The World Shapes You, but You Also Shape the World

This past week I’ve noticed the levels of intensity in my body start to soften.

With the darkness returning, the soft expanse of Summer takes over the intense growth of Spring. And my body breathes a sigh of relief. I feel less internal pressure, and am more able to open to the width and spaciousness of life. ​

Have you noticed any shifts in your body/energy/emotions alongside the turning of the seasons?

I don't ask this question flippantly.

I ask it so that you can practice knowing yourself on these levels of relationship, and also remember that you're in constant exchange with the energies of the Earth, and the ecosystem around you.

Our own ecosystem within is informed and shaped by the external world. This is because we are Nature. Our energies are woven in and through the landscape.

This is the basic understanding of the eco-somatic lens: that our somatic understanding cannot be fully understood without acknowledging the way the environment is involved in our somatic experience.

Our energy impacts and is impacted by the living world.

This is why I find it extremely important to get to know and understand your own embodied experience and the way your energy responds to things.

It is the way the plants, the seasons, and elements, communicate through you. It is the way you understand your belonging to the world. ​

It is also the way you shape the world.

When we get really skilled at understanding, sensing, and then honing our body’s wisdom, we become the living path of change in the external.

We cannot sustainably shift anything externally without aligning that energy within ourselves.

We keep perpetuating the same harms, the same patterns, the same external reality until we shift the paradigm internally. This happens in our personal lives, but on a large collective scale too. ​

Collectively we’re telling the same tired stories that keep us waring and separated from the Earth and one another.

Personally, what tired stories are you telling about your separateness from the Earth?

Or the ways in which you are unlovable? Or perhaps how you’re a victim? Or that you’re not as worthy to receive as other people? Or that you’re not strong enough to handle something difficult?

Getting clear with our own stories helps us get clear in our energy.

And when we know ourselves on this level, we gain clarity in the relationship we're always engaged in with the external world.

It always begins with awareness.

So... have you noticed any shifts in your body/energy/emotions alongside the turning of the seasons?

What new layer is there to uncover in your understanding of your eco-somatic self?