You are so much more than that…
I’ve been thinking a lot about how we welcome the both/and in life.
How we navigate transitions in what we need at different stages of our journey – in relationships, work, expression, and self.
When our bodies are in survival, and the threat response is online, it’s much harder to access nuance. The world becomes binary. We move into rigidity, and that’s OK. That’s adaptive ← there’s the both/and again 😉
But as we cultivate and access real felt safety, through our senses and interoception (internal sensation), we open up more space for possibility 💫
Living entirely from the mind – bringing our identity, awareness, and physiological energy (blood flow, tension) there – limits this connection to nuance and possibility. Expanding into the whole body though, allows us to feel more texture in the present…
… the multiple truths 🤝🏽
You can have heat in your chest and numbness in your legs.
Your stomach can be painful while your arms feel soft and relaxed.
You might feel grief and gratitude. Empowered and tender.
🤔 Some both/and's I see often in this work:
Empathy and compassion for past pain – and a sense of empowerment and agency in the now
Holding past hopelessness or collapse in the nervous system – and choosing not to identify with learned helplessness
Building safety and resource – without avoiding all activation or edges
Connecting spiritually — without bypassing the body’s very real and necessary process
Understanding your past patterns cognitively — and letting go of the need to always analyse or be vigilant since you've changed
With Instagrammable psychology and self-development, it’s so easy to label yourself:
this attachment style,
that trauma wound,
this relationship pattern,
that identity label,
this disorder…
There’s a comfort in pathologising self and other, a sense of certainty and control.
But I invite you to feel into the nuance of YOU!
You are so much more than any one identity or experience, and yet they all make up parts of you. A living breathing tapestry of genetic codes 🧬 and nervous system imprints within a physical body. An ever evolving being grounded in loving coherence.
So expansion isn’t about fixed identities or solving for labels.
It’s about listening, and letting your body take you somewhere new.
