Our beautiful, wonderful magnificent bodies. The thing that carries our head around.
I work with my clients to develop their awareness of their body and reveal what is really going on inside.
As a business coach, I pay close attention to the body. If we don’t pay attention to the body it will take over, and it will control every situation.
First of all, the body wants to live. Period.
If there is anything that the body perceives as pain or fear, it will not do it. Or to do it will require so much energy to overcome the pain that the action won't be sustainable.
When I am work with my clients and their bodies, I am working with the three intelligences that are operating at all times. The first intelligence is the Survivor. Its job is to make sure that we have enough energy to live for the next few moments.
The second intelligence is the Reactor. Its job is react to changes in the environment. The intelligence provides emotions, energy in motion, for rapid change.
The third intelligence is the Thinker. It’s job is to think. It is give things meaning to determine if one thing is better than the the other for our survival. It gives events meaning to know whether something is safe for us.
The three intelligences, stack on top of each other in an ascending order of importance, much like Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Each intelligence needs to be accomplished in order to fully utilize the other. You need to fulfill the Survivor and then the Reactor, in order to have full execution of the Thinker. Over these years I have learned the following things about how to work skillfully and honor the intelligences.
First of all, for the survivor, I know if my client has not been sleeping for whatever reason, it does not make sense to work with them at all. They would not have the energy to see what is really going on. The wisest thing I can do is send my client home and have them focus on getting a good night sleep.
If my client is not eating nutritious food and exercising I know that there will be a limit to what they can accomplish because they are having to use a lot of willpower and caffeine to push through and accomplish what they want. After the pushing through something, the body will breakdown and get sick. While caffeine might seem like a good resource in the short run, it is altogether unproductive in the long run.
Working with the second intelligence, the reactor is my favorite areas to work. It is where all of my training comes through. What I have learned is that when someone cannot be present with an emotion, because they believe it to be painful then in this situation, the Thinker comes in and creates another story to feel something different, a decoy emotion if you will. This to me is such a brilliant strategy and is an intelligence of the body, for if there is too much pain, there is death. The reactor will omit what it experiences as painful. It will superimpose a story of what it can feel. What it can tolerate.
Last week, I was working with a client who told me she was procrastinating on getting certain tasks done with in her business. She had a long list of reasons why she was not completing these tasks and felt frustrated. I asked her a couple of questions, I could feel she felt embarrassed and ashamed about being late in completing the tasks. Her stories were to avoid feeling embarrassment and shame.
No wonder she didn’t want to complete the tasks. Any time she got close to the tasks those emotions would begin to bubble up. Her intelligence in her body would say “ Hell No! We are not going to feel this”, and her Thinker would come up with some great story about something else that needed her attention, so she would not have to feel embarrassed and shameful. Once I had her experience embarrassment and shame, she saw for herself that she did not die. She could be present with the emotions; her emotions did not own her anymore.
What created the emotions, was her Thinker. Her beliefs on delivering something late created the emotions of embarrassment and shame. The thinker’s stories create emotions. That is why I love to become aware of thinking. Thinking is all made up. I want to become conscious of what I am thinking so that I don’t create stories that cause pain. If I am not sure what I am thinking, my body will tell me.
Just this morning, I had not heard from a friend I had texted. I realized I was pissed. When I got curious, I realized I had made it mean that she must not love me. Being pissed was way better than not feeling loved. Truth is I know she loves me, we are BFF’s.
When you learn how to work with the bodie’s intelligences, it’ can be powerful and freeing. You are able to see what is really going on and clean it up fast and move on to accomplish what you want.
If you would like to learn how to work with your body, please feel free to contact me either by email anna@annascott.co or my number, 510-919-2254.