Stressed and Tired? Try this

Are you often feeling exhausted, fatigued, or overwhelmed? Is that third cup of coffee not making you any more alert? Chances are that your nervous system is taxed from too much mental activity and strain.

As women, we are feeling beings. However, most of us spend our days in front of a computer, sitting, typing, and focusing all our energy on our headspace.

When you do this, you disconnect from your body. No matter how much fun and creative flow you are experiencing in your work, you will inevitably feel the disconnect as soon as you step away from the screen.

I can feel this in my own life: after spending hours and hours at my desk, I disembody. I’m so focused on what I’m doing that I don’t want to relax anymore. I don’t even notice that I am tensing up my muscles, especially in my thighs and shoulders. I don’t want to stop because once I’m in this flow-state, I’m having fun!

I’m afraid that if I stopped, I’d lose my flow. So I disconnect from feeling my body and disappear into a single focus point on the center of my forehead. Of course I never really leave my body, but I lose touch with her and the subtle signals and sensations she is sending.

What happens once I’ve allowed myself to finally relax is that I feel drained, without any energy left to even cook dinner. I just collapse into exhaustion. For years, I believed that this is the only way to go. To push myself until the job is done and my body gives in. I thought that this is just the way it is, that I’d have to suck it up and get on with it.

This led toward a lot of resentment to myself and other people whom I burdened with my German drill-sergeant style work-ethos. I’d give everything without ever pausing or listening to the call of my body, only to crash and feel like crap, wanting to be extra supported because after all, I had given so much.

The deep disconnect from the bodily dimensions of our being is severely harsh on the feminine, and the high and increasing burn-out rate amongst women in proof.

We are not meant to live only neck-up!

There’s so much wisdom to be gleaned from connecting to our bodies, and especially our heart and womb-space. This is where your true feminine power lies: in your heart and belly.

Don’t get me wrong. The mind with its clarity is a valuable tool and we should absolutely make great use of it. Only when solely relying on the mind and ignoring the signals of our bodies will we suffer.

I see this all the time in my coaching clients. Highly intelligent, driven and hard-working women who feel stuck, anxious and confused because they cannot access the wisdom of their hearts and wombs. They rely on their headspace alone to figure out solutions to their tricky problems. Yet it isn’t working.

Once I guide them into the body and they reconnect to their feelings, a whole new dimension opens up. They gain access to clarity, wisdom and inner peace that surpasses anything that they could have come up with using only the intellect.

From this place of embodiment, they can see the solutions to their problems effortlessly and with greater clarity. All from relaxing into being and letting go of mental tension and strain.

So how can you experience the benefits of embodiment in your life and work? If you want more energy, relaxation, and alertness without feeling completely exhausted at the end of the day, try this simple but powerful trick I learned from Michaela Boehm’s book The Wild Woman’s Way (which I highly recommend!).

Every hour on the hour, take a five-minute break from your laptop. (Set your phone’s timer to remind yourself.) If you need to, retreat to the restroom for privacy. Take off your shoes if you’re wearing heels, and plant your feet firmly in the ground.

Stand with your feet hip-width apart, and place your hands on your hips. Take a deep breath into your belly, and begin making circular motions with your hips. Start slow, don’t force the movement. You don’t want to crank your body open after all the sitting.

Notice your breathing. As your body relaxes, you can play around with the movement, making the circles bigger or drawing figure eight movements with your hips. Have fun with it.

Then slow down gradually before you come to a full stop. Stand with your eyes closed and feel into your body. What is happening inside of you now? Where can you feel pleasure and aliveness; where are tension and tightness? Did any strong emotions arise?

Try to just observe and welcome whatever comes up is your immediate experience, without judging or avoiding any sensation. Notice if you’re feeling more energy and aliveness when you return to your desk.

This exercise helps me to stay connected to my body throughout the day, even when I don’t have time to work out. I feel less tired and tense. It doesn’t interrupt my flow either, because I’m not focusing my mind on something else, as I would if I checked Facebook when taking a “break.”

It takes up to 20 minutes to bring your focus back to what you were working on before you got distracted. Try to keep your mind on one thing and instead take a break to drop into your body.

So what are you waiting for? Get up and move those hips, baby!

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I hope this served you. If you liked this article, please share it with your friends and co-workers. For weekly updates, join my tribe and receive my FREE mini-course “Discover Your Feminine Power” now.