Last week we used our cognitive skills to pull out themes of fulfillment across your lived experiences. How did this go for you? What did you learn?
This week, we are going to take a bottom-up approach using our bodies as antennae to sense into our purpose in real time.
There is a lot of psychological nuance that I can go into here to discern the difference between bottom-up and top-down processing, but for the sake of simplicity and practicality, let’s think of it this way…
Top-down processing essentially means that you are thinking about yourself in order to become more aware of yourself. This is called conceptual self-awareness.
Bottom-up processing is about you experiencing yourself in the present moment. This is called embodied self-awareness.
Conceptual Self-Awareness
This is based in language and symbols. It is rational, logical, explanatory and transcends the present moment.
This is the territory of leadership assessments, personality tests and astrology. We are given a mirror into our psyches so we can reflect on it, think about it, and learn more about ourselves through that process.
The exercise we did last week was a practice of conceptual self-awareness.
It is experienced as facts, details, ideas, insights, narrative, perspective, interpretation, and past and future awareness.
This is your self-story. This is when you share the awareness that: "I am a recovering people-pleaser because that's how I got my needs met as a child."
This is often what you explore in traditional talk therapy.
It activates certain regions of the nervous system: facial muscles, cranial nerves, speech and language centers of the brain.
Embodied Self-Awareness
This is based in sensing, feeling, acting, and moving. It is spontaneous, dynamic, creative, open, concrete, and lived in the present moment.
It is experienced as temperature, pressure, movement, pain, breath, energy, mood, emotion. It is mindfulness of the present moment as experienced through our bodies.
This is the real-time experience in your body of people pleasing OR choosing a different path.
It activates different centers of the nervous system: somatosensory nerves, sensory-motor cortex, insula (registers pain & intensity of sensory experiences), ventromedial prefrontal cortex (registers emotions, decision-making, memory, self-perception and social cognition).
Dr. Blake. refers to your body as the social-emotional sense organ for this reason.
Why do you think this might be a useful tool in discovering our purpose?
Both types of self awareness are crucial for discovering and living your purpose.
For the purposes of this post, we are going to focus on embodied self-awareness as a path to purpose discovery.
Learning life’s language
Before I dive in, I want to invite you to practice embodied self-awareness through this next section.
What I mean is this: while your eyes scan these words and your brain does the work to process their meaning, I invite you to also notice how your body is responding to them. There is no need to make sense of what you notice, only to notice how your sensations speak to you as you read this.
Here we go…
At its most rudimentary form, Life is energy. Everything that ever has and will exist is made of this energy. Refer back to the two videos I recommended by Brian Swimme and Rob Bell last week to learn more about this cosmology.
The same energy that created the universe courses through your body.
It is your body. And this energy speaks to us through sensations.
Take a moment to notice this right now.
What sensations are you noticing the most right now? Do you feel the phone in your hands, the weight of it, the texture of it, the temperate? Do you feel yourself sitting or standing on whatever surface you are on? Do you feel the air or your clothes on your skin? Take a moment to really notice that.
When we have the awareness and capacity to be with this energy speaking to us through our bodies, we can literally tap into the same animating life force that created the Universe.
It's an intelligence that has been moving toward Life for all of existence, and we have access to it through our sensations! Isn’t that something?
This energy, these sensations, are Life’s way of telling us what to move toward, and what to move away from, in order to further our own existence.
In order for Life to continue Living and create more Life.
Now would be a great time to pause your reading and practice this 10 minute embodied presence meditation so you can experience first-hand what I am referring to.
Letting life show you your purpose
You all know that I love taking philosophical and spiritual topics and making them very practical for you.
Here’s how you use this method of purpose discovery is a very grounded and practical way:
Practice embodied presence.
We must begin by building your somatic awareness and literacy, meaning that you not only are aware that you have a body, but you can also notice and sense how your body is speaking to you as you move about through your day.
You can use the audio recording above, or search for body scan meditations on your preferred meditation app.
Bring that practice to your daily life.
Setting aside time to notice your body with eyes closed is one thing. Noticing and listening to your body as you engage with life is where the rubber meets the road, though. This is when embodied self-awareness can be the most useful in your daily life.
I suggest trying this 20 minute centering exercise help you here. The practice is done with eyes open so you can build skill in having embodied self-awareness and centering while being open to receiving the world in front of you.
The point of practicing this is so you can be aware and centered while you wash the dishes, talk to your partner or kids, or sit in a meeting at work. Make it practical and useful for yourself; this is how you build faith in the practice and your capacity.
Daily Energy Audit
Try this practice for at least three days in a row.
Set a reminder to pause once every hour for a full day. Yes, I really mean once every hour. It will be enlightening, I promise. Be sure to include home and work time.
During your pause, write down the activity you were just doing and how it is affecting your energy in this moment. Note if your energy is going up, down or neutral. Capture anything else you are noticing in your body (clenched jaw, butterflies in your tummy, tingles down your arms, etc)
At the end of your day, look back on your daily energy audit log and capture any insights you might be having.
Reflect: how much of your time are you spending in activities that drain you or don’t contribute to your life force? Is there any way you can dump this activity, delegate it, or do it differently? And what is this telling you about your purpose?
It’s important to note that not all energy reducing activities are ‘bad’ and not all high energy activities are ‘good’ in this practice.
Meditation might reduce your energy in a way that brings more peace and grounding into your life, whereas coffee might boost your energy momentarily only to have negative affects later.
As you interpret the results of your audit, notice what’s most important to you and how that shows up in the activities you participate in during the day and how it affects your energy.
A very simplistic way to view this is that activities that are in alignment with your purpose will come with a grounded sense of expansion in your body. You will feel excited and sure, even if it’s a little scary. Activities that are not in alignment with your purpose will come with sensations of contraction, or a general sense that something is not right.
There is a lot of nuance to that having to do with trauma and embodied patterns of self-preservation and defense, but we will save that for another time.
So there you have it, a path to learning your purpose using your body as a tool for gathering information.
I would love to hear if you try this and how it goes for you! Feel free to leave a comment and share this with anyone who might benefit from such a practice.
May we all discover and embody our soul purpose, and may it serve all beings everywhere.
Soulful blessings,
Emily
P.S. Purpose coaching is one of my all-time joys. If you are interested in receiving some support in your purpose discovery and embodiment journey, book a free consultation call below and we can talk about options.