by admin | Jul 27, 2018 | Life Musings, Whole Being Nourishment, Yoga & Meditation
In Western culture, we are basically taught to disconnect from the body at a young age.
We value intellect over feeling and sensing and doing over being.
We’re also in a culture that is obsessed with how the body looks over how it feels. We beat the physical body into submission with grueling workouts, have the “no pain, no gain” mentality, and most of us were taught exercise as a punishment, for a grade, and in conditions that were often times humiliating.
Add on top of that any kind of physical or emotional stress or trauma and we have the perfect conditions for dissociating from the body and retreating into a space of hyper-intellectualism.
This is how dis-ease breeds. This is how we forget about pleasure. This is how we become addicted to quick fixes of pleasure that actually leave us feeling more depleted in the long run.
Practices intentional embodiment and conscious movement is an entry way back into the physical body. The physical body is where truth lives. The mind contains a version of truth, yes, and it can often lead us astray.
When the physical body, anchored in its beautiful sensorial abilities and engaging fully with the tangible world, isn’t fully online, the poor mind works overdrive and we get swept up in a disembodied, half-truth.
We feel empty, numb, void, and insatiably hungry for life all at the same time. This can lead us to feeling purposeless, lost, and helpless. On the physical level, this is where all dis-ease manifests.
The subtle creates the gross and the subtle dysfunctions and misalignments on the emotional, mental, and spiritual levels, manifest in the physical body and in our tangible lives. We’ve had cues all along and because we have been priding doing over being and thinking over feeling, we’ve missed them.
The answer? Intentional embodiment and conscious movement.
Embodiment & Movement
The difference between exercise and movement is subtle, yet profound. I dislike using the word “exercise” because of the various connotations we have associated with it AND because many of us are exercising for the wrong reasons that are actually putting a wedge farther between us and our bodies.
Movement, intentional movement, is different. It values feeling and sensing over anything else. It serves as a bridge among mind, body, and spirit. Movement allows us to become fully embodiment and by fully embodied, I mean noticing your sensorial experience, noticing your bodily needs, feeling your body from the inside out and outside in, observing the subtle interplay between your environment and your physical body, your thoughts and your physical body, and your emotions and your physical body. Using the body as the anchor, translator, and messenger that it is allows us to find more ease and presence.
Emotional Fluidity
Emotions are energy that must keep moving. However, when we stifle this flow and suppress emotions, the energy becomes stagnant and lives in our bodies. Thighs, hips, stomach, and shoulders are some key places they wind up living.
Through practicing intentional embodiment and conscious movement and engaging in this physical body dialogue, we inevitably become better observers of our emotions and allow them to flow as they so desire. We feel more grounded and safe to allow this natural flow because we are anchored in our physical bodies, in our sacred homes.
When that component is missing, we may fear our emotions, feel ashamed of them, and allow them to suppress because we are numbed out of the physical harm they are inflicting.
When we’re more deeply connected to the physical body, we can feel into the dis-ease the stagnation is causing, and we feel more grounded and anchored and less like we’ll get swept up and away in a fit of a strong emotion. This is yet another example of how embodiment serves us as a tool for multilevel healing.
Practices
Here are a few simple practices you can begin today!
Notice Your Body
Check in and notice your physical body. Close your eyes, breathe, and notice any sensations that arise. Are you hungry? Are you thirsty? Are you aching anywhere? Are you tired? What does your physical body need from you right now?
Impulsive Movement & Your Emotions
Again, close your eyes and check in and notice any sensations in the body. Next, notice any emotions that are present for you. Without thinking or judging or criticizing, allow your physical body to simply move in response to this emotion. Allowing yourself to follow the impulse to move. Stay connected to breath and bodily sensation and feel the emotion arise and move and shift and change.
Communicate With A Body Part
Close your eyes, breathe deeply, and tune into physical sensation. Scan your body lovingly and slowly and completely from head to toe. Is there an area of the body that feels particularly exceptional in some way at the moment? Maybe an area that feels disconnected, in pain, hot, cold, or some other way that has your attention? Allow your body to come into a posture or a movement that mirrors how this body part feels. Allow that body part, if possible, to be the primary driver of this posture or movement exploration.
And there are so many others and then ways to add creativity to it by taking these sensations and movement explorations into art creation of some kind.
Additionally, any movement or exercise you typically engage in (that brings you delight, because there’s no reason to do something you dislike because you think you should or because it’s cool or popular) can be done in a more embodiment and intentional way.
Seek to move your body in ways that are conscious and intentional and in a co-creative fashion that allow your body’s innate wisdom to lead. What will best serve you? What does He or She need today?
I’m Devon Battaglia, MS, NC, RYT and I am a Holistic Life, Relationship, & Wellness Mentor + Earth Medicine Intuitive + Alchemist + Spiritual Guide helping people to heal their four bodies and create sustainable lifestyle and health transformation through plant spirit medicine and gem elixirs, holistic nutrition counsel, lifestyle coaching, vibrational healing, virtual workshops and courses, and other mystical goodness. Through my unique approach, my clients fall madly in love with themselves and their bodies, awaken their inner healers, recognize self-care as a sacred duty, and enjoy more ease through identifying the roots of their perceived challenges and transmuting them into gold! I blend the best of both worlds with Western science and ancient metaphysical wisdom for the ultimate experience. Sign up for 5 Days to Ignite Your Metamorphosis to experience shifts right away. If you feel called to work together, please schedule a complimentary, magical Discovery Session
by admin | Jul 22, 2018 | Resources
Click Here to Receive Your Guide To Personal Alchemy
by admin | Jul 22, 2018 | Life Musings, Plant Spirit Medicine, Whole Being Nourishment
A strong nervous system is the foundation upon which a nourishing life, radiant health, emotional fluidity, fulfilling relationships, and inner peace is built upon. When it comes to those of us that identify as empaths, lightworkers, Highly Sensitive People, and the like, intentional, meaningful self-care and energetic maintenance is simply non-negotiable.
Sensitive Souls, Empaths, Intuitives, Clairs, Lightworkers, Highly Sensitive People
These are terms used to describe a sliver of the population that is incredibly sensitive and tuned in, like little antennae. While they are all slightly different and many have spent lots of time debating them and then proudly adopting a label, for the sake of simplicity, there’s something all of these people have in common and that’s a delicate nervous system that is more easily impacted by the effects of stress and trauma than others. This makes it imperative for their physical, emotional, mental, and energetic health to love on their systems like it’s their job.
Stress & The Nervous System
Stress and trauma are compounding. Think of a bucket collecting water droplets from a leak. It can take a little bit for a really, really long time until finally, it’s full and it begins to leak.
Stress and trauma, when left to lay in our system and create stagnation, end up serving as the root of any dis-ease we experience in our physical lives. This is what I refer to as the “Subtle creating the gross.” Many of the sensitives, and I use that as kind of an umbrella term for this group of people, developed these abilities as a result of enduring trauma.
But let me back up quick, we ALL have these abilities to some degree. For those of us who have been through trauma, particularly in the childhood years when we’re still quite open to our abilities, we really hone in on these skills and take them with us into adulthood.
The shadow side of this is when we continue to use these abilities out of the fear and hyper-vigilance we used them for during childhood, rather than putting them to use elsewhere and transmuting this trauma and the residual impacts thereof, as discussed in Why Letting Go is BS. This way of being is also the hallmark of a lightworker and serves as the way to come into right relationship with your power.
Self-Care, Grounding, & Energetic Maintenance for the Sensitive
Many people who fall into this sensitive category aren’t even aware of this part of themselves. They shun it and feel ashamed of their perceived differences and “weirdness.” Once we become aware of how special we are and how these are all sacred gifts, we can begin to take the power back, reclaim ourselves, and get out of this state of chaos, fatigue, anxiety, and the like that is nothing more than a worn-out nervous system that is running energy improperly.
Like I said, these gifts have become shadows in many who aren’t yet consciously aware of them or are just coming to terms with their authentic selves under layers of trauma. When these gifts are used as gifts and not as survival mechanisms, nervous systems relax, many health problems disappear, physical bodies change, relationships improve, and work and purpose become clearer. It’s like someone turning the lights on for the first time!
Once engaged fully on the path of higher consciousness and healing, more stability and self-soothing is required as the system unwinds and arrives. Ever notice how the “healing crises” occur after the threat? Like, when I quit drinking, that’s when the work actually began! Quitting drinking was easy – just don’t drink. It’s what’s underneath it all when we finally decide to look.
Don’t be surprised if you find yourself becoming “more sensitive” – you’re finally allowing your authentic essence to live in truth.
HSPs, empaths, lightworkers, anyone dedicated to this level of consciousness and internal wilderness backpacking requires extra self-care, self-love, and gentleness. Many sensitives actually have a variety of physical health problems as a result of living with a misuse of power and improperly running energy. Specifically, things like chronic fatigue, chronic pain, adrenal problems, thyroid issues, hormonal imbalances, insomnia, many environmental and food allergies and sensitivities, and more. Supporting the physical body while working with the energetics is crucial, however, physical healing CAN happen.
The Best Resources for Sensitive Souls
- Safeguard your senses
- What is your most sensitive sense? This may be how your intuition speaks to you, as well. How are you nourishing and protecting it? For me, it’s eyes and ears. I detest screens after so many hours and I wear protective ear muffs while I am trying to concentrate. Get past the “weirdness” and honor your needs.
- Daily rituals and routines
- What makes you feel connected, alive, safe? DO MORE OF THIS. Bring feelings of safety to your body daily. Self-pleasure, meditation, movement, breathwork, dancing, snuggling, laying on the ground, chanting, praying, reading, baths, massages… Explore all the amazing resources available to you.
- Nature daily
- You are Nature. Nature is you. Reconnect, remember, reclaim, and allow the elements to reconfigure what’s out whack within.
- Flower Essences & Oils & all the plant medicines
- Kundalini Yoga
- Kundalini Yoga has been simply lifechanging for me. I’ve been a practitioner of yoga for the better part of two decades and have taught it, loved it, and practiced it with many beautiful souls. However, Kundalini is something truly special and when it comes to strengthening the nervous system, it’s your best bet.
- Ample alone time
- Most sensitives are introverted, which means they recharge and replenish alone, as opposed to in a crowd. Many extroverts are the opposite. Honor wherever you are on the spectrum and release the need to feel like you “have to show up” or that taking alone time is “selfish” or “anti-social.” Trust me, your loved ones would rather a stable, whole you than the inauthentic, frazzled version.
- Lay on the ground
- Seriously. Nothing “fancy” or elaborate is needed. Simply lay on the Earth, inside or outside, and feel your physical body being supported. Allow yourself to melt and receive. Earthing and grounding are beautiful practices, too. Here’s an article I wrote.
The over-extension of a strength becomes a weakness.
Where are you out of alignment with your gifts and your power? Where have they become worn out and used in a way that is causing dis-ease? How can you soften into the other side of this gift through allowing your nervous system to unwind?
When our nervous system is allowed to unwind, we are able to finally see things clearly and to come into a felt understanding (as opposed to an intellectual one). When the body is on board, the changes we desire may be received with ease. Practice some or all of these resources, see what resonates, and allow your gifts to be your strengths.
I’m Devon Battaglia, MS, NC, RYT and I am a Holistic Life, Relationship, & Wellness Mentor + Earth Medicine Intuitive + Alchemist + Spiritual Guide helping people to heal their four bodies and create sustainable lifestyle and health transformation through plant spirit medicine and gem elixirs, holistic nutrition counsel, lifestyle coaching, vibrational healing, virtual workshops and courses, and other mystical goodness. Through my unique approach, my clients fall madly in love with themselves and their bodies, awaken their inner healers, recognize self-care as a sacred duty, and enjoy more ease through identifying the roots of their perceived challenges and transmuting them into gold! I blend the best of both worlds with Western science and ancient metaphysical wisdom for the ultimate experience. Sign up for 5 Days to Ignite Your Metamorphosis to experience shifts right away. If you feel called to work together, please schedule a complimentary, magical Discovery Session
by admin | Jul 14, 2018 | Life Musings, Whole Being Nourishment, Yoga & Meditation
“Lightworker.” It’s certainly a title we’ve heard many times that’s increasing in popularity. But, like, what the heck is it? How do you know if you’re a lightworker? What do lightworkers actually do?
Glad you asked; I’ll get into all of that and how, regardless of pretty titles, we all need to step it up now more than ever.
Plainly and simply, a lightworker is someone who works in the light. They’re fiercely dedicated to their own personal awakening and the upliftment and elevation of all beings. They care deeply about others and have made it their mission to transmute their life’s challenges into sacred wisdom and purpose and to then walk their talk and guide others in whatever their chosen field may be.
They don’t need to be super mystical, esoteric, glam, shamanic healers… Many are the owners of the local shops, enlightened lawyers, conscious entrepreneurs, school teachers, youth mentors, or farmers.
A true hallmark of a lightworker is a deep dedication to their own path of awakening, healing, and higher consciousness and to then share and spread that with others in their chosen fields.
Are You A Lightworker?
- Do you feel incredibly pulled and called to serve, guide, and help others?
- Do you feel a calling to help save the planet?
- Are you naturally drawn to a particular cause or group? Feel very strongly about environmentalism and animal rights, for example? We tend to have that one thing or a couple of things that just seriously light a fire inside us, the kind of thing that your loved ones are like oh geez, don’t bring up x again, or she’ll go off!
- Have you experienced a “Dark Night of the Soul” episode or episodes in your life and are committed to using the wisdom gleaned therein as medicine for others?
- Are you incredibly sensitive? Are you very tuned into your intuitive, innate knowing?
- Are you typically the voice of reason with incredible insight and an ability to remain the eye of the storm amidst chaos?
- Have you experienced a massive transformation in your life? Healed some crazy shit? Overcome tremendous hardships? Feel naturally drawn to guiding others on their own paths?
- Above all else, do you accept fully and completely take responsibility for your own power, sovereignty, and creatorship and are you fiercely dedicated to growth and awakening even when it’s uncomfortable?
What Lightworkers Do
- They truly walk their talk and lead by example. They know that the largescale shifts and healing we all desire, begin within. They truly are the change they wish to see in the world.
- They fiercely and continuously do their own deep dives, internal alchemy, and personal healing and see it as an offering to not only themselves, but to the collective at large.
- They show up for themselves on the daily with a gentle discipline. They have daily practices and rituals, they love their shadows and triggers, and they embrace their weaknesses.
- They take full responsibility for their lives and empower themselves to step out of victim mode and exercise their creatorship. They know, again, that this is in service to the collective at large and through receiving exactly what they want and need, others can see it is possible, as well.
- They understand their own rhythms and needs and structure their work in a way that serves them AND others.
- They take ample time for stillness, introspection, and silence.
- They practice deep and whole embodiment daily and understand their vessels are sacred teachers, translators, and messengers and that all they need is living in these sacred meat suits.
- They fully love, forgive, and accept themselves, their steps, and those in their lives as acts of radical love through the heart.
- They honor and speak their truths even when it’s uncomfortable.
- They create art from pain and create for the sake of creating and share the creations.
Why We All Need to Step It Up & Serve
All of us are connected and as the subtle creates the gross in your 3D, tangible life – your body, health, relationships – the subtle creates the gross on the planet where we’re each the subtle, building blocks on a micro level of the gross, collective macro body of beings that inhabit this Earth.
Each of us creates the collective unconscious and the state of the Earth’s physical, emotional, mental, and energetic levels. We influence and create each other’s experiences on all levels day in and day out. The decisions you make right now can and do impact those across the globe whom you’ve never (and may never) meet or lay eyes upon.
Physically, we can see how our choices are impacting the planet and the health of all beings here. On more subtle levels, our individual emotional, mental, and spiritual bodies can drive and reinforce current paradigms when we choose to not awaken and step into our sovereignty and creatorship through exercising radical self-responsibility.
The harm we inflict upon ourselves is harm inflicted upon the masses. Each time our boundaries are crossed because we don’t speak up for ourselves, reinforces the broken paradigm where that is OK. Each time we stifle our truths, deny our desire to express and share and heal and teach, again the current status quo that may not always have the best interest of others in mind is reinforced.
We’re living in interesting times, indeed. We have so much power and influence and what’s it being used for – is it even being used? What are you doing with your power? Are you in right relationship with your power?
We are all so connected it isn’t even funny! When we change our own subtle levels and shift our own field, we influence change in the collective. It’s that serious. Everything you do and don’t do matters. Everything you resist or embrace influences the collective’s current paradigm.
Ultimately, it’s not about us and our ego’s fears and stories that keep us small and hidden.
Share. Serve. Repeat.
I’m Devon Battaglia, MS, NC, RYT and I am a Holistic Life, Relationship, & Wellness Mentor + Earth Medicine Intuitive + Alchemist + Spiritual Guide helping people to heal their four bodies and create sustainable lifestyle and health transformation through plant spirit medicine and gem elixirs, holistic nutrition counsel, lifestyle coaching, vibrational healing, virtual workshops and courses, and other mystical goodness. Through my unique approach, my clients fall madly in love with themselves and their bodies, awaken their inner healers, recognize self-care as a sacred duty, and enjoy more ease through identifying the roots of their perceived challenges and transmuting them into gold! I blend the best of both worlds with Western science and ancient metaphysical wisdom for the ultimate experience. Sign up for 5 Days to Ignite Your Metamorphosis to experience shifts right away. If you feel called to work together, please schedule a complimentary, magical Discovery Session
by admin | Jul 9, 2018 | Healing Meditation, Life Musings, Whole Being Nourishment
“Letting Go” as it pertains to past traumas, grief, and pain is a fool’s game. It’s not possible.
We’ve all heard it, right? “Just let go.” “Let it go!” How does it make you feel when you hear this? I know I feel angry, frustrated, and ashamed when I have heard this before. Angry because it feels impossible (and it is, I’ll get to that in a second), frustrated because I don’t like not being able to do something, and ashamed because clearly my display of emotion or displeasure has had me commit a social faux pas and made another uncomfortable.
To me, “let go” as it pertains to trauma, grief, challenges, and pain, sounds like a plea to simply disengage this wounded part and separate from it. To release it and throw it away. And anyone who has ever experienced pain, which is every human ever, knows that to simply “let it go” or “release it” just isn’t possible.
There is only one thing to do and that is to transmute it.
The definition of transmute, which has received a lot of attention and popularity in the current New Age-y atmosphere is this: to change in form, nature, or substance.
Transform is a synonym; however, I dislike it and don’t think it captures the essence of what I’m getting at here. Transform is more like to change from the outside in, whereas transmute is from the inside out. Transmutation involves completely changing, rearranging, and creating anew the subtle pieces of something.
Transformation allows us to shift the way something is done thereby influencing it to still maintain the same end goal or same method but without actually transmuting the core issue itself. It’s simply creating a newer, more hospitable environment or method for the exact same thing to continue. The thing, issue, substance, environment still remains the same, perhaps there’s been a superficial change.
So, what do we do? We can’t “let it go,” we have to transmute it. What does that look like and how do we get there and why would we want that?
Trauma changes you on all levels – physiologically, emotionally, physically, mentally, energetically, and spiritually. You are not the same person and nor will you ever be again. Your DNA changes in response to the shock and stress. Your identity shifts. You now wear different masks or armors out of protection. You view the world differently. You have a new definition of self. You have a bunch of feelings and emotions that are new and different and that you may feel ill-equipped to handle… Basically, it just got real.
Many of us bypass this because it’s uncomfortable and because we aren’t shown how to be with ourselves in this capacity, not to mention the fact that it’s socially unacceptable to display grief or other strong emotions.
The things that have happened to you, are yours now. They’re forever part of you and you’re never going to be the same again… So, why would you just “let it go?”
You can no more easily “let go” of your trauma than you can your pinky or your right ear.
What we can do is change our relationship to it. We can let go of our current paradigm, our current status quo, and current way of viewing ourselves, the world, and our “baggage.”
There’s nothing wrong with you, first and foremost. I’ve had so many clients plead to me, “Why can’t I just ‘let this go? My life would be so much easier if I could just let it go!” And they carry this stuff around with them like some kind of Scarlett letter. There’s a lot of shame, anxiety, guilt, fear, and internal conflict. This state of inner turmoil takes them away from the present moment and is completely dis-empowering.
Contrary to what we may think, it’s not the actual traumatic event, the grief, or our challenges that create the dis-ease we experience. It’s the resistance to this new, “wounded” piece of us. Anything we resist amplifies and takes on a life of its own.
I don’t care if you’re a carpenter, a lawyer, an accountant, a shaman, or an intuitive coach, your purpose, your gifts, the way you are meant to be of service in the world is through your challenges. The pathway to true ease and true nourishment and a life that feels fun and not something to just “get through” is within and the answers are revealed to you through the transmutation process, the rearrangement of your subtle pieces.
There is no other way.
Some tactics to use as you begin this process of inner alchemy to transmute your challenges into purpose include:
- Employing all of the 7 Pieces of TRUE Healing (join my Facebook group for over 7 hours of amazing video lessons on these pieces).
- Typically, things that cause a lot of pain in later life are because of unprocessed childhood events. Think back to a time in your life when you felt this same way or similar and work from there.
- Source from the body – use expressive arts and embodiment practices to stay connected to the body and learn from its wisdom during times of big emotions.
- Give yourself permission to get clear and radically honest with yourself about what’s not working, what you want, how you desire to feel, and any perceived obstacles. Give yourself permission to heal and release the false identify of yourself you’ve adopted as a way of coping.
- Love on your nervous system and then love on it some more. Fear- and survival-based operating takes a tremendous toll on the physical body. Creating safety and stability from within, creates a hospitable environment for your subtle pieces to begin rearranging. The subtle always creates the gross.
Check out this blog for more on the nervous system and adrenal health. Check out this article I wrote in Rebelle Society on trauma.
Above all, stay open, curious, and quit trying to “let go” and instead, re-frame, rework, rebirth, rearrange the subtle pieces into a new gross experience where all of you is welcome and needed. Transmute the present challenge and resistance into ease, purpose, and allowance. Need help? Reach out to me and schedule a complimentary session to discuss your needs.
I’m Devon Battaglia, MS, NC, RYT and I am a Holistic Life, Relationship, & Wellness Mentor + Earth Medicine Intuitive + Alchemist + Spiritual Guide helping people to heal their four bodies and create sustainable lifestyle and health transformation through plant spirit medicine and gem elixirs, holistic nutrition counsel, lifestyle coaching, vibrational healing, virtual workshops and courses, and other mystical goodness. Through my unique approach, my clients fall madly in love with themselves and their bodies, awaken their inner healers, recognize self-care as a sacred duty, and enjoy more ease through identifying the roots of their perceived challenges and transmuting them into gold! I blend the best of both worlds with Western science and ancient metaphysical wisdom for the ultimate experience. Sign up for 5 Days to Ignite Your Metamorphosis to experience shifts right away. If you feel called to work together, please schedule a complimentary, magical Discovery Session.
