Hi, and welcome to the Untamed and Embodied Show. I'm your host Tertia Riegler, feminine embodiment coach, and here to help you cultivate a life of radiance, everyday pleasure and unapologetic self-expression. Join me every week as I share how you can tap into your feminine flow so you can come home to yourself and live your life from a place of inner freedom and aliveness. Hey everyone, I am very happy to be here with you all today. I have just come off a challenging week and we were unexpectedly, I suppose you can never expect these things. My son had an unexpected surgery last week to remove his appendix and thank goodness he is doing well. He's recovering and feeling so much better, but it was quite a challenging time for us travelling to and from the hospital taking turns to sleep there. Between my husband and myself, of course, my son is still young,
he didn't want to sleep in the hospital all by himself, which I can understand. And when we live, there isn't a hospital for children, so we had to take him to the town next door that has a children's hospital. So there was some travelling involved and renegotiating of schedules and so on. What I noticed though is that I was able to hold so much more, had so much more capacity than what I would have in an experience like this only a few years ago. And I believe it's my embodiment practises. So I know it's my embodiment practises that help me release and take care of the tension that I was holding inside. Now, if I have to compare that to the way that I used to be before I did my embodiment practises, before I became skilled in the art of embodiment, I would call myself a strong woman.
I've always thought of myself as a strong woman and I would take things on the chin and really get on with any challenge that came my way. But the thing is that that kind of living, that kind of being is not sustainable. And I learned that the hard way when I ran into a brick wall. And I suspect that you know as well that this is not sustainable. So we all go through hard times, right? We all go through these times where we are asked to stretch, and when we are getting filled to capacity with the challenges and the things that are being asked for us, and what I have experienced myself so clearly again this past week is that embodiment, the practise of embodiment really helped me to get to the other side of that feeling more resourced, feeling more nourished rather than feeling broken and burnt out.
And in this time, this day and age, this is so important for us. It is a non-negotiable that we start living in a way that makes us feel more resourced, that makes us feel more nourished. And this is not some lala woowoo new age-who has time for that? No. In order for us to thrive in this world, in order for us to have the capacity to create change in our own lives and in our communities, we need to be resourced and embodiment is the only way that I know of that can offer that. So this episode today is part two of two where I'm sharing with you the principles of living and leading from your wise self where embodiment is deeply, deeply intertwined in that I cannot separate the two from each other. They are intertwined. We need both this connection to our ancient to ancient wisdom practises, to our own wisdom, and two somatic practises, which allows us to live in a more aligned way, which allows us to live more deeply fulfilling and satisfying lives.
So I'm sharing with you the second batch of principles, three more principles in this episode. If you missed the previous episode, I highly recommend you go and take a listen to that. I'll link it for you in the show notes below. And in that episode, I share the first four principles of living and leading from your wild self. So today we are looking at principles number five, six, and seven, and let's get into it. Principle number five is there is nothing about you that needs fixing. And I so wish that I knew about this when I was a young girl, when I was in my twenties and even in my thirties. I look back at those times and I see, or I look back at those years and I see how much effort and energy I used in order to try and change things about myself so that I could be received differently so that I can be loved more and so that people will accept me.
And it was only when I began to accept myself for who I am, when I started letting go of the idea that there was something wrong with me, that things began to change. And I feel this is a conversation that I have with my girlfriends, with the women in my community, this common perfectionist fantasy is what I call it that we all have, that we all subscribe to that says once something that I don't like about myself, once that is fixed, once that has changed, once that is out of the way, then I will be able to find a relationship. Then I will be happier, then I will be able to find another job, then I'll know what my life purpose is. And that puts a lot of pressure on ourselves. It disconnects us from our own truth because these mental thought loops that happen as a result of finding fault with yourself, these mental thought loops are self-criticism and inner a mean girl that keeps on whacking you over the head no matter what it is that you do. And we suffer from things like imposter syndrome.
I also believe that the idea that there's something that needs to be healed first, there's something that needs to be fixed first before we are able to take the next step or before we are able to live the life that we truly, truly want. It's a weight that we carry around our ankles. And probably the most poisonous thought loop that I had, and I'm assuming that some of you might identify with this as well, is the idea that if this thing about myself has changed and you can fill in the blank- how emotional I am or how sensitive I am or how much I weigh or what kind of job I do, or if I'm in a relationship or not, if this changes, then I will be able to love myself. And so the way out of this kind of thinking that something needs to be fixed first before I can reach that level of loving myself before I can reach that level of feeling more fulfilled is we have to come into right relationship with ourselves, which is principle number one.
When we do that, we see that we are enough as we are, and so we uncouple our worth from our external achievements or external goalpost. It requires a mindset shift. It requires for us to really begin to, and this is the practical steps that you can take for us to regain clarity about what is important to us. So practically, you want to take your focus from the external to the internal and really get clear on what matters to your heart, what matters to your body, what matters to your soul. When we are constantly having our awareness and our focus outside of ourselves, we are always going to fall short. The measurements that are in place out there are not necessarily in alignment with who we are. And so you'll find that you will never be able to live up to the standards and the expectations outside of you.
It's a much more nourishing and compassionate life when we can find a way to live in alignment with our own truth and to see that nothing is wrong with us, we have enough value as we are, and we don't need to work for our value, we don't need to perform to have value, we don't need to contribute to have value, our value is inherent. And that brings me to principle number six. And principle number six of leading and living from your wise and wild self is that pleasure is your birthright. And as I usually say when I speak of pleasure is I'm not referring to sexual pleasure here, but instead you can replace the word vitality or sensual aliveness or wellbeing for pleasure. Now, our nervous system, really simplified, our nervous system has two main functions. Number one, to help us survive. And number two, to help us thrive.
And in our modern lives, the way that it has worked out is that our nervous systems are mostly in survival mode. So back in the day when we were cave women, our nervous system would go into survival mode when we were threatened by things like sabre tooth tigers that wanted to eat our babies. Now, in today's life, our nervous system is threatened by things like deadlines and traffic and bills to pay, and mental thought loops, like all the things about ourselves we want to fix, and then the things that cause us heartache and heartbreak, like what's going on in the world and what's happening with our climate. So there are many things that puts us in survival and keeps us in survival mode. And so for the most part, we employ and we rely on our minds to deal with everything that is going on to find solutions.
And what's important to know is that our nervous system and our brain, it works in such a way that energy gets allocated to where it is needed. And so when we spend a lot of time relying on our minds to solve these problems and to get by, we end up living from the neck up and in the process, over a period of time, as we get into the habit of always going into the mind and having stationary kind of lives, what happens is we become desensitised to our body. And often we can only feel our bodies when we push ourselves really hard like doing a hardcore workout or run. So it means that the sensation in our bodies needs to be very loud for us to be able to feel and sense them because we have lost the skill of sensing the more subtle feelings and sensations that is always available in the body.
And so if you can't feel these subtle sensations, it's very difficult to experience the pleasure that is always available. And the way out of this is to disperse the energy throughout your whole body instead of only having this energy constantly up in the level of the mind. We always have what my teacher calls, we always have background pleasure. So this is really that subtle pleasure in the body that doesn't come from external stimuli. And we need to get into the body to be able to feel this. And this is why the practise and the skill and the art of embodiment, it increases your sense of feeling more alive. As you practise embodiment, what it does is you become more sensitive to the feelings that are inside your body. You become more sensitive to the pleasure that's running in the background, the pleasure that's always available there.
What embodiment also does, this nervous system of ours that is mostly in survival mode due to the modern world that we live in, it helps down-regulate our nervous system so that we go into thrive mode as well where we are relaxed, where we are more receptive. And so one is not necessarily better than the other. We want to have access to both. This is how we lead a harmonious and balanced and fulfilling life. But embodiment practises, as I said already, embodiment practises are really then the way for us to get out of our minds so that we can become sensitive to the needs in our body, the feelings and the sensations in our body, and also so that we can feel the pleasure that is already there. I'll share with you now a way to make this practical. And this is a practise that I have taken and adapted from the work of Peter Levine.
So the sensitising practise, this is what we will call it, it's a sensitising practise, will really allow you to begin to experience these more subtle sensations inside and also get to know what they mean. So the way that you would do this is to make sure that you are very comfortable, and this is important. You have to be very comfortable to get the benefit from this practise. Once you comfortable and it's safe for you to do so, you can go ahead and close your eyes and then for a moment, just notice your breath. So without changing anything about how you are breathing, simply notice how the breath flows in and out of your body. And then you can go ahead and notice where the clothes rest upon your skin.
I'm wearing a jersey, it's quite cool where I am. And so I can feel this soft texture and a slight tightness of how the jersey folds around my arms, just noticing how your clothes feel against your skin, and then go a little bit deeper than your skin. So just go underneath your skin and notice if you can feel any sensations there and simply hold an air of curiosity. There's nothing specific that's supposed to happen. This is really an exploration. And then next, ask yourself, remembering that you made yourself really comfortable at the beginning of this little practise, is ask yourself, are you feeling comfortable? And how do you know that you are comfortable? How do you know that you're feeling comfortable? What are the feelings and the sensations inside your body that tell you I am comfortable?
So this is a lovely little practise, just shows you how we can begin to connect with our internal world of feeling and sensation, how we can become sensitive to this specific language of our inner world. And then the final principle that I'm going to share with you today in our quest for living and leading as our wise and wild selves is number seven, devotion as a pathway. And here with devotion, I mean attending to a different way of moving through the world. Throughout this exploration of the seven principles, there's a clear ask for us to start doing things differently. If we want out of the self-sacrifice, if we want out of the overwhelm, if we want out of the life of disconnectedness, either from being disconnected from ourselves, from others, and from the planet, we need to be the change makers. We can't wait for the world to change.
We have to lead the way ourselves. And if you're in my community, you know that already. If you're in my community, you may also ache for the feminine, even though you don't necessarily know what it means or even what it is that you actually long for. And so devotion to me is how we get there by really attending to moving through this world in a different way. And so this will allow us to rewrite the rule book. It'll allow us to redefine our own values, to reimagine what success means to us, to reimagine what love and relationships and fulfilment means to us. Devotion asks of us to have practises that allows us to come back to our bodies and to ourselves and to our truth.
It also offers us practises that allows the mystery and the wisdom of the divine to unfold in us. Here is a practise that I will share with you and the practise is to reflect on which area of your life, either wellbeing, relationship, sacred work, prosperity or creativity, which area of your life can you attend to a different way of being? Take a breath. With any of these practises, we want to start small. You want to do what you can and follow the breadcrumbs. And so before I wrap us up, check in how this landed and what resonated. And I'm going to end us with a quote from Clarissa Pinkola Estés from her book, Women Who Run with the Wolves. To find the Wild Woman, it is necessary for women to return to their instinctive lives, their deepest knowing. So let us push on now and remember ourselves back to the wild woman soul. Let us sing her flesh back onto our bones. Shed any false coats have been given. Don the true coat of powerful instinct and knowing. Infiltrate the psychic lands that once belong to us. Unfurl the bandages, ready the medicine. Let us return now, wild woman howling, laughing, singing up The One who loves us. So for us, the issue is simple. Without us, wild woman dies. Without wild woman, we die. Para Vida, for true life, both must live.
Thank you so much for joining me today. I hope that this episode landed well with you, and I will speak to you in the next one. Alright, Queens, thanks for tuning in. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review wherever you're listening to it, as it helps more people find us. Thank you so much for joining me today.