The Wisdom Of Your Body With Embodiment Expert Leah McQuade

Leah McQuade is an Embodiment Expert and Transformational Life Coach. She learned how to heal her own body through mindfulness, meditation, non-linear movement and other methods and now teaches other women how to attain these same levels of health and feeling great in your body, mind and spirit. We talk about using Divine Feminine Energy and Power in the creation of our lives and the great value of taking time to listen to our bodies and know the messages.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the newly named Choose Happiness podcast.

I'm your host Lauren G.

Foster,

Happiness teacher and author of Happy and Free On Purpose Daily Practices to Live and Love Your Life.

We are all about finding ways here to support one another in this worldwide global community and to help you to find the life skills and the tools that will help you to really get in touch with who you are and what your purpose is in this life.

Be sure to leave a review.

That's a great way for us to be able to interact with one another and I respond to every single one and it is just the highlight of my day when I get to hear from the people who are out there in the virtual world who are being helped by this work.

So that said,

I'm happy to welcome today my new friend Leah McQuaid.

Leah is an embodiment expert and transformational life coach.

We're going to learn from her what exactly an embodiment expert is.

So welcome Leah.

Yeah,

Great.

Thank you so much for having me.

I'm so happy that you're here.

So tell us about you.

What is an embodiment life coach?

How is Leah serving the world?

Yeah,

Thanks for that question.

So I like to start with my own story and my story I think is a common story for many women out there.

I basically was working myself to death.

I was hustling.

I was overachieving.

I was doing all the things that I was supposed to be doing.

I went to college.

Yeah,

Supposed to and with the air quotes,

Right?

I went to college.

I got a good job.

I met my husband.

I bought the house and everything looked great on the outside except things were not so good on the inside.

And the more I felt big things on the inside,

The more I felt big emotions,

The more I wanted to push them down,

The more I wanted to stuff them,

The more I wanted to ignore them,

The more I wanted to distract.

And all of that pushing down,

All of that distracting,

All of that looking good on the outside caused a lot of physical symptoms for me.

So I started having gut issues.

I started having insomnia.

I started having unexplained nausea and dizziness.

And I even had depression and anxiety.

And I would just distract myself and keep going and keep pushing and keep doing the things until finally my body was like enough is enough and I couldn't function anymore.

And so I did all the things.

I went to all the doctors and traditional doctors and they didn't know what was wrong.

They wanted to put a bandaid basically is what I say.

They wanted to give me pills to mask the symptoms.

And I knew enough about what I wanted to know the pills weren't the answer from me.

They weren't the answer for me.

I was really seeking the deeper truth.

And so I went on a journey and I've been on that journey ever since.

And one of the things that really helped me understand myself at a deeper level and understand what I was going through was embodiment,

Was understanding the signals that my body was trying to tell me.

And that's one of the biggest transformations in my life was just learning more about my body and learning to listen to the sensations in my body.

That's really at a basic level what embodiment is about.

It's about listening to the wisdom of your body because we all have this innate natural primal wisdom within the body.

And we override that constantly to portray this lifestyle and portray this identity out into the world.

And we really do ourselves a disservice by ignoring the wisdom of our body.

I agree completely.

And but so if you are a person who has spent your entire lifetime not giving any credibility to the messages from your body,

Not giving any love and respect to your body,

Where do you start?

And every teacher like us has their own ways of getting to the real root of the problem and reopening that line of communication.

So I would love to hear yours.

Yeah.

So I'll never forget the first time I really heard in a yoga class.

I'm sure I had heard it before,

But the first time I really listened to the yoga teacher say,

Listen to your body.

And when I finally heard that,

I got real curious.

I thought,

What does that mean?

What does that mean to actually listen to my body?

And so the first thing I did is I stayed really curious.

I stayed really,

Really curious.

And so that's what I can offer first and foremost,

Right,

Is be curious about the sensations in your body.

I'd be curious about them and just know that they're there to give you advice.

They're there to give you directions.

Those triggers,

That's a big word we get in today's world,

Right?

We're being triggered.

I'm triggered by this.

I'm triggered by that,

Right?

That's a trailhead.

That's a signpost.

And we have those constantly throughout the day,

But we're so used to overriding that.

So it's really just staying curious and we have to drop in to do that.

So when we're stressed or overwhelmed,

If we're experiencing anxiety,

We're going to have a more difficult time listening to the signals of the body.

So first and foremost is really just dropping in.

And when I say dropping in,

It's just finding stillness.

It's finding stillness,

Meaning coming out of the busy mind and allowing yourself to just settle.

And the more we can do that on a regular basis,

The easier it becomes.

The more we can tell ourselves,

I'm safe.

It's okay to be quiet.

It's okay to allow my mind to.

.

.

How cute.

We've got a furry creature.

Oh,

How cute.

They always come around.

Always.

Oh,

I love animals.

They're so cute.

Aren't they?

In case you're only listening to the audio,

Not seeing the video,

My giant cat just jumped in my lap and ripped some holes in my thigh in the process.

And it's all good.

He shows up in a lot of videos.

Yeah.

I love animals.

They're so healing.

So I always welcome animals in any of my healing,

My coaching sessions,

Because they're always so welcome for that process.

They really help us transmute some energy we might be moving through.

So stillness,

Dropping into stillness is really important for embodiment.

And the app that this is being played on,

One of them is Insight Timer,

Which is a meditation app.

And that's the whole definition and the easiest path to dropping into yourself is through a strong and consistent meditation practice.

Do you agree?

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

And it's interesting because I think people that come across,

That I come across in my world have this idea of meditation,

Being in India and sitting in a cave for eight hours.

And that's definitely a type of meditation,

But there's also,

There's many,

Many forms of meditation.

And in the work that I do in my one-on-one coaching,

We first and foremost develop what I call non-negotiables.

We create a Zen Den,

So a space wherever you are,

That's devoted to your quiet time.

I help you develop that.

And then I also help you develop a stillness practice,

A meditation practice,

A way for you to drop in that feels authentic to you.

It doesn't have to mean sitting in a cave in India for eight hours.

And so meditation can mean so many things.

Yeah.

So that's one of the first things that we do.

Absolutely.

So we in the Happy and Free on Purpose Life Course,

Which is also on this app,

I encourage you all to go and check that out.

We have a whole entire lesson on creating a sacred spiritual ritual for each day,

Which includes a sacred space.

And I have little meditation.

I live on the side of a mountain in the middle of nowhere.

It's like a tree house.

So it feels like the whole mountain is sacred.

But I have different little meditation areas all throughout my house based on what,

If I'm in the mood to sit on the floor,

If I'm in the mood to sit on a meditation bench and finding the fun and the ritual in that is one of the things that I love the most.

All right.

So getting still,

Meditating,

What are some other tools that you can use to get in touch with your body and begin,

You know,

The,

When you say listen to your body,

How does,

I mean,

Does it say words?

How does it speak to you?

Yes,

I love that.

I love that.

Well,

Our emotions and our feelings are in our body.

So that's one way that our body talks to us is through emotions and feelings and those triggers,

Right?

When you think about just all of a sudden getting a big feeling over something that doesn't seem like it should elicit this big feeling,

Right?

That's a trailhead.

That's a signpost.

So the feelings and emotions can be a way that it speaks to us.

Also there's,

As we get more and more into the body,

We can sensitize ourselves to even deeper signals,

Right?

So if we think real basic sensations of the body,

Having to go to the bathroom,

That's a sensation in the body,

Right?

And sometimes I think we've all had this,

We're on a long road trip or something in the bathrooms,

Not for another few miles and you're,

You,

You ignore it,

Right?

You like pretend like you don't have to go to the bathroom and it goes away for a minute,

But then it'll come back up short,

You know,

20 minutes,

30 minutes later,

Whatever.

So that's important to remember when,

When we're trying to develop a deeper practice within our bodies is that we can easily ignore the,

The,

The feelings of the body.

And for many of us,

When those deeper emotions or those unpleasant feelings start to surface,

The first place we want to,

First thing we want to do is to suppress them,

Is to hide them because it's uncomfortable.

So it's really about first off,

Accepting like these are normal human experiences in what you're experiencing in your body at any given moment is normal and accepting it and being with it can really help you move through it because suppressing it and pushing it down and pretending like it isn't there is going to cause all sorts of things.

Like I experienced,

You may not be experiencing the symptoms I did,

The physical symptoms I did,

But it'll show up in other ways.

And so if we can just learn to listen to those signals sooner,

Then we're really giving our body a chance to,

To tell us,

And we're listening to those signals of the body and it can really prevent some,

You know,

Less than optimal things in the future,

If that makes sense.

So there's,

Yeah,

There's levels to,

To sensitizing the body for sure.

And I firmly believe that your body's not going to stop trying to tell you until you,

Until you do,

And until it,

You know,

You get cancer,

You get something huge that you can't ignore anymore,

But our body gives us a chance to respond with gentler messages first,

If we're paying attention.

Right?

Yeah,

Yeah,

Absolutely.

So one of the,

The,

I don't know if I answered your question.

So one of the things that I really like,

Another way that I like to,

To help get into the body is through nonlinear movement.

So we know exercise is good for us.

We know that moving our bodies is,

Is good.

I like to think of,

Of moving our body in a way that's not so linear.

So the yoga classes,

They're great.

I love yoga.

It changed my life.

However,

There tends to be a structure to those.

The boot camps,

Right?

They tend to be a structure going out and walking,

Right?

We're walking in a linear line typically.

So I really like to move in a way that the body feels and moving in a way that's not linear.

And that can really help us begin to get out of a structured way of thinking and being and getting into more of the feelings of the body.

So one of the things I like to do is put on,

Put on a song and,

And dropping into the body.

So just asking myself,

How am I feeling at this moment?

And I move my body to that song based on how I feel.

So I might be feeling a little bit anxious when I,

When I wake up in the morning and I might move my body the way anxiety would move,

Move in the moment.

It's not about how it looks.

It's not about moving to the rhythm of the music.

And in that three minute song,

Four minute song,

I might shift from anxiety to excitement,

To lethargic.

Like I can move through all of these different ranges of emotions and all of it is welcome.

All of it is perfect.

And you're just allowing yourself to move your body in the way that you're feeling and emotions that might be coming up in the moment.

So I love that one.

I think that's really a beautiful way to get out of the mind and into the body and really listen.

That's interesting and new to me.

I've not,

I've not heard anyone talk about nonlinear movement and at least not using those words.

So yeah,

That's,

That's fascinating and something that I will explore a little bit too.

Yeah.

Michaela Boehm.

She,

You know,

I'm going to give her credit for this.

Michaela Boehm has been a mentor of mine.

The Wild Woman's Way has been my Bible,

My savior in doing this embodiment work.

So that might be something for your listeners to look at her work.

And she created the nonlinear movement method even,

But yeah,

She speaks about the different practices that women,

Especially who tend to be in their minds a lot,

Tend to hustle and overachieve and over function.

Really helping them get out of the mind and into the body.

Cause that's where we store joy and freedom and pleasure and peace.

We store all that in the body,

Not in the mind.

Right.

Absolutely.

I,

I love this very much.

And you know,

I would love to see us as women be more about identifying what it is that our soul is really yearning for instead of like most of us too,

As you described in your life following the path that is we're supposed to,

You know,

Being the good girl,

Being the,

The creating the life that we're expected to create.

And all the while our soul is just starving because we're,

We're not really paying attention to our own longings and our own discontent and our own yearning.

So that,

And you can get so much information from your body,

Right.

About what's going right and what's not.

Absolutely.

Our desires,

Our pleasure,

All of that is within our body.

And if we just live in a constant autopilot on the constant,

You know,

Going as Michaela says,

We want to get out of the go mode and into the flow mode.

So this is a big,

I love that,

Right?

Michaela once again.

So it's,

It's and this is a big part of the work that I do and a big part of my mission is to help more women really get into the flow mode because it's in that flow mode where we really step into that divine feminine essence.

So we step into more community,

More relationships,

More connections,

More love,

More tenderness,

More compassion,

All elements related to the feminine,

The divine feminine.

So the more we can really harness that energy,

I really believe the world would change.

And it starts with women because if you identify in a,

In a female body,

Not always,

But more,

More than likely,

You're going to really identify with more of those qualities of the feminine.

And so many of us are so out of balance in,

In the masculine and feminine energies that coming back to the sacredness of the divine and the spirituality and the,

The connection to the earth,

All the things that are really about the feminine,

Right.

Are kind of foreign to us in some ways,

But when we tap into it,

It's like,

Oh,

I'm back home.

And it's like,

Oh,

This is what I've been craving in my life for so long,

Because so many of us have been so out of balance with that for so long.

Cause our society is a masculine driven society,

Meaning we put a lot of emphasis on motivation and doing,

And the more we check up our to-do list,

The more successful and important we'll be right.

And those aspects are important in life.

Absolutely.

We,

We need to get things done.

We need families we have to take care of and work.

We have to do to make money,

All of the things.

Those are really important,

But there is,

There is a balance.

When I say balance,

It's really a harmonizing because balance,

I don't think actually really exists.

It's really a harmonizing between the masculine and the feminine.

And it's a dance between the masculine and the feminine.

And so many of us have been so in the masculine just because it's part of the culture.

It's part of what once again,

We're supposed to do.

Right.

And it's also important to note that the masculine way of creating is necessary.

That's how we get buildings.

That's how we get inventions and cell phones and you know,

All of those ways.

And so that both are important,

But the feminine energies have been neglected and have been kind of let to go back to the wayside.

And that's why many of us men also,

But really women,

You know,

90% of us are just not feeling fulfilled,

Not feeling satisfied and filled up in our lives.

So you kind of froze.

That has to do with,

Oh,

I think I lost you there for a moment.

Yeah.

So go back to what,

Let's see.

The last thing I heard you say was we were talking about how,

Well,

I said that this is,

See,

This is a real conversation.

This is how real conversations go.

What I was just talking about.

I was saying that the feminine,

90% of women are unfulfilled.

Yeah.

And I,

I love that,

That you mentioned that because I do believe that that's a huge number.

And I do believe that that in some cases,

In some cases on some level is really accurate.

And I think it has to do a lot with us not being in balance with our feminine and trying to do it all.

And it just comes down to the fact that we have to make choices in our lives.

We have to make choices,

Although we live in this modern society that gives us options because we have so many options,

But it's too many options.

And we think that we have to do it all.

And it comes down to the fact we do eventually have to make choices in our lives and bringing in more of the elements of the feminine in those choices.

I think it'll change the world because quite frankly,

The world needs more love.

The world needs more connection.

The world needs more community.

The world needs tenderness.

This is what the world needs.

The world doesn't need more of the masculine energy.

We got it.

We got that taken care of.

We got it.

And like you said,

Yes,

It's important.

But finding that harmony between the two in your own personal life can really help you transcend,

Transcend the unfulfillment in your life.

Yeah,

Absolutely.

Wonderful conversation.

Lee,

Is there anything else that you want to add before we wrap things up?

So let's first of all,

Let's summarize the things that we talked about first,

Getting still in order to be able to hear your body and meditation and having a sacred space and sacred time that works just for you.

What was that?

There was another thing that we said that you said,

Oh,

Nonlinear movement,

Getting into a place where you are just letting your body move the way that it feels.

And no matter what,

Letting everything be okay and strengthening your level of communication with your body,

Right?

Yeah,

Absolutely.

An easy thing,

An easy and fun thing for many of us to do.

Yeah,

I love that one.

And any kind of music will do,

Right?

Absolutely.

It's not about the rhythm.

It's not about you looking a certain way.

So any music that really appeals to you.

Yeah,

I'm definitely going to try that.

That sounds fun.

Yeah,

Absolutely.

So Leah McQuaid,

And you can Google her and find her.

What's your website,

Leah?

Leah McQuaid.

Com,

So that's L-E-A-H-M-C-Q-U-A-D-E.

Awesome.

And again,

Remember to write us a review and with your comments,

With your feedback,

We'd love to hear from you.

And that's a great way for us to interact and go check out the Happy and Free On Purpose Life course on Insight Timer.

It's a 20-day audio course.

It will change your life,

10 or 15 minutes a day.

You owe it to yourself to give it a try.

So thank you so much,

Leah,

For being with us.

We'll be back again soon with another great interview.

In the meantime,

Remember happiness is a choice.

You can always choose to be happy first.

I'll see you soon.