How to expand your capacity & havingness level
If we want to bring something truly powerful into the world with our lives, our work, or our art, we need to actually have the capacity to hold all of the success and goodness we desire. Those are big energies that can easily blow out our nervous systems if we don't know how to calibrate to a higher level of havingness. I'm sharing some tips in today's episode for how to practically do this expansion piece. Enjoy!
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Podcast Transcript:
It is time for another one of our full Moon chats on embodied feminine living. I am so excited to be back with you all.
What I wanna talk about today is, Expanding our capacity to have and to hold all of these big, juicy things that we're wanting to manifest in our lives. Right? Because it's not enough just to get the thing right.
You have to, you actually have to also hold onto it. I'm sure we've all heard the stories about somebody who wins the lottery and they lose all of the money within a year. Or you know, these celebrities that get to a certain level of fame and then they just totally fall apart. Their lives just totally fall apart.
So like this is a real thing that, you know, when you. Get a lot more energy coming in. Like it's a lot more to hold for your nervous system to hold. So we can actually go about this consciously to work, to expand our capacity to have and to hold all of these big, beautiful visions that we have for ourselves.
So that we don't just, you know, like go the celebrity route and get rid of it all as quickly as it came in. Because that's, that's what can happen, right? Like when we're, when we're calling in big energy, when things start to come to us that are, that feel really big and overwhelming, our, your, your mind might think, Fuck.
Yeah, I want that. I want the money. I want the job. I want the man. I want the relationship. Like whatever the thing is you're trying to call it in your mind might be like, yes, I'm on board for that. Maybe you're doing a lot of mindset work. Maybe it's on your vision board and the whole thing. But your body, your nervous system is actually what's driving the show here.
Like this is the part of the iceberg that is all the stuff below the surfaces sometimes we're not even fully aware of. And if the things that we're trying to manifest feel. Overwhelming to our nervous systems, to our bodies. If they feel overwhelmed, our bodies will literally begin to shut down because they're overwhelmed and our bodies will do whatever they can to try to block us from having that thing or try, try to get rid of it as quickly as possible.
So super normal for that to happen and super important to be aware of it. And actually I'm gonna give you four tips here today for embody tips for what to do, to work consciously, to expand your nervous system and your body capacity to hold more. And I wanna start by saying First of all, our, our capacity is not a static thing, right?
Like, it's not something that you can measure once and be like, this is my havingness level for money and this is my havingness level, whatever. And when I do this, it's gonna put it here and this is where it stays. Like our havingness level, like many other things about. Our bodies. It fluctuates, right?
Like sometimes when we're very nourished and resourced and maybe depending on the time of the month, like are we at our, our full moon phase and our cycle, what's going on with the moon? You know, all of these, both internal and external factors can actually affect our capacity. To have and to hold things.
So it's not that there's a static thing happening, right? Like there's a lot of factors that play into this, but we do kind of have sort of a baseline that we can, we can. Gradually nudge upward with some of these tips that I'm gonna give you. So the first thing that I wanna bring in here is in order to have and to hold more, we need to actually.
Band and this expansion requires a softening and a relaxation in the nervous system. It requires it in order to be bigger, to have the thing, to have sort of this like bigger experience of ourselves. It also requires this softening and relaxation in the nervous system so that we're not. Activated into a fight or flight response, right?
So that we're actually in this nervous system relaxation, where there's a, a softening and a relaxation so that we can let more in, again, when something feels overwhelming, it can activate our nervous systems into sort of a fight or flight response, which creates tension. You know, it creates, there's an activation and there's tension, and when there's tension, there's constriction.
When there's constriction, there's less energy able to flow. We're, we're limited. We're, we're kind of like the hose that the waters coming through were kind of like, Clamp down on it and not as much can pass through there. And this tension can happen even when the thing is not here yet, when it's just on its way to us because we're anticipating sometimes the anticipation that there's gonna be something that you have to like brace against.
Sometimes that anticipation can cause us to be doing some kind of a bracing pattern in our bodies and our nervous systems. That's not responding to anything that's happening around us right now. It's, it's responding to something that may or may not happen in the future, but that's, it's creating a tension pattern.
It's creating a, a bracing. So what are some of the things that we can do to create relaxation in the nervous system? Anything that puts you into a rest and restore are gonna be good activities to focus on. So I would probably put as the longest pole in this tent, and this is something that I don't hear a lot of people talking about, but I think is just like probably one of the most important things you can be doing for yourself, for your health, for the, the life you're trying to manifest is sleep.
So, I can give you a bunch of other tips, but if you're not sleeping, if you're not able to get restorative sleep, then you, you might as well, not really bother with the other stuff. Seriously, you might as well just spend your time and energy getting this piece dialed in first, because if you're not sleeping, it just there's a cascading effect on your hormones, your body, your nervous system, your metabolism, your ability to think and function.
It stresses your capacity right from the get-go. So sleep is the long pull in the tent. If you're not sleeping, put your energy there. First there's other things that you can do though. You know, all these things that you've probably heard about dozens of times and kind of what's whatever works for you, for your body to really help you relax into, in your nervous system.
Meditation, you know, being in nature making sure that you're getting really nourishing foods. Could even be just, you know, relaxing in front of. Movie, tv, whatever, whatever helps you just kind of chill out. The other piece of this relaxing in the nervous system is consciously turning down the volume on outside stimulation.
So if you are moving through life and there is just a ton of sensory information coming to you all the time, that's stressful to your nervous system, you need to actually consciously turn down the volume on that in order to. Really tap into relaxation in your nervous system. So have a think about where you might be able to turn down the volume on that external stimulation that's coming in.
I live in a big city. I live in London, so I have to be conscious of this because when I'm just moving around through the world, there's a lot of sensory stimulation coming at me just from traffic, from like, there's traffic outside my window right now.
There's a technician in my kitchen right now running a drill. So this is, these are all like sensory stimulation that's coming in to your nervous system, but. Are you also at work on social media, the news that you're consuming, what's coming at you that maybe you could turn down the volume on so that there's just not as much stimulation on your nervous system?
So there's a lot more that I could say about this, but I, I wanna just give you kind of a bird's eye view here. So that's tip number one, is creating more relaxation in the nervous system, and that's probably the most important tip of all of these. None of the rest of them are really gonna do anything for you unless you have this piece in place.
So this is the place to focus most of your energy. Once you have that going for you, you're creating some really nice, delicious ability to relax in your nervous system and not be just moving through the world in a fight or flight state. The second tip is to actually practice consciously practicing outside of real life, practicing, holding more energy in your body.
So, I'll use pleasure as an example of this. if you wanna experience more pleasure, you can consciously go into an embodiment practice where you are you're experiencing pleasure, you're focusing on pleasure, and you're pushing your capacity a little bit here. Not necessarily trying to crank the door open, but just taking that next little step, that next little step to expand your capacity, your stamina with pleasure, as an example.
And you can do this with, with different areas of your life as well. And doing this for one area has an effect in these other areas as well. This is why people who work on their sexuality, a lot of times they'll have up levels in other areas of their life too, right? They might get a promotion at work or a raise at work.
You know, making more money. Because when you expand your capacity in one area, your capacity in other areas actually also expands. So, and that's one of the reasons why I love pleasure practice, because it just has so many knock on effects in other areas of your life. But what that might look like, for example, would be.
You know, you may, maybe you've done pleasure practice before, but maybe it's something that after 10 or 15 minutes, maybe you start to get bored. You start to think about what you're gonna make for dinner, or you lose it and you just kind of get desensitized, get numb. So the idea would be to stay with it a little bit longer, a little bit longer, so that you're building capacity.
You can also with pleasure slowly build up the pleasure that you're able to experience in your body and not feel like you need to like, get rid of it or release it right away. But actually just stay with, okay, I'm, I'm breathing. I'm Spreading the pleasure throughout my body so that I'm able to actually hold more energy or pleasure in my body.
So there's, there's two ways to build that capacity and stamina, but that's tip number two is to actually practice outside of , Real life, but actually to create container where you can practice this in your body, in your nervous system. Having a direct experience of expanding little by little in a way that feels really safe so that your body can build those neural pathways in your practice, then that has an effect in your actual lived experience.
Number three. The third tip I have from you is to flex. So again, this is not gonna help you if you do not have relaxation. In your nervous system and you're not well resourced because this tip actually is, is a mild stressor again on your nervous system. So if you're not already relaxed and nourished and resourced in your nervous system, if you add the stressor of flexing on top of that, it's just probably gonna create more tension in your body and have the opposite effect of what you're trying to create.
But if all is. Going well with, creating relaxation in your body and you're feeling well resourced. You can't actually push your physical body. Bit by bit, not like in a way that feels damaging and dangerous, but in a way that feels really good and healthy into territory where you're like actually physically pushing beyond what your previous limits might be.
So this might look like, learning how to lift weights in the gym or hiking, or maybe you, take up climbing or something like you're learning a physical activity. Breath work and prana like moving more, more energy through your body. It's uncomfortable because you're pushing past what is , just natural and normal for your body to experience.
You're pushing into maybe a little bit like, oh, I'm lifting a little bit more weight than I ever have before, or I'm moving more. I'm kind of forcing in a sense my breath to, to be bigger and fuller than I might maybe normally. Used to doing this just. Creates in your nervous system actually creates more space and more resilience in your actual nervous system to withstand more stress and pressure.
When you work on this and maybe an area like the gym for example, this is why you see people who maybe take up a workout program also will have. Knock on effects in other areas of their life. Like maybe they get a promotion or they get inspired to create something or whatever the thing is, because you're actually expanding your physical capacity.
You're expanding your prana, your breath, you know, the yogis say Your chronic capacity is also your capacity to hold money and pleasure and your dharma and all the things. So that's why there's like all this focus on expanding the prana, the breath and the body. So actually pushing your physical strength.
This can also have to do with Doing things that you don't necessarily wanna do. So having some kind of a discipline. So sitting down to meditate, like having that practice to meditate or taking a cold shower, for example, or getting up at a certain time, like having the, these disciplines and following through are ways to kind of build greater capacity and stamina in your nervous system for discomfort.
And again, doing this in a gentle way, so, number one, above all else is to follow your body. Like if you're just pushing your body beyond limits and it's just creating more stress response it's not you're, you're not, you're not helping yourself there. But if you can you know, stay resourced in your body while you're doing these things, then it can be very supportive for expanding your capacity.
And the last tip is kind of similar to flexing. It's actually taking a step into doing an uncomfortable thing. So if you're an entrepreneur, you know, a lot of people here are creatives, entrepreneurs, coaches, things like that. Taking that step into doing the uncomfortable thing, like maybe it's showing up live, for example,
just makes you feel super activated in your nervous system. Taking that little step and pushing past your comfort level to do the, the thing that expands you. Over time lays that neural pathway, that embodied pathway that this is, okay, I'm safe when I do this. Nothing bad happens to me and it just takes doses over time, little doses for your body, your nervousness to system to embody that this is okay, this is safe for me.
I can do this, I can expand in this direction. The key to this though is being. Well-resourced is being nourished. So this requires self-care. This requires being resourced before you take that step, and then deliberately actually giving yourself self-care afterwards, giving your nervous system care afterwards that, hey, I just did a, a very activating thing for my nervous system, and what am I gonna do now to.
Create nourishment, put my nervous system back into relaxation. How am I gonna, how am I gonna fill my cup again and resource myself again? So that's tip number four. So we talked about creating relaxation in the nervous system so that we have more space to expand around the things so that our nervous system is not pushing things away because we're getting overwhelmed.
We talked about practicing, like creating an actual container to practice in a safe way, holding more or holding longer. We talked about flexing, which is actually using your physical body to do things that might be a little bit beyond your comfort level, like breath work, for example, or a certain kind of exercise or a discipline or a devotion that pushes your nervous system.
Just a little bit. Just a little bit, so that you actually have an expanded capacity for stress in your nervous system. And we talked about actively taking a step. A safe step and a small step into discomfort so that you can gradually begin to teach your nervous system that it's safe to expand in this way that you're desiring to.
And I have a little bonus tip for you today, which is when you're expanding whether you're expanding in your visibility in your leadership, you are expanding in. Your relationship and the amount of love and attention that you're allowing yourself to receive or the amount of money that you're allowing yourself to receive when there's an expansion happening, even though the mind might be super happy that you're, that you're receiving this thing it's very, very common and normal.
I need to like teach a whole masterclass on this. Expansion sickness is a real thing and it's very, very common in normal, and I just, I wanna normalize this and I want you to actually expect that when you have an expansion, there is going to be a contraction afterwards. I want to normalize this so that when it happens, you're not like, oh no, I'm doing something wrong.
I have to fix something. What's wrong with me? This is terrible. Doom and gloom, all the things, but that you can just actually be like, okay, this is the expansion sickness that Michelle was talking about. Let me just lean into this and allow it to happen. And maybe even help the process along, like help myself just contract and, and You know, go, go into the contraction fully, just like let it happen.
Our bodies and nature teaches us that this is the way, this is what happens when you give birth. What happens? There's a contraction and then an expansion. There's another contraction, and then another expansion, even bigger. This is just the way it happens when you're birthing, when nature expands and then contracts again, nothing in this whole human experience, just like continuously expands except for maybe the universe, although we're not even totally sure about that.
Maybe there's somewhere in the universe that's contracting. I don't really know. Black holes, I guess getting a little philosophical here, but. The way of the world is, particularly in this human experience that we're having, is, you know, the cycles expanding, contracting, expanding, contracting. So I just wanna normalize that this is gonna happen and when you resist.
The natural contraction that's gonna happen when you're expanding. Guess what happens? You create tension. And what happens when you create tension? You are closed off. The energy is not flowing and it's gonna be harder for the big energy to be flowing through just EAs easily and ple and, you know, without any, without any trouble.
So what might that look like? For me, sometimes it looks like, if I. Take a big step that I'm not used to taking or, or do something big that I'm not used to doing. I might actually the next day, feel like I need to hide away in bed and , I might actually not really feel that good the next day.
This has totally happened to me. Or I'll have like waves of doubt that'll come up and, or, or old shit that I already thought I maybe dealt with. That'll. Just come up again, like doubts and, and you know self judgments and questioning and being like, oh, did I do that right? It was, if I should have done this and blah, blah, blah.
Like, all of this stuff happens. It's just a contraction. And the more that I've become aware of this, the more that I, I just really want us to normalize that that it's gonna happen and that, you know, to expect that it's gonna happen. So if you're not used to going live on Facebook, for example, and you go live in your Facebook group,
you might feel great the next day while you're adrenaline, your energy is high or the rest of the day. And then the next morning you might wake up and just be like, oh my God, what is happening? I feel horrible. And you might kind of, it might kind of happen in another area that's maybe unrelated to going live.
It might be like, you know, questioning your relationship or like drama happening in some other area because there's this contracting energy that's happening. So, This is normal. You don't need to fix it. You just need to relax into it. Just let it happen. Like help yourself just expect, I'm gonna have to put it on my calendar that I'm gonna need downtime after this.
I'm gonna need to go into the cave away from all the people after this. Okay. So those are my tips for you today on. Expanding your havingness level
I just have a couple of announcements. One is that I am now certified.
Go me as a non-linear Movement method facilitator, which I'm so excited about. This is Mikayla Bowen, who you may have heard about through Gwyneth Paltrow's Netflix Show, sex, love, and Goop. She was on there talking about ‘em embodied intimacy and relationships, and she developed this method, this embodied movement practice called the Non-Linear Movement Method.
I went through a very serious and devoted certification process for this and have been now teaching classes on this. So would love to have you all come and join.
You can come and have an embodied experience of your own inner truth, which is what I want for all of you. I just really think that there's nothing more important or actually radical and revolutionary that we can all be doing with our time and ourselves right now than orienting towards our own inner experience and our own inner truth.
So gonna be teaching these classes. On a monthly basis, potentially more frequently, just depending on how I'm feeling and how my time is going and what the interest level is. But if you wanna find out about those, make sure you get on my mailing list so that you'll hear about how to register. And would love to hear from all of you how this lands for you.
Sending so many kisses and hope you're having a wondrous full moon. Looking forward to seeing you all again soon for another one of our chats. Take care. Love you all.