Who you were, isn't who you are, or who you'll be.
The importance of updating your embodiment toolkit
Around this time 3 years ago, I was knee-deep in edits for my bestselling fourth novel, All We Left Unsaid, excited at mentoring for the first time in Claire Baker’s Cycle Coach School. The world was opening up again after Covid lockdowns and I was beyond eager to get back to teaching yoga.
I had no idea I wouldn’t teach for almost two years.
Around this time 5 years ago, I’d just returned from Sheffield and was jumpy every time my phone rang or beeped. I’d just seen both Grandad’s for the very last time, and one of them would die a few days later, followed within one month by the other.
I had no concept of the mind-bending and very visceral reality of someone being here one minute, and not the next.
Around this time 10 years ago, I was living in Balham, south London with a colleague and friend. We made chicken wings to watch Banshee with, played Tinder Bingo on Tuesday evenings and I spent my weekends in bars with friends. I was learning about chakras and meditation and had just booked a one way ticket to Goa for the second time to learn Shiatsu. I’d self-published my first novel and sold 43 copies within 6 months.
I had no idea I’d sign a two-book deal and have a top-drawer literary agent by the end of that year.
When I think back to who I was in those moments, I had zero concept of what life would be like now, as a 40-year old mum, living in a small village in Bavaria. I might have been able to picture it, but feel it? Nope. I’m not that kind of manifestor and never have been. So, if you’d have asked me back then, what kind of self-care practices I would likely lean on, or what goals I’d have, or what kind of music I’d listen to, I would have to shrug and say, you know what, I have no idea!
And with that in mind, here’s what I find strange.
Despite us being very different to who we were 3, 5 or 10 years ago, we still cling to the things we used to do back then instead of adjusting to who we are now. Of course, some things stand the test of time but mostly, tastes change and experiences shape us. And, in the best case, we grow.
If you were a total gym fanatic a few years back, you might have never been able to imagine not being able to lift weights anymore. You might never believe that you, who loved the dynamic energy of the fitness gym would one day fall head over heels in love with yoga. And on the flip-side of the coin, you might be a hardcore yogi, practicing Ashtanga every day because that’s what helped you through a dark mental health year 7 years ago. But your practice might now be totally wrong for your today-years-old body.
For me, as a mum, there are so many things that I either can’t do anymore, or no longer want to do. And even just a month ago, before my first post-birth period came, I wouldn’t have been able to ever imagine myself feeling as inspired by the menstrual cycle again. Being disconnected from it for so long meant that, while I loved Menstrual Cycle Awareness and had a strong intellectual remembering of it, the actual embodiment and felt-sense experience was gone. And here I am now, on day 17 feeling overwhelmed by ideas and projects. In fact, I can’t believe that I ever felt differently!
We can’t truly imagine the future, because it hasn’t happened yet and we’re simply not able to embody something until the point we experience it. But even though we have experienced the past, it’s just as unreliable to accurately call upon. The past, as we remember it - our memories - aren’t always an accurate reflection of what happened. They’re coloured by how we felt at the time, our emotional, mental and spiritual states, the environment, our bodies, our traumas. Which is why blindly relying on old tools to help us through this thing called life is as effective as slicing bread with a fork.
I like to think of all the things I’ve learned along the way as components of my toolbox - the meditations and practices, the qualifications I’ve collected, they’re all different tools I can use or share with others to keep myself balanced, tend to myself, change my state and eventually get to where it is I want to be. And it requires embodiment.
It’s such a bandied about word right now, but true embodiment means being able to actually be in your body, to communicate with it - by learning and being able to speak its language.
Embodiment is inherently in the here and now, this very second. Not the past, and not the future. The now. Once we can do this, we can decide which tools to use or changes to make, and which no longer serve us. And, more importantly, we can upgrade our kit to include things that we weren’t ready for before, that take us to the next level of where we’re aiming to get to. We get to delve deeper into a practice and at the same time, get to know ourselves on a whole new level. And this is important, because we evolve and change, day after day. Life throws so much at us that we need our practices to grow with us.
We need to be able to meet ourselves, day after day. And we need to be able to do it in ways that are effective for where we’re at. Moreover, we need to be able to have a selection of things that work for us. Why? Because the Self that we meet, day after day, isn’t always the same. Like our memories, the version of ourselves that we meet will vary depending on our environment, emotional, mental, spiritual and physical state as well as where we’re at in the menstrual cycle.
Menstrual Cycle Awareness is a great way of doing this because new starts is intrinsic to the cycle. Every new cycle is a fresh chance to review what did and didn’t work. Every phase and every day is an opportunity to check in.
How are you? What do you need? Are you prepared to let go of past you, knowing that whatever tools and resources you had/used back then were the best you had at the time?
In German there’s a saying that’s extremely annoying but is also very true: There’s no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing.
If the things you’re relying on to get you through right now aren’t working, maybe its time to update your wardrobe.