Change Your Body and the Belief will Follow
In this video from the September 2019 Embodied Women’s Weekend Intensive in New York, John dispels the common thought that if you change a belief, the body will follow, and describes how the opposite is true: change your body, and the belief will follow.
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Messages that are installed in our early childhood nervous systems develop into “occurring world” beliefs, or beliefs that establish a way in which the world occurs to you, whether it is true or not. For example, “They’re going to leave,” “I’m too much,” or “Men are dangerous.” These beliefs often lead to habitual closure and mistrust.
Because these beliefs are so deeply installed in your nervous system, you will look for ways to reinforce your occurring world belief, so if, for example, your occurring world is “They’re going to leave,” you could meet the perfect partner one day, and yet the next day, find yourself looking for every possible way in which they might be leaving.
If you become aware of these beliefs, they can become a powerful access point for your deepest childhood wounds.
These wounds can also be your greatest gifts, but you have to bring awareness to them first.
Over the years, your body will take the shape of your recurring thoughts and beliefs, so once you become aware of your occurring world, you can begin to explore how your body has taken the shape of that belief. For example, your body might withdraw back, your shoulders might hunch over to protect your heart, you might tighten your jaw or your hips, etc.
The antidote to this is to open your body and imagine a new occurring world. You cannot sustain the thought that, “I’m too much,” while you are feeling pleasure in your hips and filling your belly and heart with breath. If you do that while imagining a new occurring world, in which “the world is dying to embrace me,” for example, you have the power to create more love in any moment.
You will always have good reasons for closing your heart and mistrusting. “I’m too much,” “They’re going to leave,” and “Men are dangerous,” may be good reasons, but you are not creating any more love on the planet by believing them. By doing the yoga of changing the shape of your body in order to open and reveal the moment-by-moment truth of your heart, you have the capacity to change the world - because the world will occur differently to you from this place, and you to the world.