These Guided Embodiment Exercises are from The Gentle Art of Emotional Mastery 7-Day Audio Course. Learn more here.
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When Christina, a world traveler and well-versed personal development enthusiast, began working with me, she felt “like a victim” of her emotions and moods, and doubted whether she could experience lasting happiness. In her search for understanding and relief, she tried therapists but had grown tired of the traditional approaches she encountered.
“I had kind of given up on therapists years before. Every time I had a therapist, there was a lot of work to fit my story into their model. I didn’t really feel heard. I often feel like every model somebody has set up, I don’t quite fit into.”
Christina immediately felt excited when our first session together began on a fresh note: “The very first thing you said to me after introducing yourself was, ‘Where do you want to start? What’s alive in you now?’ and that was very impactful for me, to be met right in the moment.”
“Rather than trying to figure out what’s wrong with me, which has been my framework for my whole life; what’s wrong with me and how do I go about fixing it; there was automatically an assumption that nothing is inherently wrong with me. So much of the work has been about unlearning that… By the end of our conversations, I always feel more connected to myself.”
“In the first four and a half years of working together, I felt like my mind got blown open all the time. I had a completely new way of seeing things. When you go from having a ‘what’s wrong with me’ problem-focus to a ‘how to be satisfied and find desire’ focus…there’s going to be a lot of surprises along the way.”
Christina started working with me in 2018 and returns periodically for a few months at a time. I remember the day that I got a sudden insight so strongly in our session, and I blurted it out right then and there: “You know, we’re spending a lot of time trying to fix or understand something that is wrong… What if there’s nothing wrong? What if you were able to really just be who you are in any moment, no matter what, and let that be good?”
Obviously I don’t just blurt out the first thing that comes to mind every time, but in this case I’m glad I did. The timing was right, there was deep resonance in the moment, and it forever changed the course of our work together, and honestly, of my work in general. It was a turning point for me, and it marked the period where I stopped encouraging clients to focus on their hurt or dis-satisfaction or doubt, and started pointing them toward better feeling perspectives and unconditional well-being. I began to see my role differently, and most of my clients were happy for the change.
Interested in coaching to help you thrive at your leading edge?
Email justice@justiceschanfarber.com to request a client info package. Please include your country of residence. Distance sessions worldwide.
Learn more: www.JusticeSchanfarber.com
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Kelly, a high-energy tech start-up professional, describes how our sessions helped her understand what Self-alignment really is, and how I provide the right kind of guidance to help her practice embodying Self-alignment more consistently in her life, professionally and personally.
“It’s why I keep speaking with you every week, because I feel like there are endless opportunities to practice that Self-aligned, expansive feeling. You and I have an understanding of how I get back into Self-alignment. You’ve helped me develop it and you can actually help me do that in real-time when I bring you a topic. It’s helpful to speak with you on a regular basis so that I have that coach or supportive person there to help me do it.”
In our dialogue, Kelly says that the biggest “surprise” in working together was how, unlike in the conventional therapies she’d tried, we did not spend time digging into trauma or unwanted past experiences as a way for her to achieve release or a sense of personal growth.
Directly experiencing her ability to move into a more Self-aligned, relaxed, joyful, and stable state, at will, became the “proof point” that we didn’t have to revisit, process, integrate, or even understand unwanted experiences, past or present, in order to be “free” of them emotionally. Instead, she discovered that unconditional well-being, clarity, and growth are a natural outcome of focusing on her desires and embodying states of being that feel good.
“I wanted to be softer, more positive, more loving, more present, more excited, and in wonder of the future and possibilities. But I had to find the right person to work with, to guide me, who recognized that this is where I wanted to go and who wouldn’t let me backslide to focusing on trauma and negativity.
My initial growth was through suffering, but that’s not the only way to find growth and expansion. There’s actually a bigger pool available, an infinite pool of feeling good and feeling satisfaction, through finding and just doing more of the things that keep me in Self-alignment. It’s a big shift for me.
I do appreciate that a suffering experience introduced me to inner world work, personal development, coaching and therapy – I really love doing my own growth work! But I realized I didn’t have to do that through suffering only. My gravity towards suffering and wanting to help people who suffer… our work has helped me understand that this is totally fine, but feeling good because feeling good is its own reward is also a very good thing to champion as a way to experience growth as well.”
We conclude by sharing our personal discoveries that, while there are limits to one’s ability or tolerance for growth through suffering, “there’s no ceiling” on the capacity for self expansion through joy because it feels good. As Kelly says, “Just even knowing that makes me feel good.”
Kelly and I enjoyed weekly coaching calls for two and a half years, and it was very satisfying for me to witness and support her as she came to trust her heart’s desire in every regard, and to know her essential Self more and more intimately.
Our work together helped teach me and remind me that every single topic that anyone brings to a session is workable, and always benefits from the willingness to “drop the story”, change focus, and shift into that grounded, self-connected, self-aligned place of clarity, confidence, and ease.
With Kelly, I was able to see how someone could quickly develop the ability to shift states emotionally, mentally, and somatically in order to create a better feeling present-moment experience that simultaneously creates clarity, peace, and optimism for moving forward.
Interested in coaching to help you thrive at your leading edge?
Email justice@justiceschanfarber.com to request a client info package. Please include your country of residence. Distance sessions worldwide.
Learn more: www.JusticeSchanfarber.com
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In my work, self-alignment plays a central role and means something specific. When I talk about self-alignment, I am speaking primarily of two things:
The first kind of self-alignment that I teach is the alignment between your desire and how you feel about your desire.
Desire simply means “what I want”, and the clarity that matters most throughout all of life is always clarity about what you want. The details of this change, and so you must keep current by aligning yourself emotionally with whatever it is that you want now.
Desire is a cornerstone of human experience and is the primary evolutionary force shaping our world, so it’s worth understanding.
Here’s the simplest way to put it:
When you want something and you feel good (eager, expectant, deserving, clear, easeful, certain, optimistic, hopeful, peaceful) about wanting it, you are in self-alignment. Your emotion is aligned with your desire.
When you want something and feel bad (uncertain, doubtful, undeserving, guilty, ashamed, confused) about it, you are out of self-alignment. Your emotion is misaligned with your desire.
When you know what you want, you feel clarity. When it feels good to know what you want, you are in alignment. This describes every powerful vision of every leader who has ever lived.
You will never extinguish your desire, and you will never be finished wanting more, and so you are wise to get into a good-feeling relationship with this whole business.
Human beings have three modes of engaging themselves and the world. I call them the three operating systems:
Each of these three operating systems is important, and each has its own language and function. When all three are well understood, well maintained, and well aligned, a person can operate at full capacity with maximum effectiveness and well-being.
Most people, however, are accustomed to relying primarily on just one of these three operating systems or modes, occasionally engaging a second if absolutely necessary, and ignoring the third altogether.
The nature of these three operating systems is that no single one can be used at full potential unless all three are finely tuned and harmonized.
The possibility exists to master all three, and to learn to move comfortably and nimbly between them, using each one intentionally and to maximum benefit, depending upon context and circumstance.
Interested in coaching to support your clarity and self-alignment?
Email justice@justiceschanfarber.com to request a client info package. Please include your country of residence. Distance sessions worldwide.
Learn more: www.JusticeSchanfarber.com
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