Success is a subjective term, and defining success often includes segmenting different areas of our lives to create goals and a vision for success in each room. You may have a vision of success for your health, relationships, career, and spiritual life. For each of these areas of your life, you may have goals or milestones you want to reach or a way to feel “successful” in the different areas of your lives.

However, envisioning success by dissecting our lives into different areas can create conflict between one’s goals when success in one place requires the sacrifice of success in another area. The quintessential example of this is the conflict between health, family, and career success, where one aspect compromises the success of another. I often work with ambitious, high-performing women who have developed and achieved their vision of career success. Still, their success at work causes issues with their health, overall happiness, or relationships.

Clients often come to me to deal with health problems; chronic pain patterns that have cropped up, or an overall sense of ongoing stress. Stress is impairing the full enjoyment of their lives, sleep, and overall well-being. Creating success in their health often involves assessing how their vision of “success” at work compromises their overall health and well-being. And usually, feeling better requires reinventing their measure of success and learning to place their body and well-being in the center of how they design their lives.

When progress in one area compromises your health, tapping into the body's wisdom is a valuable practice to help create a new path toward holistic success.

What is the wisdom of the body?

The wisdom of the body is the information we get from our physical experience about what will lead to balance, health, and well-being. It is the holistic sense we get from our bodies as to what is out of alignment, and what is in alignment for us. Our pain receptors tell us when we are physically out of alignment, and our gut intuition tells us when something is or isn’t in alignment. A sense of expansion or contraction in our bodies tells us whether we want to move towards or away from an opportunity. Our bodies are intelligent systems designed to maintain balance and health on all levels. How our bodies feel, and the information we get from it can be a measure and tool for us. It can help us choose the right pathways and opportunities that will yield holistic success that feels good.

How to tap into the body's wisdom as a holistic success tool.

Holistic success feels good on all levels, where all of the parts of your life can work in harmony with your body, energy, and spirit so you can be at your best and give your best. Your embodied experience can guide you by showing you which choices will lead to ease and flow, and which will produce tension. The experience of tension is often an indicator of stress and resistance. If you are feeling pressure in your body around some aspect of your life, try this exercise: tap into where in your body you are feeling it and ask these two questions.

1. What is the tension telling you?
2. What can you do (or stop doing) to release the tension and create more ease and relaxation in this area of your life?

This simple tool can help you start a dialogue with your body to re-align to create greater ease, relaxation, and flow.  Embodiment practices can be used to shift your chronic body issues and re-align your life for success that feels good. Your body is a wise companion, showing you how to create greater ease, feel-good success, and well-being. All you have to do is ask.\

Cheering you on,