Come To Your Senses with Mary Lofgren

A Tool to Become the Essence of Your Desires, Right Now

• Mary Lofgren • Season 1 • Episode 169

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Explore how to guide your nervous system beyond a state of reactivity, and into a state of alignment with your deep desires.

Link to join the mastermind: https://schoolofsensualliving.com/sanctuary-woty


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Speaker 1:

Hello, beautiful beings, and welcome to Come to your Senses. Welcome to today's episode, which is a bonus truffle on the tray of a series that I've been offering around Word of the Year. So this episode is coming out on January 2nd, but wherever you find yourself, this is a really useful episode because it's all about how to take the desires and the essences that call to you to be embodied and bring it into a state of embodiment right now. So around this time of year, there's a lot of pressure that comes at us from all corners to essentially choose a side about the new year and our approach to that stroke of midnight on December 31st and it's like in one camp is the. This is going to be the best year ever. See you later. Last year, you know I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that. Blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 1:

And throughout this series there has been a lot of talk about the difference between the energy of resolve and the energy of radiance and the way that the former is moving away from something whereas the latter is moving towards something, and what I notice cropping up all over the place is a very natural response to that unending pressure to transform and improve, particularly here in American culture, and that is this is the year I'm going to slow down, I'm not going to do any improvement, but what I notice is that each of them are volleying this ball back and forth of extremes on either end of the binary which, in my experience, even if you're making this the year you do no improvements of your life, if you're making this the year you do no improvements of your life, both of them are in response to another, and this is a really common approach. When our nervous system is in a place of fight or flight, you know the resolve energy is that move towards fight, get bigger than the. I'm not going to do anything, I'm just going to lay down and sleep for the rest of the year. You know, is this more freeze, more flight kind of energy? We're moving away from that and we're getting smaller then, and what I notice is that both of these are very intelligent reactions, but neither of them seem to come from a place of wisdom and deep rootedness in our sense of choice and our interior. Knowing you know, my personal experience around this time of year is, I love starting the year with a fresh journal and a fresh pear-shaped candle. That's what I bought myself for my word of the year ritual this year and really using the time frame as like a box in which to be in relationship with my desires. Again, in previous episodes we talked about that difference between resolve and relationship and the summoning of the energy to change that comes with resolve, versus the simplicity of being in relationship with this word or this essence or this dream that calls from deep within our guts and our marrow.

Speaker 1:

Recently I read a poem by Rosemary Watola Traumer, who's an amazing poet laureate, and it was about unresolution. The poem is called Unresolution and it was talking about all the years of clawing and grasping for change and for happiness. And I really relate to that and you know the beauty and the joy of letting go of resolutions and the idea that happiness is somewhere out there. And often when I read something like that I will police myself of like I need to be more Buddhist about the new year. I need to not be so attached. I need to. You know this goal setting business and this word of the year business. You know we all have these inner critics and inner watchdogs that try to keep us in line so that we can do it right. But the deeper truth, the truth in my own marrow is that I love setting a word of the year and I love having some choice and some agency around where my attention is going to steer the ship of my life, which I believe at its heart, is kind of a Buddhist practice. You know, I often share the quote that I heard through Tara Brock, that is of the Buddha. All of life, our thoughts, our outcomes, our relationships arise from the tip of our intention, and so my word of the year this year sound the trumpets is thriving.

Speaker 1:

Last year and in years past, I've done a lot of surviving, you know, especially this past year where there was a lot of uncertainty around where I was going to live, where I was going to move, settling into a new place, and, just like you know, I remember pet sitting in San Francisco just staring at the wall like what, what is happening to my life? And because this is the year I decided to move forward on a lifelong dream and move to Northern California, and I actually recorded a video and posted it on my Instagram earlier in the year. That was like I'm here in California, I'm following my dreams. I think what they mean when they say following your dreams is uncomfortable. It's not like, oh, I'm following my dreams. And this is uncomfortable. It's more like did I fuck up my life? I'm 44.

Speaker 1:

What am I doing in a children's twin bed, sitting for this elderly dog in diapers, and just all the guts and glory that go into creating what it is that calls to us from deep within that if we do not tend to it, it will, like Little Shop of Horrors, feed Me, seymour expunge us from within. You know I was reading one of Julia Alvarez's books this morning in the bathtub it's New Year's Day as I'm recording this and it was about writers and authors and how the stories that live within us if we don't express them, and desires and just essences that call to us to become embodied. And when I say essences, you know when I think about the word thriving for me, I have some specific ideas and some specific outcomes of what that means to me in deed, but ultimately it is a feeling and a sense of not just living but of being alive. I was writing on the airplane as I was returning home from the holidays, about just the mission or the manifesto have come to your senses and I'm still shaping it, but some of the things I wrote were.

Speaker 1:

You know, we are a community of people who are seeking aliveness in all things, turned on by life, filled up by spirit and connected to the aliveness in all things, thirsty for adventure, most especially the adventure of coming home to our own hearts, making sense of this human existence by coming to sense it, feeling it, tasting it, touching it, experiencing the light behind our eyes more than we are numbed by the blue light in front of it. Let's go on Seeking the hit of an ocean wave smacking into our chests more than the faux rush of a swipe or a tap. I could go on, but I felt really inspired, and working on my own word of the year has really inspired me in so many different areas. I mean, I've been really practicing and doing the practices that we're going to be exploring in the Mastermind, and God, it has just lit a fire in me of passion and excitement and, most of all, willingness to be a participant in my own thriving. And so let's dive in to our exercise, which is once again about embodying the essence, the feeling, the desire that calls to you, and ordinarily I would invite us to pause, to slow down, to bring in a bit more of an embodied state, but I know that if you're like me, you're most likely listening to this while you're driving or walking in the woods or doing the dishes, and so if you're able to close your eyes and soften the outer world a little bit to start to wake up the deeper whispers of your inner world, you are more than welcome to. That goes for any time you're listening to this podcast, not just in this moment.

Speaker 1:

But for the sake of making this available to you, no matter where you are, I'm going to just drop in some powerful questions and statements, almost like we might drop a teabag into hot water to see what blooms forward. So the first statement I invite you to just drop this into your body and notice how it lands. This year I will become, and then insert your word. So for me, that would be this year I will become someone who thrives, and so I'll say it again this year I will become. Insert your word and noticing what do you sense? What do you feel? What do you know? How does that statement clang your own being? And taking that all in as data, information, and then tucking it to the side.

Speaker 1:

And now we'll drop in a different statement. I am your word now, so I'll use myself as an example. I am thriving now and noticing how that song plays itself through the instrument of your body, noticing what thoughts may follow that statement. And again, we're just collecting information here. There's no right or wrong, no way to do this wrong, but just like you might try two different types of chocolate and detecting the different flavors and notes and hints, when we switch the context from I will become to I am now, what are some of those subtle notes of differences that you detect in your body? That you detect in your body, and some of you will notice a warm pool of recognition of oh yeah, I am already embodying this word.

Speaker 1:

Some of you might notice a cascade of thoughts, like Some of you might notice a cascade of thoughts like that's not true, how you are already embodying your word. And so I'll just share from my own experience, which is that you know when I imagine I will become someone who is thriving by the end of the year. It's like me and December 31st 2025 are as far apart as like the edges of the East and West Coast, and there is just this long desert field that I must scrape and crawl across in order to get to this destination across in order to get to this destination. But when I drop in the truth of I am thriving now, it's like, oh my gosh, I don't have to wait, I don't have to crawl, I don't have to achieve, I don't have to summon resolve. All I need to do is fall back into the warm wings of what is already here. And what I also notice is that from that, you know, for me it's like a warm, buttery sun that radiates from my belly and my heart.

Speaker 1:

When I drop that word or that phrase, I am thriving now. From that place, all of my actions, all of my thoughts and beliefs start to organize and orient themselves around that truth. And this is one example of some of the things that we'll be doing over the next 12 months in the Word of the Year Mastermind, by changing our orientation from I want to be that I'm going to work hard to become that which is fine. No shade, no digs towards that approach. If that's something that works for you and for someone who has a very masculine-oriented nervous system, that is something that will most likely work for them, because the masculine-oriented nervous system thrives on problem-solving and strong, vigorous action, whereas the feminine-oriented nervous system thrives on presence and is guided by a deep, intuitive magnetism.

Speaker 1:

Intuitive magnetism and I think that over the years of practicing these methods that I teach in the Mastermind, that has been the most valuable, most extraordinary shift in my life is a way of relating with that inner pusher, policer that some might call the inner critic. Sometimes I call her the proctor. I envision her in a pencil skirt, with glasses on the end of her nose and holding a clipboard. You know the inner part that bosses me around and uses adrenaline and fear and shame to prod me into action. I have learned and practiced and teach this one core practice in the mastermind that combines mindset work and embodiment work and inner child work and expressive art therapy, all in this one 10 to 15 minute morning practice that we do. That opens up the middle path Because the proctor once again to go back to what I was saying at the start of the episode that energy of resolve and summoning. The reaction to that is to shrink and hide. That's the natural reaction.

Speaker 1:

And so you might find this showing up in your life where you wake up in the morning already stressed, already feeling like you haven't done enough, and then you end up eating caramel popcorn for breakfast and watching Kelly Clarkson, if that show is even on anymore and you know, just vegging out because we're in the volley, the game of volleyball or the game of you know, catch between those two nervous system states. And word of the year is about establishing a north star within our body and within our being to guide us away from reactivity and towards the revelation of the sacred third, and some might call that intuition, some might call it groundedness, some might call it God, but where you are acting from a state of sacred relationship to something that is deeper and that is greater than the autopilot that we have been conditioned to accept. And so that's where we're going to close for today. I hope that that exercise was insightful, as always. I'd love to hear from you in the comments. On Spotify, you can actually leave a comment on the episode, and on Apple Podcasts you can leave a review. And my loves.

Speaker 1:

The Word of the Year Mastermind closes for 2025 on January 8th. So if this episode speaks to a part of your soul, if this episode speaks to a part of your soul, I would so love to have you in this cohort. It is small, it is intimate, it is six potent gatherings over 12 months. It is incremental. It is designed to fold itself into your life rather than being something you have to shape your life around. So hit the link below this episode and we've opened a 12-month payment plan to make it really easy to join and to enroll. So I hope to see you there and I'm wishing you a very joyous, very present, very sacred new year. Happy 2025. Thanks for listening.