Let's talk about embodiment, the brain and emotions...

When you are emotionally overwhelmed, do you shut down? Do you go on a shopping spree or eat a pint of ice cream? Maybe you stay in bed all day with the lights off or just bury those feelings altogether. Those big emotions like fear, sadness, anger, and grief can be hard to face, so it seems like it would be easier to just suppress them. However, this is like fixing a leaky faucet with scotch tape—you'll continue to have issues until you address the root of the problem. We have all had some sort of trauma in our lives that affects the way we process emotional sensitivity. Whether or not you are dealing with baggage that has accumulated over time, or if you’ve experienced a life-altering event (we call this “Trauma” with a capital “T” that often leads to PTSD). Those unresolved issues from your past will be the dams that keep your intuition from flowing. 

Numbing emotional awareness

My student, Will, struggled in the category of “The Brain and Emotions.” Before taking my intuition course, Will would stifle negative feelings when they bubbled to the surface. “I didn’t understand that my own chaos, my own dysregulation, was keeping me from feeling that intuition,” Will says.

When we suppress feelings like fear, anger, or sadness, we effectively numb our emotional awareness. Intuition is energetic information that needs to be translated through our bodies. However, when our bodies are holding old patterns of emotions, traumas, and repeating worries, you will find it difficult to become intuitive. Additionally, any intuition that tries to present itself through emotion will be lost in the chaos. 

That doesn't mean feelings that aren't intuitive are a bad thing. Emotions are a critical part of our internal feedback system, providing essential information about our environment and our interactions and they are important to intuition training. By ignoring these feelings, we dull our emotional sensitivity.

We need this emotional sensitivity to be available to the nuanced signals that intuition training relies on. When a lot of dense feelings have been bottled up for a while, the internal struggle can lead to increased stress and anxiety, further clouding our judgment and making it difficult to discern intuitive messages from the noise of our overactive minds. 

“I did the mystical stuff,” Will laughs, “I got the crystals, I bought the intuition books, I did this and that, but nothing really hit until I found Fleur’s intuition course…. In Fleur’s intuition course, I was going a little deeper in that transformative approach to wellness.”

After many years of pressing down a big emotion, there may be more going on internally than we consciously realize. Stifling emotional sensitivity disrupts the mind and body connection that is essential for intuition training to flourish. Intuition often manifests through physical sensations that are closely tied to our emotional states. 

“I didn’t understand that my own chaos, my own dysregulation, was keeping me from feeling that intuition,” Will says. “Through Fleur’s intuition course, I started feeling the energetic relation to the emotions from my past. Something would come up that would hold the density of me, from my past, that I knew were unfelt emotions that needed to be energetically processed rather than put to the side or buried.”

In order to go from a state of emotional sensitivity to a state in which we are able to become intuitive, we need to experience a shift in awareness. We need to access what many people call “flow.”  A flow state may be familiar to you; it is the state of feeling a fluidity between your body and mind, when you’re fully absorbed in something. A flow state can bring about heightened senses and a feeling of time being slowed down. 

Embodiment

There are a few ways that I teach how to get in a flow state in my intuition course. One of these ways is embodiment. 

Embodiment can be thought of as living life informed through the sense experience of the body. Embodiment is the shift from the mental rational mind, into the experienced body sensations of a situation. The physical body is a large part of intuition training. If you are coming into intuition from a highly thought-based place, it can be difficult to activate your flow state. The frustrating part is that the subjects that we want to become intuitive about usually stir up the most desire, fear, and worry. When you start looking at your patterns and learning how to settle the nervous system, you create a training ground for when you have that big intuitive question. “Do I sell the house right now?” “Is this relationship working?” “Do I take this job?”  These topics can only be answered if you are in an emotional flow state to receive that intuition.  Embodiment teaches the ability to shift. Embodiment is the practice of moving from mind to body. This is an important beginning step to accessing a flow state, the brain state required in order to become intuitive. 

Once Will was able to establish a sense of embodiment through intuition training, he could make better choices for himself. “It takes emotional and mental health,” Will says. “And it also takes work on the body connection. All the tough things in the past, all the tough things that I went through, it’s all worth it because I have such a dialogue with those experiences in such a healthy way now. It really is a mind and body connection.”

After taking my intuition course, Will has developed healthy techniques to deal with trauma and emotional overwhelm. Now he is working as a therapist and getting his PhD in Mind, Body Medicine, and we couldn’t be happier for him!

Dealing with trauma

Often, a transition from mind into body connection is not an easy state to immediately access. It can feel really overwhelming to drop into your body, especially if you've experienced big “T” Trauma, or little “t” trauma. Shifting your attention to a body that is holding on to a lot of unexpressed emotion and trauma can be daunting. Bessel van der Kolk, a respected psychiatrist, is one of the key thought leaders on this mind and body connection. 

In his influential book, The Body Keeps the Score (1), Bessel van der Kolk explains that traumatic experiences can leave deep imprints not just on our minds, but also in our bodies. While we might mentally forget trauma, the emotion will still live somewhere in the background, and can manifest in physical discomfort. The body holds onto the stress of traumatic experience through muscle tension, chronic pain, and other somatic issues. 

When we hold onto all of these tensions, stressors, and emotions the intuition training can go out the window. Of course, not all emotion is intuition and often the feelings of loss, grief, and despair are much louder than intuition. However, that never means that intuition is no longer present, it is simply covered up. 

So, how can we begin to release some of these old emotions and become intuitive? Dr. David Berceli created Tension and Trauma Release Exercises (TRE therapy) to release muscle tension caused by stress and PTSD. TRE therapy works by focusing on deep muscle memory (2).  TRE therapy can cause neuromuscular tremors that can “shake” those rigid places in your physical body where you have been holding stress. I use TRE therapy in my intuition course because it has been scientifically proven to not only help with relaxation and chronic pain, but also help with intuition training and emotional healing as well (3). TRE therapy is also good for osteopathic health and can work at any age (4). 

Breathwork and somatic body connection work are also powerful tools for releasing old emotions and trauma stored in the physical body. Breathwork involves intentional breathing techniques that can help to clear out stagnant energy, increase oxygen, get you to a flow state, and help with sleep (5). Somatic body work, on the other hand, involves therapeutic touch and movement to help individuals reconnect with their bodies and process stored emotions. Techniques such as massage, yoga, and other forms of physical body work can help to release tension, improve body awareness, and facilitate emotional release, promoting overall healing and mental health. All of these techniques work incredibly well for releasing stored emotions, and can be done regardless of age or fitness level (6). 

The key to shifting ourselves into an embodied state is not to demonize our non-intuitive emotions. When we become more aware of the emotional sensitivity and its origins, we can witness them and begin to discern them from the emotions that arise intuitively. 

Traditional talk therapy is critical when we are faced with trauma. The brain wants to understand what happened, and it helps us to diminish triggers. However, more and more research shows that a crucial next step is allowing what we don't remember to be processed too. 

How negative experiences affect the brain and emotions

Your brain really wants to keep you alive. It means well, and it’s trying really hard to help. If you have a negative experience, your brain says, “That was terrible. We do NOT want that to happen again.” If you are someone who experienced a rough childhood, for example, your brain was likely in a constant state of “fight or flight” in order to keep you alive. Your physical body was chronically flooded with adrenaline, and you were programmed to remain hypervigilant of threats. Now you’re an adult, you’ve moved out, and the threat is no longer around. You technically “know” that, but you have “practiced” being hypervigilant for so long, that your brain has strengthened those neural pathways. This results in PTSD, and is the reason why many veterans can “know” that they are home, but still react like they are at war. Your physical body can remember events way after they have happened. 

In fact, sometimes we forget traumatic events completely, especially if they occurred during early childhood development. The stress of trauma can overwhelm the brain and emotions, leading to fragmented or incomplete memory encoding and be damaging to our mental health. For example, my friend was once in a serious hit-and-run accident. She remembered driving, and she remembered the police coming, but she couldn’t remember the event itself. She couldn’t even remember the color or make of the car. Thankfully, she had Dash Cam footage, but this is a prime example of what a traumatic incident can do to the brain and emotions.

This can result in a partial or complete inability to recall the traumatic event consciously during a process known as dissociation. The brain essentially compartmentalizes the traumatic memory to protect the individual from overwhelming emotional sensitivity and pain. This is your mind creating a protective barrier to help you escape the traumatic experience, but this effect is temporary. Dissociation can have long lasting effects on mental health, and can manifest through flashbacks, physical pain, and difficulties forming meaningful connections with others. 

One form of traumatic dissociation is known as depersonalization, where individuals feel detached from their own bodies or sense of self. They may describe feeling like they are watching themselves outside of their bodies. Depersonalization can also last beyond the traumatic event, leaving individuals to feel numbness, emptiness, and confusion, making it challenging to interact with life and relationships. 

Some of you may think to yourselves, “Well, I have never experienced ‘trauma’ with a capital T.” Even if you have never experienced “capital T” trauma that resulted in a life-altering event, little events can be traumatic too. “Little t” trauma can alter your cognitive functioning as well, especially if they accumulate over time. For example, maybe one disagreement with your partner may not feel like a big deal, but if you were in a relationship where you were fighting every day all the time, this can compound to equal one big trauma. One bad day at work may not affect your mental health, but working every day at a job you hate in a toxic environment, can make you go postal. Trauma and PTSD are far more common than we think. Approximately 70% of the global population has experienced a traumatic event (7), and women are two to three times as likely as men (8) to develop PTSD.

How do you clear your mind and body?

In order to become intuitive, you want to free up some space and create some new real estate within your psyche, your nervous system, your brain and emotions. 

• What are some strategies that you use to cope with your brain and emotions during challenging times?
  

• What role does journaling or writing play in helping you process events from your past?
  

• What mindfulness or meditation practices have you found effective for clearing your mind and body when you’re feeling a big emotion?
  

• Can you describe a physical activity that helps you stay grounded and maintain a body connection? Have you tried TRE therapy?
  

• Do you have any rituals or routines of self-care? This could even be something small like making a cup of tea in the morning, or washing your face at night?
  

• Do you make time for yourself to have a moment of silence?
  

• Does spending time in nature contribute to your ability to handle stress?

There are many paths to releasing stored emotion, and if you want to become intuitive, I strongly suggest you begin with the "Brain and Emotions" module first. It's very important to establish a sense of safety within your physical body and prioritize mental health before you begin to release those emotions. We want you feeling supported on this journey! 

Works Cited:

1. van der Kolk, B. (2015). The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. Penguin Books.
   
   
2. King, B. (2023, September). Can TRE therapy help you shake off stress? Retrieved from Women's Health: https://www.womenshealthmag.com/uk/collective/healthy-habits/a45140140/tre-therapy-shake-off-stress/
   
   
3. Kolk, B. v. (n.d.). Lander, S. (n.d.). What is TRE, How it Works and its Benefits. Retrieved from Sovereign Laboratories: https://www.sovereignlaboratories.com/blog/what-is-tre-how-it-works-and-its-benefits/

4. TRE (Trauma Release Exercises). (2022). Retrieved from Osteopathy for all: https://osteopathyforall.co.uk/toolkits/mindbody-toolkit/trauma-release-exercises/
   
   
5. Khoddam, R. (2022, March). Breath and Trauma-Healing Exercises. Retrieved from Psychology Today: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-addiction-connection/202203/breath-and-trauma-healing-exercises
   
   
6. Porrey, M. (2024, June). Types and Uses of Somatic Trauma Therapy. Retrieved from verywell Health: https://www.verywellhealth.com/somatic-trauma-therapy-5218970
   
   
7. Trauma and PTSD in the WHO World Mental Health Surveys. (2017, October). Retrieved from NIH: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5632781/
   
   
8. Novotney, A. (2024, July). Women who experience trauma are twice as likely as men to develop PTSD. Here’s why. Retrieved from American Psychological Association: https://www.apa.org/topics/women-girls/women-trauma