Suggestions
Catie Macken
Embodied Leader - Chief Operations Officer at Prezence
Catie Macken is a highly experienced professional with a background in real estate and yoga. She holds a Bachelor's Degree in Real Estate from St. Cloud State University. Catie currently serves as the Chief Operations Officer at Prezence. Previously, she co-founded and owned Luminous Body Flow, led The Essence of Yoga School as a co-founder and lead trainer, and worked as a Registered Yoga Teacher (RYT 500) while being self-employed. Her experience also includes roles as an instructor at Flywheel Sports, ambassador at lululemon, studio operations manager at CorePower Yoga, commercial appraiser at Hennepin County, and residential appraiser at Redwood County.
Highlights
End of Month Reflections for November 💭
What is one thing you're proud of yourself for this month?
What is one situation you wish you'd handled differently?
What are you excited about in December?
I shared in my Tarot Tuesday post yesterday, "Feelings are not always facts and they are information. Intellectualizing our feelings is different then allowing yourself to process and move through the experience in your body."
The question is, how do you experience your emotions rather than intellectualizing them? As adults, it can be easy to try and rationalize or logically process our experiences. Understanding why something happened is not the same thing as allowing yourself to name and feel the chemical response in your body. Most emotions have a life cycle of approximately 90 seconds and if you are able to sit with yourself for those 90 seconds, there is a better likelihood that you can choose your response rather than react to the stressor or stimulus.
Let's work through this together.
Imagine a situation in your environment right now that feels activating or stressful. Examples could be a recent conversation with a partner or family member, end of month/year pressure to meet KPIs, or a challenging performance review.
- Start by naming what you are feeling. If you are unsure, there are many resources online including the feelings wheel.
- Next, take a few deep breaths and do your best to connect with your physical body. Identify where this feeling exists in your body. Where do you feel it?
- Ask yourself what does the emotion feel like to you? This could be a sensation, temperature, description, or metaphor.
- Give yourself 90 seconds to sit with this exercise. Allow yourself space to move the feeling or emotion through your system. My favorites are shaking the body, bouncing up and down, deep breaths in through your nose and out your mouth. It can also help to make sound by yelling (in a safe space) or breathing in and breathing out powerfully while making a "AHHHHHAAAA" sound.
- Take a moment at the end of the 90 seconds to notice, how do you feel now?
Try this exercise and please share with me your experience.
