Your body is your guide.
If you tune in and simply notice what you’re feeling in your body… where there is tension, where there is softness, where there is fire… you can begin to self-diagnose where you are in any given moment. Are you open or closed? Is your nervous system running on high alert? Or are you feeling balanced, grounded, and aligned?
Our bodies are constantly speaking to us. The question is whether we are listening.
I ran across a quote this morning:
“Be soft. Do not let the world make you hard.”
~ Lain S. Thomas
I paused with that quote for a long moment and considered my own state. I felt the softness. And honestly, that made me happy.
Softness is openness, and trust, and presence. Softness is staying connected to ourselves in a world that constantly tries to pull us into urgency, fear, noise, and armor.
The inner work I’ve done over the years has helped me return to that softness again and again.
Another reference I deeply love is Brené Brown’s idea of having a soft front and a strong back. That resonates with me so much because it speaks to how I want to move through the world. Strong in my voice. Strong in the work I’m here to bring forward. Strong in what I stand for. And also soft and open to the people I am privileged to connect with along the way.
This past year has been a big connection year for me. I’ve made so many new relationships that feel deeply meaningful and expansive. And when I reflect on those moments, I can feel how much openness in my body mattered. When we are guarded, contracted, or constantly bracing ourselves against the world, people feel that. And when we are grounded, open, and fully present, people feel that too.
As entrepreneurs, our presence matters more than we often realize. People experience us before they fully experience our words.
I know I lead with this openness in my body now. But there have also been moments over the past year when my body gave me different signals.
Tightness. An activated nervous system. A feeling of constriction in my chest and shoulders. Sometimes it would happen while listening to the news or witnessing some of the heaviness unfolding in our country.
And I’m grateful for the wisdom I’ve gained to notice. To recognize when I need to step away. To go for a walk in nature. To breathe. To unplug. To return home to myself.
One of the most powerful ways I reconnect to that softness is by heading out to the barn and spending time with my horses.
The horses have taught me so much about embodiment. They mirror us with extraordinary honesty. They don’t respond to our performance. They respond to our nervous systems, our presence, and our truth.
Over the years, they have reflected back so many messages that helped me come back home to myself, especially in moments when I had drifted too far into striving, pushing, or carrying too much. They have taught me to listen to my body. To notice where I hold tension. To notice where I am gripping. To notice where I am being called to soften, release, and trust. They have taught me the wisdom of somatics long before I even had language for it.
And I think this matters deeply for women entrepreneurs right now because many women are building businesses while disconnected from themselves. Constantly overriding what their bodies are trying to tell them. Pushing past exhaustion. Ignoring tension. Living in constant stimulation. Leading from adrenaline instead of alignment.
But our bodies hold profound intelligence. They know when something is off. They know when something is aligned. They know when we are forcing. And they know when we are fully connected to our truth.
Your body is not separate from your leadership. It is one of your greatest guides.
And perhaps one of the most important things we can do in this season is return to listening. To soften where we’ve become hardened. To reconnect where we’ve become disconnected. To trust the wisdom already living inside of us.
If you are craving space to reconnect with yourself, your vision, and the wisdom of your body, this is the work we explore inside the Equine Vision Journey Retreat. The horses have a beautiful way of helping us come back home to ourselves, to our presence, to our truth, and to the woman underneath all the noise.
And from that place, we lead differently.
