says it all makes me feel like I've missed myself,

Yeah.

Noelle says instant tears,

This feels like deep love.

Hands felt like predatory advances,

Yeah.

For so many of us,

That's true,

Right?

Who have had our boundaries violated,

Hands can feel like predatory advances.

I'm so happy you can access love through your hands,

Noelle.

Yeah.

So whatever you're experiencing with this,

See if you can just breathe into it,

Even if you have to take a break or move away from this exercise,

Just accepting whatever's coming up for you.

With any kind of work like this that's expanding our capacity,

Like literally the capacity of our nervous system to hold charge,

Capacity to hold goodness,

Like this can be very threatening to the nervous systems of trauma survivors,

So we need to take breaks with this work.

Marjorie says exploring the contours of my own face is so unfamiliar,

Yeah,

Yeah.

Diane says deep grief that hurts my heart is bringing up childhood,

Yeah.

Well,

That's where we're going next.

So I'll just give all of you a very brief overview of the invitation next,

So that you can assess your desire to participate or not.

So the invitation next will be to,

To again,

Like maybe go back to contact,

The kind of self contact,

Self touch that felt like it brought up the most for you,

Not in an overwhelming way,

But just like in a tolerable way.

And so the invitation in a moment will be to really name the resistance that's coming up for you to really absolutely fully embracing yourself with total tenderness.

We're going to allow our imaginations to create a figure out of that resistance,

And then we're going to have an interaction,

A very loving interaction with that figure.

So,

And for many people,

The figure is,

Is a younger version of them,

Maybe a version that's in pain or that went through a particular experience.

So this is the shadow integration part,

The invitation part of our session.

And again,

The shadow in us is those aspects of ourselves that we had to minimize or repress or submerge in order to get approval when we were children,

You know,

In other words,

To stay safe.

So,

All right.

So if that feels like something you want to do right now,

Or again,

This is being recorded,

So if you want to do it on the recording later,

That's an option.

So go ahead and do whatever kind of loving self touch was bringing up a lot for you.

I'm getting like chills all over my body when I go to connect again.

And really tune in with curiosity.

Is there a voice or is there some feeling that's resisting approaching yourself with complete and total tenderness?

And name perhaps if there's a body sensation that that is,

Is there tension that's part of this experience of resistance like tension in the chest or throat or jaw,

For example,

To name the body sensation that might be part of this resistance.

And then maybe name the emotion that might be this resistance.

So for example,

I was naming,

There's a slight feeling of disgust that seems like it's coming in between me and total tenderness toward myself.

There's kind of like,

Is this okay?

This is kind of gross,

Like touching myself.

It's gross.

Okay,

So whatever you're noticing now,

This constellation of feeling,

Of emotion and felt body sense.

If you're comfortable,

You can close your eyes.

And if it feels right,

You can even disconnect from touching your body or you can stay connected.

But I invite your imagination now to get very,

Very vivid,

Really tuning into your beautiful intuition and allow your intuition,

Your imagination to show you the figure that is the representation of this resistance.

And allow whatever it is to be true,

Whatever first impression you see is true.

And now breathe deeply into your own body as the strongest version of yourself now.

And you're looking across the room at this figure of your resistance now.

So you're breathing into yourself as the strongest,

Most compassionate version of yourself.

If you work with like a higher level of consciousness,

If you work with like a higher self,

That could be a possibility here.

And you're at a respectful distance from this figure now and you're just breathing and witnessing them.

And name what you notice.

For example,

Who do you see there across from you?

Is it a version of you?

Is it something amorphous?

Is it a color,

A shape,

Or even an animal?

Name what it is.

And now name what their body language is.

Name how they're feeling.

Breathing deeply here.

How are they feeling?

And whatever you notice,

We're now going to validate and mirror back what we see.

So for example,

If they're feeling all alone,

You'll say something like,

I see that you feel all alone.

Yeah.

Just noticing how they're feeling.

If it feels right,

Mirroring that back.

So Noel says she's seeing past abusers.

If that's something that other people are experiencing too,

So Noel and others,

You might find it empowering to speak what you needed to speak to them now.

Speak the words that were unsaid that needed to be said to protect yourself.

And Netta says,

I just see a metal gate.

Okay,

So how do I talk to it?

I'll tell you exactly how you can talk to it.

So now,

No matter what you see,

If you're seeing an abuser,

Don't ask them this question.

Just continue to speak what you needed to say that was unsaid.

But if you don't see an abuser,

If you see an image,

A gate,

An object,

An animal,

A version of you,

We're gonna ask it this question now and just intuitively notice what it says.

And the question is,

What do you really need?

What do you really need?

If it feels appropriate,

Imagine,

Sense,

Feel yourself meeting that need now for them.

If you see something like a gate or something like a gate or something like a gate,

Or something that feels aggressive toward you,

Like that dragon,

Your question might have a connotation of what would you need in order for me to approach you?

Or if it's a gate,

What would you need to open?

Not being attached to a particular outcome,

Knowing that it's not better here for it to open or not.

Not being attached to a particular outcome,

Knowing that it's better here for it to open or not,

Just with great curiosity,

What do you really need?

Noticing in your adult present moment body what's coming up for you to meet this need or just to be in encounter with this figure in general.

And just naming what you notice,

There's tension,

Perhaps you're not breathing,

Softening,

Allowing breath through as you interact with this figure.

Now asking the figure,

Is there anything else that's needed here for this to be complete for now?

What else is needed or does this encounter feel complete enough for now?

So doing or saying whatever is needed for this to feel complete on their terms,

On the terms of the figure,

We're not gonna be doing what we want to do to this figure,

Unless again,

It's a past abuser and you're speaking what needed to be said.

But for most of us,

It's going to be just on the terms of this figure,

Is there anything else that they need?

And sending them the telepathic message now that,

And again,

This does not apply for a past abuser if that's what you're seeing,

But in all other cases,

Send them the message that in a moment you're going to be shifting into another state of consciousness.

And then you're gonna be able to see what you're seeing,

What you're seeing,

What you're seeing,

What you're seeing,

What you're seeing,

What you're seeing,

What you're seeing next to you,

Trevor,

What you should do in the format of representing your subconscious~~~~ And would they like to come with you or would they like to stay right where they are knowing that there's no better or worse here?

Would they like to come with you or would they rather stay just as they are?

Noticing the immediate impression that you receive.

If they'd like to come with you,

You might bring your hands to your heart and just know that they're right here with you.

And if they're staying there,

Just really feel some deep respect and compassion for them exactly as they are.

Knowing that they are part of you,

Even if they're not actively coming with you,

That they belong to you.

And start to bring yourself back to the room that you're in.

So imagining the walls that are around you,

Feeling the sensation of breath in the body now.

And when you're ready,

If eyes were closed,

You can open them and take some looks around your space.

You might just do some gentle palpating of your body just to be like,

I'm here.

I'm in this body right now.

Deep breath,

Looking around your space,

Taking any movement that your body seems to ask for to really bring all aspects of yourself back right here,

Right now.

And notice now how you feel,

How you feel after that experience.

You might even do a little experiment of going back to that form of self touch.

Noticing if you feel softer about it now,

Does it feel like it flows any more easily for you and it's completely okay if it doesn't.

This is just an experiment.

Just coming back,

Feeling whatever is coming up for you,

Breathing,

Knowing that I'm going to be hanging out for 10 to 15 minutes still and offering any additional support that feels needed or answering any questions that you have about the process,

But doing whatever is needed now to just come all the way back.

So what you did is shadow work as I practice it.

That resistance that you felt was a voice that needed to be seen and heard.

That's part of your shadow.

And by loving witnessing,

We helped it to integrate back.

So going from being fragmented and separate from yourself,

From your ego,

From your personality to a more integrated part of who you are,

That is shadow integration.

So I'd love to know if anyone has any thing they'd like to share about that experience,

How it landed with you or any questions that you have.

Aneta says the metal gate that you saw was an inanimate object and didn't talk but I have muscle twitches and a big sigh.

So what that tells me and that is that something really powerful move through you regardless of that,

That image interacting with you.

Yeah.

D says I feel much needed connection to myself.

Meg says how often should I do exercises like this?

That's completely up to you.

But definitely wait until this feels integrated.

So definitely wait,

I would say at least a few days until it settles in because my work is disarmingly simple.

It seems simple,

But it's actually extremely potent.

And you might really notice shifts for you in the next few days.

So I would just wait to do something else.

So this exercise that we did this particular shadow encounter is very similar to the meditation I have on insight timer called dialogue with a shadow aspect.

And so if if this resonated,

Definitely do dialogue with a shadow aspect and you can use whatever you want as the portal into that meditation that then becomes the figure you can use any kind of resistance that you feel in your life or to any kind of touch.

Yeah,

So that dialogue with the shadow aspect is a really good follow up meditation that you might want to do in a few days or whenever it feels right.

And that's again on my teacher profile on insight timer.

I have tons of guided shadow work here on insight timer.

Okay,

So let's see.

Oh,

And then the Catherine Catherine,

My assistant says previous live recording dialogue with the shadow aspects.

So it's actually not a live recording.

It's just a meditation that I recorded a while ago.

But yeah,

Thank you for for posting that there for people to see what the name is.

So Diane says,

Heart started pounding and I started having panic but the dragon spoke and I ended up hugging myself and stroking my arms.

I'm really glad that it sounds like you could regulate,

Come back,

Start experiencing love for yourself through that.

That's really beautiful.

And it just shows you how much is there like how much that brought up that it induced that anxiety.

Yeah.

So just really breathing.

This will take a while it'll take a while to integrate.

Yeah,

So a couple things.

Make sure to join our shadow work circle here on insight timer if this work resonates with you.

Because right now we're doing a 30 day of starting two days ago,

We're doing a 30 day be bold challenge.

And we're posting what we're doing every day to be bold.

And again,

Bold for me,

Means living in a way that isn't how we were conditioned to be good,

Right?

So living in a way that expands our capacity to hold aliveness,

Which absolutely includes practices like this.

So definitely join the shadow work circle here on insight timer by going to the homepage of insight timer right after this live,

Clicking the circle icon down below,

Searching for shadow work and then joining our circle right there.

That would be an amazing way to follow up with this work today.

The be bold 30 day challenge in our shadow work circle on insight timer,

Or to do any of my guided shadow work here on insight timer would be a great follow up to this.

And thank you all so much for your donations.

I see some coming in.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So if this was helpful for you today,

If this was if you learn something donating is a fantastic way to communicate that to me.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Oh,

I'm hearing that a lot of you appreciate this work.

Thank you so much.

So also,

You all know that I love to give book recommendations.

That's something we also do in the circle.

We really talk book recommendations and like where you can go with this work from here where you can go deeper in the work.

So if you want to go a lot deeper and learning about your nervous system,

And how pleasure heals trauma.

In addition to just like this is the best,

Like this book is the best real world guide to the nervous system I've ever seen.

It's Kimberly and Johnson's new book,

Call of the Wild.

So Call of the Wild how we heal trauma,

Awaken our own power and use it for good by Kimberly and Johnson.

Yeah,

And thank you,

Catherine for writing that title down for everyone.

That would be an amazing way to learn more if you're someone who's cognitively based if you like reading books and learning that way.

That would definitely be the next step.

And especially if you're someone who identifies as a woman like that's who she's really writing to but it's for folks across the gender spectrum as well.

It's just that again for those of us socialize as female we tend to have like endemic Lee across the board,

Really massive blocks to speaking up for our own needs and desires,

Taking up space,

Feeling comfortable with our own pleasure sensuality.

Yeah,

Thank you all so very much.

Any other questions or needing support did that bring up a lot of anxiety for any of you.

And if your donation isn't showing up like a few of you mentioned,

Sometimes it doesn't show up here but definitely I definitely get it when I look at my teacher dashboards and no worries about that.

Yeah so Lydia says my five year old self fainted for the first of many times.

I have had a lock tight job or since she said she wasn't wanted she was grateful for me to see her.

Yeah,

I'm so glad you can see her.

Yeah.

The answer is still feeling a bit anxious.

So says thank you Oh thank you so much pass over being here.

So let's see Marjorie says reminder of parts of myself I lost touch with physically and emotionally and anonymous said before the meditation touching my face reminded me of someone else but after I could touch my face lovingly that's beautiful.

Thank you so much.

So if you're still feeling anxious.

I'm in a guy for any of you who are still feeling anxious or just want to feel more like this is tied up like the bow is tied and like you have a container.

Let's just move a little bit so Oh,

Thank you Lori I think I've seen you a bunch as a teacher on insight timer.

I'm so honored you're here.

So let's just get up.

So again if you're feeling like moving if that's something that your body says yes to let's get up and like this is what my body is wanting is just kind of standing up and swaying from side to side letting my arms swing.

So make sure especially if you're feeling anxious that you disconnect from looking at the screen and you look around your space you look out a window if you have access to one like actually looking at a screen encourages our nervous system to feel anxiety believe it or not.

So look out walk around a little bit and if you're if your body is desiring something more contained just experiment with self hugs.

So I'm just hugging myself and crossing my arms across the front and breathing you could also if you're experiencing a lot of anxiety what's helped me when I was having nightly anxiety attacks as some of you some of you know that story about me postpartum anyway I was having nightly anxiety attacks and what I always did was I just laid on I laid on the floor with bent knees and I just breathe and I allow I just allowed myself to feel how I was feeling but somehow the feeling of my bones being supported by the ground like I was just on our wood floor on a yoga mat that helped me just to feel that support of the ground it didn't magically make the anxiety vanish but it helped me to just feel supported so you can experiment with that if that feels good too.

All right and always make sure that you know you can reach out for extra support in the circle again I'm in the circle active on my wonderful helper Catherine with a K is in the circle and very active and Catherine really knows my work forwards and backwards too so she is very able to offer support in her own way too and to point you toward resources so you can always post in the circle if anything else is needed and yeah and thank you this was this was Catherine with the K's first time helping on a live event so yeah it was so awesome to have your help here and so let's see Nikki says feeling sadness sometimes and I don't know why and how to soothe that so Nikki from my personal perspective I would say if it feels tolerable to you if it feels like it doesn't induce panic for example experiment with feeling the sadness and see if you can resist the urge to soothe it away just I wonder what would happen if you felt that sadness and make sure you have some support to do that either a professional or a friend who you can share your heart with but just I wonder what would happen if you allowed yourself to feel so feelings I like to say feelings are like tunnels we have to go through them we have to go through them to get the other to the other side and so often like as we know from Jungian psychology what we resist persists right what we allow is free to shift and change so oftentimes it's the feelings that we're trying not to feel that stay stuck in our body and end up controlling ourselves from controlling us from the inside from from the unconscious from our shadow so feel it see if you can feel it again with support in a way that feels tolerable to your nervous system yeah yawning and now you've got me yawning too so yawning is a release is a parasympathetic nervous system activation so in other words it helps us calm down so yeah yawning means processing yawning means you're moving through it yawning means your parasympathetic nervous system is being engaged so yawn away all right everyone so again join our shadow work circle here on insight timer for our be bold 30-day challenge to keep doing these small acts of sensuality pleasure boundary setting saying no noticing your no taking a power pose it's really an amazing thing to see so many people coming together to to live in a way that's beyond our conditioning beyond the way that we learned how to be good right in the most beautiful way and just letting all that life force energy move through us more and more because that's what healing is about all right thank you all so much i'm going to sign out and get back to my baby and my family yeah it was beautiful thanks to all of you for sharing of yourself and contributing and i will see all of you who want to join in our shadow work circle and i will make sure to post in the circle as soon as this recording is available on my teacher profile so thank you all so much and i will see you oh see you next week same time same place and that's going to be a great live called um what did i call oh setting boundaries in relationships so join us next week same time same place for setting boundaries in relationships yes all right thank you all so tomorrow thank you so much virtual hug to you yeah see you next week and see you in the circle and everyone have a beautiful week okay all right bye bye

Reviews

Very powerful. Will listen and do this again. Thank you so much!❤️🙏

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟- this shadow work exercise caused the most profound shift with one of my first and most heavy abandonment traumas. I am in such awe of the integration that I am feeling right now…it’s like I’ve been walking around in my life with a boulder imbedded in my chest, and after this shadow work, I feel so LIGHT that I’m reeling from the relief…this trauma was seriously one of the worst if not the worst trauma that I can recall from early childhood, and it’s been stuck in me for so long, completely refusing to move, that I wondered if it was even possible for it to heal. After this practice, the boulder cracked and a huge chunk of it feels like it’s completely gone. I’m not sure if this is a “magic silver bullet”, and I probably will have to return to this practice many times for full integration, but WOW. Wow wow wow whoa whoa whoa, this exercise moved the immovable in me. Thank you so much for this, Catherine 🙏💯‼️

Wonderful - thank you!

Extremely emotional with so much relief and grief, thank you for your work ❤.

Beautiful experience- I felt strong and fragile at the time ✨🙏✨

Extremely moving. So many lessons experienced.

Thank you 🙏🏼 that was very impactful in a healing way 🌤✨❤️‍🩹

Great practice. Thanks Katherine 🙏🏻