Top-down approach not working for you? Read this!

If you could think your way out of whatever challenge you’re facing, you would have done it already.

Please, tell me you haven’t spent countless hours ruminating, analyzing, talking to friends or therapists, making lists, reading up, worrying, and maybe even journaling or doing mindset work. 

This top-down approach is almost NEVER going to work as well as we want it to. Yeah, you might make some progress, but it takes a lot of will and discipline and awareness, and it’s so, so easy to just fall right back in to old patterns. 

I’m not saying there’s no place for any of that. By all means, mindset work is helpful in the larger context of supporting transformational work. But on its own it’s always going to lead to mixed results because we don’t create from the level of the mind only. We create our experience of life from what we are carrying in our bodies & how we are BE-ing. 

The mind, thoughts, intellect, rational understanding, and even the will are considered the element of air. They are ephemeral. Our thoughts drift, flurry, and change quickly. Our minds are permeable and pick up thoughts, messages, and even beliefs from outside ourselves. 

Yet, who we are in the world is multidimensional, including the mind AND the body, the soma, muscles, connective tissue, organs, bones. And those patterns we want to shift are deeply ingrained in our soma and nervous system.

Often with this top-down approach, we’re trying to change our embodied experience, and therefore the densest part of ourselves – our bodies – with our minds. The body and soma correspond to the earth element, and in a sense, trying to change the body with the mind is like trying to move a boulder with a gust of wind. It’s not happening.

 Take a bottom-up approach…

There is a better way to do transformational work: bringing it through the body in a bottom-up approach. When I work with clients, we work with the densest part of our beings, the body, rather than through the mind. 

One of the ways we can engage the body in this way is by putting the body in the shape or motion of what we want to experience. Acting “as if” can be legitimate practice! 

And yeah, it might actually feel like you’re pretending when you first try something. Some people quit right then because they think “that’s not authentic to me.” Well of course it doesn’t feel authentic, It’s different and new to your system! And that message is reinforced all over the personal growth world: do the work to land it fully in your body first! But that’s actually just another iteration of the top-down approach that’s holding a lot of people back.

Here's an example. A lot of women I work with struggle with self love & self worth. As in, they want to feel a really solid sense of their own inherent worthiness & regard for themselves, but it seems out of reach. 

These are fucking smart women who understand, they KNOW, at the level of their mind, that they are inherently worthy and deserving of love, and they tell themselves that all the time, but they don’t manage to actually FEEL it. And because they don’t feel and embody it, the experience they are creating is one they are dissatisfied with because it reflects something other than deep self love & worthiness. 

Your relationships, your success, your expression and creativity, and even how you feel about yourself are never going to satisfy the deepest longings in your heart if they are underpinned by a sense of unworthiness. 

 Choose your own path!

There’s lots of pathways to approach this, and I recommend exploring different angles for sure. One of them is what I’m talking about here: putting the body in the shape of self love and worthiness. Going through the motions. Acting “as if.” Bringing it through the body. Even if you don’t believe it or feel it yet. 

My dear, how do you imagine things will be when you finally love yourself? When you finally love yourself, will you still eat, move, dress, and spend your time the same way you do now? I’m gonna guess not. I’m guessing the you who finally loves herself and feels worthy deep down is going to move through the world differently. What I’m suggesting is to experiment with moving through the world as “she who fully loves herself” NOW, even if you don’t feel it or believe it yet. Let your body take the shape of that. Work with the dense soma and allow new awareness to open up through the path of embodiment. 

You don’t have to do everything differently all at once – in fact, I’d suggest NOT to do that! Choose one area or thing to focus on and see if you can bring “she who loves herself” through your body in that act. Maybe it’s the way you keep your bedroom tidy. Maybe it’s the way you have breakfast, with a gorgeous mug and some great music and fresh foods you take a few minutes to lay out beautifully. Maybe the version of you who fully loves herself would go to bed earlier. Or read more books. Or watch the sunset. Or get a massage once a month.

You can create a dedicated ritual or practice of this as well. If you could create a 10-20 minute ritual of self-love and self-worship that you commit to a few times a week, I promise you this will shift faster than you can imagine. You could gaze at yourself in a big mirror and notice parts of your body you enjoy or feel good about and actually touch them lovingly and say words of appreciation. You could light a bunch of candles and put on a silky robe and give yourself some sensual touch. You could even spend time touching and being with parts of yourself you don’t like – it will change your relationship with them! (PS- my Breast Massage mini-course is great for a self love ritual if you don’t know where to start!)

You don’t have to wait until you love yourself or feel worthy before you create the experience you imagine you’ll have once you finally do. You can create it now, and let the belief come through the body.