What My Body Knew That My Mind Couldn’t Figure Out | Blog

Over the last five years, I’ve been asking myself a question: What does it really mean to live and work in an embodied way?

Not just to know who we are beyond personality and conditioning — but to feel it. To have a body-based, experiential knowing of our own creativity, resilience, wellbeing, and wisdom.

And if we felt in an embodied way, how would it shape our work, our relationships, and our lives?

Two very different experiences, one in the mountains of Ecuador, the other at my computer dealing with a difficult email, taught me the same lesson: the body holds wisdom the mind can’t always reach.

Here’s what I discovered…

Trusting the Wisdom of the Body: Lessons from the Mountain and the Inbox

For most of my career, I’ve been helping entrepreneurs, leaders, and teams tap into their innate resourcefulness, access more creativity, and bring their best selves to work. About five years ago, in the stillness of the pandemic, I began to see something new.

When the external world slowed down, I realized my internal noise was louder than I expected. I was busier, and my idle was a notch or two higher than expected.  Somewhere in that stillness, the word embodiment kept appearing. I followed the nudge.

Lesson #1: The Hike

In 2021, that nudge led me to Ecuador, where I spent a month doing breathwork, movement, meditation, and connection practices. By the end, I felt more grounded and more “in” my body than I had in a long time.

A few days before heading home, I joined a hike led by an indigenous shaman woman. She told us we were “going into the unknown” with no set route. My first clue that this was going to be different was looking over at the local guide who was dressed in boots up to the knees and holding a machete.

Within minutes, we were crossing a fast-moving river. Multiple times. We couldn’t see the floor of the river. There was no trail. Our guide was cutting the path as we went. At points, we pulled ourselves up rocks and grabbed tree branches to steady ourselves.

Due to the altitude and my fitness level, I had to stop and catch my breath. Every time I did, the whole group stopped. I started to feel self-conscious, but the shaman came over and said:

“Barbara, your pace is divine. Every breath you need to take is the breath we all need to take.”

A little further ahead, she asked me how I was doing. I could honestly say, “I’m good. I love this.” Even though I had to catch my breath at times, it was true, I was into it! No part of me wanted to stop.

Hours later, we reached the top, where there was a stunning waterfall. After taking time to enjoy and have a bite to eat, we began the even trickier descent. We slid down muddy slopes, navigated narrow ledges, and crossed the river again and again.

On the way down, it hit me: my mind could not help me here.

There was no map, no reference point, no “thinking through” where to put my foot or how to balance.

But here’s what I saw – my body knew.

It knew how to find stable ground. It knew how to adjust my weight so I didn’t fall. It knew how to get me safely where I needed to go.

That realization moved me. I felt a deep wave of gratitude for my body. I saw its wisdom and reliability in the unknown. I also saw, with compassion, how much of my life I’d spent being critical of it.

That hike became a “home base” I can return to, a reminder that my body is an ally and has wisdom for me and for the journey.

Lesson #2: The Email

About a year later, my cousin passed away. I was named executor of her estate, which meant stepping into territory I’d always avoided: taxes, contracts, trusts, money. Add in estranged family dynamics, and suddenly this “honor” was a highly charged responsibility.

What surprised me most wasn’t the work itself, but my body’s reaction. My nervous system would get activated and agitated. I had sleepless nights. I experienced anxiety at a level I had never experienced before. One email from a certain family member and my heart rate would spike, and my mind would race.

And honestly, I didn’t expect it. Knowing what I know. Doing what I do, and a bit of arrogance, assuming my work would keep me immune.

But because of that work, I also knew there was something valuable here. This wasn’t about the people or the tasks. These reactions, the anxiety, were offering me something.

In fact, the intensity of it was my first clue that I was up against something old. Something unconscious.

So instead of fixing or bypassing it, I knew the direction was to be with it. To allow the sensations to inform me, rather than my mind evaluating and assessing and trying to sort it out.

Even if that meant pacing around a hotel room after reading an email, heart pounding.

That choice shifted everything.

Remembering that all feeling is energy moving through us, it’s not permanent. I allowed myself to be with the anxiety, to be with the uncomfortableness of it all.

And in that space, I had a deeper insight come through. I don’t feel safe.

I would never have said that, logically, because I knew I was not in danger.  But my body told me otherwise.

That lack of safety was old conditioning, old fear. I could see the desire to try to control circumstances, and people’s feelings or their reactions was an old pattern. But here’s the thing, no amount of rational thinking was helping me. I couldn’t convince my nervous system that I wasn’t in danger.

Rather, by allowing myself to be fully present to the sensations, I had a felt-knowing of, “I am safe.” I didn’t have to run from it; I could handle it, and via presence, it transforms.

From then on, whenever I felt reactivity, I had a new anchor within, a new felt-experiential knowing, and could remember with more ease and grace that I was safe and could handle it all.

It didn’t make the estate process anxiety-free, but when I did get reactive, it was definitely less intense. It wasn’t as derailing. And when my nervous system flared, I knew I could meet it fully, let it move through, and often see something new on the other side.

Looking back, the whole experience became an unexpected opportunity to dissolve old programming — the belief that I had to control myself, other people’s moods, or the environment in order to feel safe.

I began to trust, in an even deeper way, that I could handle life as it came.

It showed me, in a very felt way, that what looks like a problem is often an invitation.

If we can meet it, be with it, it just might open us up to new realizations.

Embodiment as a Way of Living

These two experiences showed me that embodiment is about living from a deeper connection with the body every day:

• Trusting its guidance in the unknown
• Staying with what arises without rushing to fix it
• And it means walking the walk, embracing all that life offers us and opening our worlds to a wider range of the human experience.

When we stop trying to solve our way out of discomfort and instead allow what’s here to move through, we open the door for things to shift.

This is the gift of embodiment: old fears dissolve, new expressions emerge, and we remember more of who we are.

The Invitation
If you knew you were safe in your body no matter what…
If you knew you could handle any feeling or sensation…
What would you step into?

Because the more willing we are to inhabit our bodies, to feel what we feel, to trust their wisdom, the more life can evolve us, guide us, and expand what’s possible.