Embodiment for the Rest of Us – Season 4, Episode 5: Deep Dive with Michelle Phillips
Thursday, June 6, 2024
Jenn (she/they) and Chavonne (she/her) interviewed Michelle Phillips (they/them/we) for a deep dive about attending and attuning to the body, unconscious contracts with the systems that affect us, and loving accountability.
Content Warning: discussion of intentional weight loss, discussion of multiple genocides taking place at this time
Trigger Warnings: None in this episode
The captions for this episode can be found at https://embodimentfortherestofus.com/season-4/season-4-episode-5-michelle-phillips/#captions
A few highlights:
8:53: Michelle discusses the simplicities and complexities (equally) of embodiment as we go about our daily lives
Links from this episode:
Music: “Bees and Bumblebees (Abeilles et Bourdons), Op. 562” by Eugène Dédé through the Creative Commons License
Please follow us on social media:
Twitter: @embodimentus
Instagram: @embodimentfortherestofus
CAPTIONS
Season 4 Episode 5 is 1 hour, 9 minutes and 4 seconds (1:09:04) long.
Jenn: Welcome to our 4th season of the Embodiment for the Rest of Us podcast, a series exploring topics and intersections that exist in fat, queer, and disability liberation (and beyond!!)! You can consider this an anti-oppressive and generative space full of repair and intention.
Chavonne: In this podcast, we interview those with lived experience and professionals alike to learn how they are affecting radical change and how we can all make this world a safer and more welcoming place for all humans who are historically and currently marginalized and should be centered, listened to, and supported.
Jenn: Captions and content warnings are provided in the show notes for each episode, including specific time stamps, so that you can skip triggering content any time that feels supportive to you! This podcast is a representation of our co-host and guest experiences and may not be reflective of yours. These conversations are not medical advice, and are not a substitute for mental health or nutrition support.
Chavonne: In addition, the conversations held here are not exhaustive in their scope or levels of inquiry. These topics, these perspectives are not complete and are always in process. These are just highlights! Just like posts on social media, individual articles, or any other podcast – this is just a snapshot of the full picture.
Jenn: We are always interested in any feedback on this process, especially if you feel something needs to be addressed. We invite you to email us at Listener@EmbodimentForTheRestOfUs.com with any comments, requests, or concerns.
[1:44]
(J): Welcome to June! Hello from Season 4 Episode 5 of the Embodiment for the Rest of Us podcast. In today’s episode, we have the first part of our deep dive conversation with Michelle Phillips (they/them/we).
(C): Michelle Phillips, The Liberation Strategist, is a mental health and spiritual care practitioner with over 15 years of experience in transformational and holistic care. They have been on a journey of walking with individuals toward a deeper understanding of themselves on every level of wellness-spiritual, somatic, mental, and emotional.
(J): Michelle is the founder of Liberation Strategies, an agent of liberatory change which provides liberation coaching for individuals, nonprofits, and organizations. Compassionate and grounded in helping people realize their own power to cultivate change, Michelle creates space for clients to transmute their grief toward joy and liberation.
(C): Michelle is an intuitive mental health clinician, coach, consultant, and facilitator. A native of Decatur, Georgia. A current resident, and a provisionally licensed clinician in Washington State, they hold a Master’s in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from Seattle University in Seattle, WA. In addition, Michelle was a 2020 National Board of Certified Counselors Minority Fellow for Clinical Mental Health Counseling.
(J): You can find Michelle, The Liberation Strategist on social media at their website
LiberationStrategies.com, on Instagram @LiberateWithMichelle (Michelle with two Ls), on LinkedIn at MichelleThinksBig, and through their Link Tree Portfolio at linktr.ee/TheLiberationStrategist
(C): Wherever and however you are listening to this today, you are in for another unforgettable conversation. We are so glad you’re here!
[3:36]
Jenn (she/they):
Welcome back. Today, we have our second deep dive of the season with Michelle Phillips, they/them/we, who is joining us from Seattle. We had such a great time remembering we’re already free with you in our second season. We had to have you back for a deeper dive. Let’s get started. How are you today and how have you been since 2022, Michelle? Big question.
Michelle (they/them/we):
Yeah, big question, but I like the first one. It’s like, how are you today? That feels a little bit more approachable at the start, right? Today, I am actually, I’m feeling well. I have really invested in some deep wellness and care, and I’m starting to see some of the benefits of that. So for that, I’m grateful. Since 2022, let’s see, that’s been almost two years, and how have I been? Well, so I think I’ve done a few things. So I’ve moved. That happened. I moved in with my person. That happened. Somehow, I have an eighth grader preparing for high school.
Jenn (she/they):
Wow.
Chavonne:
Oh, my.
Michelle (they/them/we):
Oh, and I have meaningful work. I’ve gotten into some elder care, like taking care of my mother in a different way and supporting my family. I feel like that’s what I’ve been doing the last two years.
Jenn (she/they):
Wow.
Chavonne:
That is a lot.
Jenn (she/they):
Yeah. That’s not a small number of things.
Chavonne:
Not a small number of things at all. Well, lots of movement. Yeah. Sorry, go ahead, Jenn.
Jenn (she/they):
I was just going to say, do you feel settled in those things? Do they feel in progress?
Michelle (they/them/we):
Oh, yeah, settled in the incompleteness of things.
Chavonne:
Ooh, dang. Okay.
Michelle (they/them/we):
Settled in this tasking where the imagination of is, yeah, it’s going to be incomplete and imperfect. So in that holding of settled of that awareness, yes.
Jenn (she/they):
That sounds like you’re in a-
Chavonne:
I’m already … Sorry, go ahead.
Jenn (she/they):
Go ahead.
Chavonne:
Okay. We’re going to do this the entire episode.
Jenn (she/they):
We’re going to do this all day. [inaudible]
Michelle (they/them/we):
I love y’all.
Jenn (she/they):
I don’t know if it’s working, jumping over into each other with enthusiasm as Nikki Haggett would say.
Chavonne:
No, it’s not working. We’re excited. Yeah, we’re just going to keep doing that. I was just going to say, I’m already starting to write things down, and something that we said off mic before we started that I just want to reaffirm that Jenn said is every time you start talking, I’m like, “Here we go. Here are all the things that I need to hear for the rest of the week, the rest of the year, the rest of my life.” So it’s just really exciting to be in your presence again. Even the tenor, I don’t know if that’s the right word, but the word I keep thinking is the tenor of your voice, you just bring it down so well and so gently and wonderfully, and I’m just so excited to be here, but yeah.
Jenn (she/they):
Me too.
Chavonne:
Just you saying the being settled in the … I didn’t write it down because I got excited and all I did was write your name.
Jenn (she/they):
I did, incompleteness and imperfectness.
Chavonne:
Thank you. I’m going to write that down. I wrote interview with Michelle, and then I got excited and stopped writing. So I’m back. That’s all. I’m just so excited to be here.
Jenn (she/they):
Incompleteness and imperfectness, just letting that kind of sit. Just feels very real. That is how life is.
Michelle (they/them/we):
Yeah, it is, and I think there’s that satisfaction of checking boxes and coming to the end of the day tired. That’s not to say … I love a good list from which to check things off, and it’s just like there’s some things that you just don’t get to check off because you’re always doing, always in the practice of you’re always returning to, and yeah, there’s no checking off of some boxes.
[8:53]
Chavonne:
Absolutely. Makes a lot of sense. We explored so many nuances of embodiment in our last conversation. One area we really wanted to deep dive about is the simplicities and complexities equally of embodiment as we go about our daily lives, specifically how embodiment is found while we are exploring outdoor spaces and while using our voices like here on the podcast or your consultation work or in your practice of singing. How has that topic sat with you, felt heavy for you, and/or expanded for you? No, no tiny question ever here.
Jenn (she/they):
I don’t know how to write those, sorry.
Chavonne:
And I love it.
Michelle (they/them/we):
No, thank you for this. I think you nailed it, this idea, this notion of embodiment that is all over the place, everywhere but nowhere. I’m continuing to explore embodiment as it shows up as attunement and resonance and getting into some practice communities around resonance and looking at the brain. I have continued that exploration, and I don’t know if I talked about it last time, but this idea of attunement, talking about the mind-body connection and how that’s really just been really taken off, appropriated, capitalized upon.
I’m still in this practice of asking my body questions and trying to bypass my mind. So if I were to ask my … So this attunement practice that I use, so if I were to say, “What do I need?” that question is going to go to my head first and it’s going to say, “What do I need to do?” and then it’s going to be, “Oh, well, I need to go to the grocery store. I need to pick up Johnny. I need to send this email. I need to get back with these people,” and like, “Oh, god, let me give the government some dollars so they can let me be late on my taxes,” just all these things that the mind would say that I need, but if we ask the body, I ask my body, “What do I need?” I get a very different set of answers.
It’ll be like, “Oh, I had to go to the bathroom. Oh, I need some water. Oh, can I get some socks on my feet? It’s kind of cold. You know what? This air is dry. Can I get this humidifier going?” What does it really mean to attend to our bodies? Because our attention has been paid for. Our attention has been paid for. So it is an act of revolution, liberation when we attend to our bodies because they’re counting on us not doing that. They’re counting dollars on us not doing that.
So to really inhabit a body is to attune and be in relationship with the body. When we talk about neurodivergent, there are just people that’s not going to be able to meditate in the traditional way that we think about meditation, but a lot of times if I can get myself, get my client to just attend to the body needs, just take a breath and answer what the body needs, go leave the room, go use the bathroom, go get the water, go get the food, scratch your back, stretch, fold, go outside, really, really attend to what the body is needing, that’s an attunement practice, and eventually, eventually, we can settle down, and maybe think about meditation or not, but we’ve gotten so far just on that alone.
If we can do that, hey. So really, how the practice has sat and how it’s expanded with embodiment is moving into attunement. Then this idea of resonance, I have a feeling it’ll come up a little bit later, and we can talk more about it, but once we get all those body needs met, what now? How do we connect? How do we resonate with all these bodily needs that have been met? So yeah, it continues to expand. I’m still singing. Did you mention singing?
Jenn (she/they):
I did. It’s in our next-
Michelle (they/them/we):
It’s in the next one?
Chavonne:
No, it’s in this one.
Jenn (she/they):
Oh, no, what’s this one? Sorry. Yes. I knew I’d heard it recently. I guess it was a few moments ago.
Michelle (they/them/we):
I was like, “I thought I heard singing. I thought I heard singing.” Yes. I’m still singing, still singing, and that really for me is also part of that resonance practice. When something’s resonating, it’s reverberating. You’re catching the vibe. You’re catching the frequency, right? So still very much singing. Maybe I’ll sing later.
Chavonne:
Yes, please.
Jenn (she/they):
Please.
Chavonne:
I grew up singing. I grew up in a musical family and did choir and did church and all the things, and I feel very embodied. When things are hard, I find myself singing more, especially the music I grew up with. It’s something about that deepness, like feeling it in your chest, feeling it in your body. I hadn’t even thought about that as an embodiment practice for me. I just realized I do it so much when I need to … I guess the word that keeps coming up is just be, just be and slow down.
Michelle (they/them/we):
That’s right. That’s right. Yeah. So you can’t sing without your body. You can’t sing without your body. So singing, we know this neurobiologically that this is a practice of using these muscles of the diaphragm, but also what’s compressing and uncompressing also is the vagus nerve. We’ve debunked some of the polyvagal theory, but we still, in fact, have a vagus nerve, and we know that there’s certain practices, humming, gargling, singing, that-
Jenn (she/they):
Vibration.
Chavonne:
Chanting.
Michelle (they/them/we):
Vibration, chanting, all these things that have a direct impact on our ability to calm, settle, be in eventually social engagement and different things like that, so very much an embodiment practice, singing.
Chavonne:
Wow. Yeah. I sit with that. Yeah. I hadn’t even thought of it that way. Yeah, absolutely.
Jenn (she/they):
Well, I love knowing that about you, Chavonne. I think I’ve heard you say that once before, but I forgot. I did not-
Chavonne:
Probably when we were geeking out about musicals one day.
Jenn (she/they):
Yes, yes, yes. We just saw a lovely Forbidden Broadway making fun of just having caricatures and that kind of satire of all of our favorite musicals just a few weeks ago.
Chavonne:
It’s so fun. Yeah.
Jenn (she/they):
It was so good.
Chavonne:
So fun.
Jenn (she/they):
I love my Chavonne time also.
Chavonne:
Love it, Jenn.
Jenn (she/they):
Something that you said, last time we talked about attunement, but there’s something different that landed this time, and it’s about the order of the invitation that I hadn’t really tracked before or I don’t remember tracking it before. So if I said that before, okay, I’m saying it again because I’m just really noticing in this moment that my body, when you attune to first, it immediately gave me a feeling like a freedom in my body and what freedom feels like to me, like checking in with that is that there’s sensation, but nothing feels stuck. It just felt a lot of internal sensation movement, which I really love exploring that, just sort of noticing and tracking that that’s what happens to me when I attend to my body, as you were saying.
I often in my work, in my healing from an eating disorder, in my work with nutrition in my body, I have played around with, “What if I go take a sip of something? What if I take a bite of something, and what if I relieve my body of its needs?” In other words, “I’m going to go to the bathroom.” What if I do this little three-part invitation and see what happens? I’m usually like, “Oh, I took a bite of something and I want to eat the rest, so I’m going to also take this with me back to my office,” or it’s like, “Oh, this sip is delicious.” We were talking earlier about caffeine. I love caffeine, but my body’s saying, “Hey, why don’t you have some hydration? That would be amazing if you didn’t just give us caffeine.”
Then going to the bathroom is such an embodied thing, and then you were talking about the vagus nerve, the bottom up interaction of the vagus nerve, the gut instinct. What does our central nervous system need to hear when we just ask ourselves? That was really resonating. It’s like, “I don’t know. Sometimes the bottom up part isn’t engaged right now, and so I can’t even answer that question, so my mind is all I have for that answer.” So I was just hearing how just trying some things that send those messages up to us just sounded really profound to me.
Attention practice, I spent a lot of time thinking about attunement, but I just realized, “Oh, that’s a really great note in attending,” versus hearing about something secondhand is kind of the analogy that was showing in my head, like if I attend something, it’s a totally different experience than someone telling me about what they attended. So it feels like direct information or clearer information or something like that. Even now, my body’s like, “Woo, we’re doing all sorts of stuff,” because the practice of embodiment is about every kind of thing like, “Oh, I have an itch. I need to scratch it.” There’s messages from the body about this all the time, but most of them are very unglam, not glamorous. They’re just practical. They’re just like being a human in a body stuff. Using that word attend gives my brain a new curiosity about that and an interest in that.
You’re so good at invitations, Michelle. I’m just remembering that in this moment. You’re talking about requests of the body and I’m like, “Yeah,” and you’re also making invitations to me right now. It’s a beautiful part of how you hold space. Speaking of resonance, that’s what’s resonating within me about these invitations.
Michelle (they/them/we):
Yeah. This is so interesting because I would say about 70% of us are sacral beings. So it’s like we’re going to be in the impulse space and it’s going to be, and then we go and we do the thing. It is an invitation. The first thing that you have to do even in your three-part practice that’s supporting you, you have to pause. You have stopped. You do have to stop. Just pause. So thinking about it as a sort of layered or sequencing, we just have to stop, and in the pausing, we can respond to … We have an opportunity to shift our response, and we have to be willing to pause and engage with breath and engage in these supportive practices.
When we continue in this practice, we can pick up these subtleties in the body. So let me ask you a question. Let’s see. Do you ever pop your knuckles or bend and flex your feet and you hear a pop or maybe you grab your neck and you stretch it until you hear this little, the shifts happening? Really, if you engage in this sort of finger popping … Let me ask you a question. How do you know to do that?
Chavonne:
My fingers give me this sensation like I feel tight. I need you to … Now I’m doing it. I need you to pop your fingers. It’s just my body telling me I need to do it, I think. Is that the right answer?
Michelle (they/them/we):
Right. Okay.
Jenn (she/they):
My brain is also going, “Is that the right answer?” I also do it because I have a sensation of tightness. It’s like lack of air or flow is how I would describe it. It happens everywhere in my body like I’ll shift my shoulders or I’ll sort of stretch my back and go into different positions or pop my knuckles, which I was already thinking about doing about two months ago as I was mentioning my practice. Just talking about it makes my body start to wake up. It’s definitely an invitation from a sensation. That’s how I would describe it. Is that right?
Michelle (they/them/we):
Yeah, that’s exactly right. So both of you are correct. So the body is speaking, right? So body’s like, “Oh, I’m tight. Let me do this thing. I’m getting this fullness in my hand,” and pop. So we could live our lives like that. The body’s always speaking, body’s always communicating, and we talked about this before. The body can’t lie. It is incapable of telling a lie, and it’s always speaking. It’s just like whether or not we are picking up on these messages.
So we have to pause. We have to slow down and attend. So when we attend, we develop that practice of listening, “Ooh, what is my body saying? Oh, my gosh. What is my body saying?” and then we develop this practice so much that we begin to … When it’s time to leave a room, we will know because the body will have said, “It’s time to go,” and we will be practiced and like, “Oh, yeah, no. Oh, body no longer wants to be here and I’m leaving.” So there’s ways that we can just expand on this practice of attuning and attending to body that can really move us further than our practice, these building brought practices of, “I’m going to eat something, drink something, go to the bathroom.” Those are the fundamental steps to get us in a place of attunement and resident.
Jenn (she/they):
Wow.
Chavonne:
This reminds me of the last time we had you on and already my body’s like, “Nope.” When you’re like, “What you have to do is slow down. You have to sit with it,” I’m like, “Oh, oh, no, no,” but I know it’s what’s helpful, it’s what’s necessary. I was also thinking how anti-hustle culture, how anti-capitalist, all this is to slow down when all we’re told is, “Go, go, go until you die. That’s the end,” and it just feels really revolutionary, really rebellious in a way that that really speaks to me, but also feels very scary. Just like when you said when you’re working through grief, ask what your broken heart needs, I’m like, “Oh, no, we’re not. I’m sorry. No, what? Who’s doing that? Not me.”
Jenn (she/they):
It’s so funny, isn’t it?
Chavonne:
I also thought about that so much since, like Jenn said, we bring you up in almost every interview we do, and I think about you all the time, and it has changed my life just thinking about what does my broken heart need, and also what would happen if I slowed down and actually listened to what was going on in my body.
Jenn (she/they):
That made my inner parts twist and go, “Slow down.”
Chavonne:
I’m sorry. What?
Jenn (she/they):
Yeah, and that practice that I do, it’s a challenge every time. Sometimes I literally rock to get out of my chair. I feel like I have to get this little momentum swing going to go do it because I’m like, “Oh, I’m going to have to open the door in order to do that, so maybe I don’t have to do this little check-in.” My brain has a lot of resistance to that, which more and more as I think about this, as we reflect on the last conversation and just sitting in this space with you, Michelle, I’m noticing that I’ve been conditioned to do that. That’s not me. That’s not my actual instincts, which I also hear us talking about, the things that we create as patterns for ourselves so they become familiar, so they become safer, so they become supportive.
Michelle (they/them/we):
If we don’t slow down, if you don’t want to slow down, you don’t ever have to face that you’re doing something you don’t want to be doing.
Jenn (she/they):
I got a strong reaction to that too. I wanted to turn my chair away.
Michelle (they/them/we):
I turned my [inaudible]
Jenn (she/they):
I want to use the word confront for some reason, not just because I feel confronted, but it also feels … Earlier you said, what’s the word you used? I was like, “Oh, that one really lands.” You were talking about attention being paid for with literal dollars, and if we don’t do that, if we do something else, if we’re doing these purposeful, attentive moments or these moments of attending, it’s an act of revolution. That’s the word I was thinking of, which liberation, I sometimes use that word to feel like I’m in a safer zone with myself than the word revolution. That’s what I was just realizing in that moment where it’s like if we look back on history, it’s like revolutions were these moments in history where entire cultures changed, and that just feels really big and intimidating.
Also, I’m very interested in it, so it feels like something to confront. Things that you’ve shared, we’re already free, so let’s remind ourselves of that. We can do things that are liberation-oriented in a completely different direction from what we have been conditioned to do. The direction is different, and that can lead us to revolution. When I say it scares me, I know that’s also conditioning. It’s going against the status quo. I know what that space is, and I’m really interested in confronting that. I’m noticing that right now. Very interested.
Michelle (they/them/we):
Yeah. Well, because that’s the thing. People are sitting out here thinking that liberation is going to be comfortable, that we’re going to go into freedom land by way of comfort. We are in this rest culture. I mean, building the new world will require more than our halfway. We may not always-
Jenn (she/they):
Well, that one made me sweaty.
Michelle (they/them/we):
Yeah, comfortable, and so I’m standing on a lineage of Harriet Tubman, who carried a pistol not to shoot slave catchers, but the gun was for us. The ones who would act up before we could get free is get your whole act together because it is freedom or die. So we can be free. It may not always be comfortable, and we might have to confront all these things about ourselves, our shadow, just like all these things. On the way to liberation, we’re just not going to be put down the water slide.
Jenn (she/they):
Oh, my gosh. I’m looking for a water slide. Thank you for that analogy. It’s something I have to challenge every day. I’m looking for a water slide, but I know in my heart of hearts and my physical body, I know that it’s not going to be a water slide. A water slide has adrenaline and it feels fun and you can repeat it and the water’s nice and cold.
Chavonne:
Those metal slides here in the Southwest, you might skid on it a little bit. They’re going to burn all the way down in the summertime.
Michelle (they/them/we):
All the way down, all the way down, but you’re going to keep doing it because-
Chavonne:
You sure are.
Michelle (they/them/we):
Yeah, there is a level of confrontation, and I think it can be eased though on all this. It’s not like an assault, and we are allowed, we do get confronted with things about ourselves that are antithetical to what we say we want, who we say we want to be, and it is an invitation to pause, to build up this bodily reserve, to engage in different practices.
Chavonne:
Something that also is coming up for me is kind of this practice of not looking for this water slide is how often, especially people who are in the helping profession, actually, I’m only going to speak for myself, how often I’ve tried to be a water slide for someone else when that’s not what they needed, trying to create that “safe space”, where they’re not as offended or not as resistant or they still think I’m a nice person, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, but that’s what’s coming up for me right now too.
Michelle (they/them/we):
Yeah, thank you for saying that because the helpers, us, we come to this work with these unconscious contracts intact, right?
Chavonne:
That overgiver wound, and yeah.
Michelle (they/them/we):
Because I want to save the world and the world to be a better place, I need everybody to like me because we just come. It is ad nauseam on and on and on and on. We have them. I think a lot of it is the modality we choose, how we choose to work, but if I had to wait till everybody’s nervous system felt comfortable for me telling you the truth as I see it, my clients don’t have enough money to pay me as long for that to happen. I talk with others in the profession who have 10 years to work with a client. I don’t have that long to work with you, I don’t because my clients don’t have the money to pay me. So what are the contracts that I am releasing within myself to be able to be and walk with another human being and be in the truth of, “Hey, you may not like what I’m going to say. I am going to consent you in to hearing me say this,” and I’m also going to say, “You may not feel good after I say this because it’s about this.” I’ve never had a client say no.
Chavonne:
Because that’s why they’re there. That’s what they paid for.
Michelle (they/them/we):
Part of that is the power of the space, right?
Chavonne:
Yes.
Michelle (they/them/we):
Some of them don’t know they can say no or feeling in their body in the moment, but most people, actually, when confronted, they do want the truth. As I see it in my lens with my contracts and all the shit that’s going on with me, it’s big work to be on the slow walk home with somebody. It’s big work.
Jenn (she/they):
Oh, my gosh, that sentence.
Chavonne:
I’m writing all the things. Oh, my.
Jenn (she/they):
What just stuck out to me in that is it’s a body feeling. Let me see if I can describe it. It changed what confronted is for me. Now when I just add to confronted, to be confronted with the truth, now I’m interested. I’m immediately interested. I love the truth. I would say my primary value is curiosity, and then right after that is interest. I’m just interested and I’m just curious.
Michelle (they/them/we):
In a truth, right? It’s not absolute, in a truth that is arising for me in being in relationship with you.
Chavonne:
It’s a witnessing. That’s what’s coming to mind when you’re saying that, just, “Here’s what I’m noticing. Here’s what’s showing up in this room for me right now.” It’s such a gift to be on the slow walk home with someone, as you said, in that witnessing of it and sharing where you are as well and letting them witness you. Chills everywhere.
Jenn (she/they):
Me too.
Michelle (they/them/we):
Yeah, the transparency of like, “This is not my way. I was not conditioned to have this conversation with you ever at all,” and it is painful for me. I am experiencing some feelings, and we’re on this walk together. I’m no better than you. You’re no better than me. We’re just walking home.
Jenn (she/they):
It’s a beautiful analogy for a power dynamic that we’ve all been conditioned to have or to receive or to be around and just let it dissolve. I love that analogy of a truth arising. It really helps me see conditioning falling, conditioning falling away. It’s a really gentle invitation. I’m starting to ask myself right now, “Do I let myself see the gentleness in liberation?” and I think not usually.
Chavonne:
Yeah, same.
Jenn (she/they):
I want to. It’s a really beautiful curiosity that can show up. When you said there’s not the truth, I was thinking like, “Yes.” In conversations that are very nuanced, in conversations that are not black and white, sometimes it can, I don’t know if this is the right word, but maybe devolve into an exclusive space of no hard truths are welcome here, and what I mean by that is so if there isn’t just one truth, there is no right answer. There is no the answer. Sometimes I notice, and this is often a body feeling, just the lack of space held for, but there are some wrong answers, like wrong for us, wrong for us in the moment, wrong for being in community with our fellow human beings, wrong for whitewashing, upholding the erasure of where ideas originally came from and all sorts of things like that.
Chavonne:
Yeah, or genocide.
Jenn (she/they):
Yes. So I was going to say, what’s coming to mind is actually what’s happening in Palestine right now, the Democratic Republic of Congo, when we’re talking about Sudan, we’re talking about Haiti, and on and on. There’s eight to 12 ongoing genocides that I’m currently aware of. I maybe have the number incorrect, but that’s what I’m aware of.
Just thinking about the absence of the space for there being actual wrongness, wrong things wrong for people, and I’m especially thinking of trying to take power over other people, which is so relevant in the genocide conversation like, “I know what’s best for you. I know what’s best for this land. I don’t care what the historical impact of this place is. This is what I say now and I have the power to do it.”
You’re just reminding me of how that power dynamic falling away is extremely powerful for connection, and that word is just swimming in my head, resonance, that you said earlier. Wow, it resonates, and people who take power of each other are not letting things resonate in the way that we’re currently describing. Anyway, thanks for naming that. It was coming to the surface, so I appreciate you naming that.
Michelle (they/them/we):
You’re welcome, and I think there’s this … It’s so important for spaces to really have a purpose, an intent, an aspiration in the space and for that to be clear because when we talk about rightness and wrongness because now we’re in the binary, and it’s like there’s a way that a group can move toward that North Star. It’s like, “Well, actually our goal here is X,” whatever that is, liberation, and then there’s going to be some folks that may not be aligned in how to get there or maybe, actually, our aspiration might be this. It doesn’t mean that these people over here are that they are now outside of community or care or holding.
Where can we connect you with spaces and places that have the aspirations that you’re looking for? So we can hold the rightness and the righteousness and the wrongness. We can make space for multiple ways of belonging.
Chavonne:
It’s thinking me think of something that I tell the people. I don’t see clients anymore, but the clients I used to see and also the people, well, not kind of, but the people who work for me is that I believe in working from a place of loving accountability, and that’s what keeps coming to mind. Jenn’s really good at this. We talk about this all the time. She’s going to call me on my shit, but she’s going to do it in the nicest way imaginable, most loving way imaginable, and that’s kind of how I work with my staff and with the clients that I used to see. It’s about we are growing. I want to be able to help you grow, but I’m also not going to let you live in this liminal space of trying to … I can’t get the words. I know what I’m saying, but just living in this liminal space.
Jenn (she/they):
I know what you’re saying.
Chavonne:
Yeah, and I think there’s gentleness in this liberation and this seeking, this working toward liberation, but there’s got to also be … It’s not a water slide, right?
Michelle (they/them/we):
Yeah, accountability, and that’s the thing. I think that’s the invitation. The invitation to freedom is real gentle, right? We’re going to go over here and be free. We’re going to go over here and experience peace. We’re going to go over here and experience community, and you’re absolutely welcome to join us.
Jenn (she/they):
Yeah, inclusivity. That’s a really great way of phrasing that. I think that’s also what I’m noticing in my awareness of the genocides happening and also the impacts of the real world on people with bodies and experiences different from my own is … Gosh, it’s such a body feeling. It’s hard to describe. I’m feeling like you were saying, Chavonne, where it’s like, “I know what I’m saying.” Exactly.
Chavonne:
I know. You don’t have to know. I know.
Jenn (she/they):
There is this invitation. Oh, I got it. So the invitation remaining inclusive. I really loved what you said, Michelle, earlier. It’s like if what you’re doing, if what you’re feeling, if what you’re looking for isn’t matching what’s here, there is a space for you. It’s like this ever expansive inclusivity. It’s not just like a shutdown moment of like, “Well, we’re not for you.” It’s very isolating, that approach. It’s a very common approach. In space is meant to be inclusive.
Chavonne:
Absolutely.
Jenn (she/they):
In other words, they become exclusive because it’s a contraction versus an opening. I’m just matching what you’re doing with your body, Michelle. Exactly. So you’re just really like … I’m changing my posture. I just noticed that by looking at myself in the video. I noticed myself changing my posture to be more open with what you both were just sharing because that’s what resonates in my body. This contracted part doesn’t resonate. It used to, but I didn’t know I was free, so I contracted, but I get it. So I’m just feeling that invitation again from you.
Being with you is such a present body, present moment body experience of just being present to what’s already there. I’m just noticing that sometimes in liberation, my instinct is to not do the pause. My instinct is to sit here and go, “Well, where am I going next?” to use that embodiment immediately for a purpose. I don’t know if I’ve tracked that before, but just being in this space, it’s very liberating feeling.
Michelle (they/them/we):
Good. I’m glad because you know what’s funny about you all is y’all are planners. I love it.
Chavonne:
This is the only aspect of our life-
Jenn (she/they):
Yeah, just the podcast. We don’t do that elsewhere. I would love to aspirationally do it.
Chavonne:
[inaudible] everything else is a disaster for me.
Jenn (she/they):
Yeah. I’m catching up everywhere else.
Chavonne:
That’s great, everywhere else. Every time we’ve worked together, we’re like, “Who are we? What are we doing? This is working. Why can’t we do this anywhere else?” Only here.
Jenn (she/they):
Yeah. We’re committed to having these conversations in the present moment. It’s something that I’ve noticed, Chavonne, especially this season. We’re committed to being in the conversation. I think that’s why we’re so good at actually planning this is because that would all be distracting.
Chavonne:
Yeah. Ooh, I like that. Seeing planning is a way to give yourself space. Oh, oh, I’m sorry. I have to go write about that for the rest of the day. Planning is a way to giving yourself that space to-
Jenn (she/they):
I actually haven’t thought about that.
Michelle (they/them/we):
Finish the thought though. Finish the thought. Let me hear it.
Chavonne:
Planning and actually having some things kind of mapped out as a way to give yourself space to be present when things are happening. Dang.
Michelle (they/them/we):
Oh, yeah. I mean, a good plan can be a really good boundary, and we need boundaries for free.
Jenn (she/they):
Wait a minute.
Chavonne:
Oh, my.
Jenn (she/they):
So that’s a mind-blowing moment. I hadn’t thought about it as deeply as this.
Chavonne:
How much freer would I be if I feel if I actually knew a few things that were-
Jenn (she/they):
That’s such good question.
Chavonne:
Instead of flying by the seat of my pants for the rest of my life.
Jenn (she/they):
Planning is a boundary. That’s very interesting.
Michelle (they/them/we):
A good plan.
Chavonne:
A good plan, a good plan, a good plan.
Jenn (she/they):
Thank you for clarifying.
Michelle (they/them/we):
A container.
Chavonne:
A container.
Michelle (they/them/we):
There’s a container. There’s a container for this.
Chavonne:
Planning as a container.
Michelle (they/them/we):
There’s a well-thought out, formed container, and we actually don’t need this level of planning in every day of our lives.
Chavonne:
Oh, no, no.
Michelle (they/them/we):
But it’s possible, but it’s like a good plan gives some spaciousness to, because we may not get to all these questions. My sense is that we may or may not, I don’t know, but there’s a container, and inside of the container is what I’m experiencing and what I believe you two are experiencing as a high degree of spaciousness and freedom and access to this right now moment.
Chavonne:
I also think you generate that as well. You create that space really in a really wonderful way too.
Jenn (she/they):
I can tell that you see it. I’ve been feeling that all throughout this conversation. I can tell that you see it before I am, and then I’m just sort of landing in that spot that you’ve been looking at and I’m like, “Oh, here I am. I’ve arrived with you.” Wow.
Michelle (they/them/we):
Yeah. It’s funny. I don’t know if we talked about this, but it’s when we talk, people often pair like grief and love and people are like, “Oh, love is the price we pay for grief,” or grief. I don’t know what they say. They have these-
Chavonne:
Grief is love with nowhere to go. I’ve heard that one a lot too.
Michelle (they/them/we):
Right. They really care because somewhere in the consciousness, people understand that there’s a dichotomy there between grief and love. When I start talking about the fact that we actually need boundaries for liberation, it’s just like-
Chavonne:
Yeah, that’s what’s happening.
Michelle (they/them/we):
The boundaries are the container by which one can experience freedom. If there wasn’t the gate and the cage, what’s on the other side? So we need these. These are important. These are important aspects to liberation, a plan. How are we going to get there? Freedom.
Jenn (she/they):
This is a beautifully multi-layered thing to think about. It’s reminding me of each of our own abilities to discern for ourselves as being incredibly vital to embodiment and to liberation itself. Just us playing with this, and I love this playful nature to this, but how we’re conditioned, how we’re bought and paid for these really visceral descriptions of how this kind of thing is kept from us, even from the possibilities of imagining, much less trying it out, that they’re really … My brain is like, “What’s an example of a good plan?” I was just kind of playing around with that, and we really do that here. I’m proud of us, Chavonne, because we’re very, very committed to it.
Chavonne:
me too.
Jenn (she/they):
We make sure we meet about it regularly. We check in before each season and ask ourselves what this particular season’s container is going to look like. So this season we’re like, “We’re not going to do it every two weeks.”
Chavonne:
We can’t.
Jenn (she/they):
“We’re just going to put something out once a month. We’re going to put something out at our pace,” because all of the planning has a limitation if we keep coming up against even other boundaries. So what I’m noticing is the container that’s clear and has these boundaries allows for the other containers with boundaries to exist around that.
Now, that really feels embodied to me in the present moment where it’s like, “What are my containers? Where do we have boundaries? Where do we have instincts for those? Where have those instincts been kept from us?” It’s such an interesting way to look back at information we already have and ask ourselves these questions or just ask ourselves now because we already have that information.
It almost makes liberation feel or helps me notice that it’s a process. I already know it’s a journey, not a destination. I got that. It’s a real journey even if we can have clear goals when we can be going towards something, but it’s really the journey, but I’m really noticing it’s a process. We’ve been talking about being a practice, which is basically the same thing as a process, but the process being we have some really distinct ways of noticing how we get free, how we are free. That in itself is a freeing thought.
Michelle (they/them/we):
Yeah. This is a freedom-making container you all have here.
Jenn (she/they):
Thank you.
Chavonne:
Thank you.
Michelle (they/them/we):
I mean, you said it yourself. You said, “We came together. We have this plan. We have this script. We have this process, and we got together and said, ‘You know what? Why are we trying to do this twice a month?'” because this is running up against what? Your other containers are free.
Chavonne:
They’re free.
Michelle (they/them/we):
Your family, meaningful work, play. You know what I’m saying? So I was like, “Oh, okay. Well, let’s just take this container that we have and spread it out and free ourselves a little bit around this body of meaningful work that you do.”
Jenn (she/they):
Dang. Thank you.
Chavonne:
Thank you.
Jenn (she/they):
I feel so much joy.
Chavonne:
I know, me too. I feel so affirmed.
Jenn (she/they):
Very much validated as well, and there’s something that, Chavonne, is a beautiful container for is in process of a given season while inside this liberating container to say, “Hey, I don’t know if it’s me or I don’t know what’s happening, but I think that it can’t go on the way that it’s going on.” You have a really great sense of that, Chavonne, and also describing it to me so I understand, and I’m just always like, “Of course.” It’s like working for yourself. Being a self-employed person, I’m the one in charge of my schedule. I’m in charge of how many clients I see.
Chavonne:
I have to remind myself of that every single week.
Jenn (she/they):
Me too. The creeping in of the capitalist, patriarchal, colonizer mindset of which I am a White person, so it’s all in my spaces all the time, all in my conditioning where it’s harder, faster, better, stronger, nothing else, nothing else, nothing less, and it’s like, “Oh, actually, less is great.” There’s so much information. There’s so much new, new, new, new. There’s so much. Just realizing … Well, I mean, this is something I’ve realized before, but just in this moment, just sitting with the sensation of there’s an onslaught of things coming at us at all times, and I’m just really hearing the freedom container or the liberation container, that is the word no. I already knew it’s a yes to me, but I’m really … It’s even making you like, “Well, that’s a really good plan. I would prefer to say yes to me.” So something, if it matches and is also a yes to me, what a cool thing. It’s not a yes to me, okay, no thanks, just as a discerning moment, and that brings up all my stuff because I don’t like saying no, but it’s important. It’s a sacred no. It’s so valuable to me even if I resist it.
Michelle (they/them/we):
It is. It is. I’m curious too, Chavonne, what is that moment that Jenn’s describing where you’re, “Ooh, this can’t go on.” What arises that in your body that gives you knowing? There’s like, “Oh, we got to pivot. Actually, we’re going to take this boat and go over there.” What arises for you?
Chavonne:
The first word that came to mind is dread, and I don’t know if that’s correct, but what first came up was that, the dread of feeling … I always feel behind, but I mean, the dread of another task to add on to whatever I have going on, the dread of showing up to meetings that I’m not prepared for that I wanted to be prepared for, the dread of having another … I guess I’m just going to go with that, another ball to juggle, and if it’s affecting those things that are so crucial, if I’m having problems maintaining my level of emotional stability, whatever the heck that means in the moment. I would say with this podcast it wasn’t feeling it’s fun, and this is one of the most fun things that I do, and it is such a source.
Jenn (she/they):
We live for this.
Chavonne:
Yeah, it’s such a source of joy for me, and it wasn’t feeling as fun. Not that everything’s fun, but at least that’s where I was with this one.
Jenn (she/they):
Oh, Michelle, thank you for asking that.
Chavonne:
Yeah. Woof, and I think that’s true with a lot of things that have changed in the last few years. I say I can keep doing things as long as I can find that little nugget of joy, I can find that nugget of curiosity, and I was losing my curiosity for it.
Michelle (they/them/we):
Right, right, right. So just to bring it back though, so if you could touch into that bodily sensation of dread because that’s a boundary. That’s the body speaking. So what is it? Your feet get hot, your ears get hot, your stomach? Tell me what sensations you were gathering in the dread.
Chavonne:
My feet, now that you mentioned it. I wouldn’t have said my feet before, but my feet feel hot, and I’m a sweaty girl, anyway, thanks to my antidepressant being 40.
Jenn (she/they):
Perimenopause, thank you.
Chavonne:
Thanks. I get hot behind my knees a lot, and it almost feels like it’s trying to stop me from propelling. It feels like I’ve had that conversation with myself like, “If my knees are sweaty, I don’t feel like I want to move. I just need to stay still.” So it’s almost like a metaphorical stopping the propulsion of myself.
Michelle (they/them/we):
That’s right. That’s right.
Chavonne:
Oh, my lord. I’m sorry, what?
Michelle (they/them/we):
Yeah, what, what, and where we’re going with this is all of that.
Chavonne:
It’s so itchy.
Michelle (they/them/we):
It is bodily intelligence, this data, and you can associate it with dread, but also, you can track those bodily sensations. So when they show up for you in other places, you know, “Oh, this is my body telling me to slow down. This is my body telling me I’m doing this, not the way body wants to be doing this. I need to slow down, pivot, do something else,” just as you did with this body of work, this podcast, but collect, remember, and recollect those bodily sensations because that is a communication. We’re talking about embodiment. We’re talking about being in this body. That is body communication.
In Chavonnees, okay? Body was like, “Listen, this is how we communicate dread. This is how we communicate need to do something different in this body where we live to this brain up here, Chavonne, this person up here.” This ain’t for play, play. This is why we do this practice, right?
Chavonne:
Yeah. Oh, man. Okay.
Jenn (she/they):
The phrasing of recollect as recollect is going to sit with me. So that resonates. I forgot my year of the word is resonate. I forgot that till right now.
Chavonne:
I thought about it when Michelle said it.
Jenn (she/they):
I’m like, “Oh, my gosh, that’s my word of the year.
Chavonne:
Mine is attunement. Mine is attunement, and Jenn’s is resonate, and we just keep matching up right now. Okay. Oh, my lord.
Jenn (she/they):
This makes me feel like passionate, engaged, excited. I have a lot of really active body sensations, recollect. I love re words, however we pronounce them. I love the re words because it often reminds me, reminds me, I just realized, it refocuses me. There’s lots of re words in this. It pulls me into a place of, “Oh, I actually realize I’ve been here before.” I’m just seeing it from a new place of, “Oh, that’s wisdom. Oh, that’s communication. Oh, that’s data,” just thinking of the words that you were just using, Michelle. “Oh, that’s information that is meant for me is also what is …” That’s sitting with me the most.
If I have the power to recollect it, it was meant for me the first time it was available to collect. The word sacred is all over my brain today because it’s a set of feelings of feeling like at home in my body in a conversation. That’s what sacred feels to me like, “Oh, I’m at home in this conversation. I’m a person. You’re a person. We’re people together.”
Michelle (they/them/we):
Absolutely.
Chavonne:
Oh, my goodness.
Jenn (she/they):
Like, “Holy shit,” that’s also what I’m saying.
Chavonne:
There’s a lot of holy shit happening right now.
Michelle (they/them/we):
Yeah, but that’s why I’m saying there’s a disconnect in our understanding of why the hell we’re talking about a mind-body connection.
Jenn (she/they):
Oh, right. Yeah. We’re highly focused as a collective group of Americans very specifically, but it was a larger human group of the body and the mind part, and not the connection.
Michelle (they/them/we):
Right. It’s like, “Oh, now let’s do a body scan.” Why the fuck for? This, to make a bodily communication with yourself.
Chavonne:
Oh, my gosh. Okay.
Michelle (they/them/we):
What’s the purpose of a body scan? Can somebody tell me? If it’s not this-
Chavonne:
To communicate with the body, yeah.
Michelle (they/them/we):
We gather it as a feeling. Once we have a feeling word, brain can then, once we have a feeling word in the brain, the feeling can begin to dissipate. That’s resonance. Once we have the word for the brain, the feeling, and we make the exact right connection in the brain, the feeling can begin to dissipate, as well as the bodily sensations because body’s saying, “Oh, yeah, great. You heard me. That’s what I was talking about.” Then you tell me, “You can chill out now?” “All right. They know we wanted to go. Thank you. Our job here is done.”
Jenn (she/they):
Holy shit.
Chavonne:
I know. Oh, okay.
Jenn (she/they):
So we are having a great time talking with you, Michelle, which is not a surprise to me in any way, shape or form, and we want to continue. So we were just talking off recording about having another conversation together. So we’re excited to do that with you. So what we’ve already talked about, we’re going to leave you all listening with these nuggets to think on and sort of let’s sit with you until the next conversation.
So just thank you so much for being here with us today, Michelle, and last time at the end, you joked, “And that was like a session,” right? I already have this same feeling of what it’s like to work with you, what it’s like to get that you’re already free, and what it’s like to play in that sort of playground that exists in that, and so it’s such a joy for me, and I know for Chavonne because I know I can speak for Chavonne. We speak for each other.
Chavonne:
We speak for each other all the time and then apologize, but then we’re also saying what we-
Jenn (she/they):
So we’re just so happy to chat with you here for this first hour and to do it again, which I imagine the next one might even be a little bit longer of a conversation as we just dive a little deeper.
Chavonne:
Yeah. Awesome.
Jenn (she/they):
Thank you.
Chavonne:
Thank you.
Jenn (she/they):
Thank you.
Michelle (they/them/we):
Thank you.
Jenn (she/they):
Bye now.
Chavonne:
Bye.
Chavonne: Thank you for listening to Season 4 of the Embodiment for the Rest of Us podcast. Episodes will be published the first Thursday of every month-ish (in case we need some wiggle room) wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also find all podcast content (including the transcript and show notes) at our website, EmbodimentForTheRestOfUs.com.
Jenn: And follow us on social media, on both Twitter @EmbodimentUs and on Instagram @EmbodimentForTheRestOfUs. We look forward to continuing this evolving and expanding conversation in our next episode.