Shifting States with Movement

Written by: Justine Allen

🕗 Short & sweet

Have you ever experienced self-doubt to the point of feeling frozen, stuck or stagnant? The “just do it” mentality doesn’t always cut it here, as well intentioned as the slogan is.

A while ago, I found myself in a moment of immobilizing self-doubt (we therapists feel the things, too). Moments later, I stumbled across a newsletter amongst my flood of emails from the beautiful writer, Hannah Eko that was titled “self-doubt & the artist” — the timing was wild! It felt as though her words spoke directly to the deep pit-like sensation that had formed in my chest & feeling seen, it began to soften.

After sharing a note of gratitude, I decided to move with & through the sensations to further shift my embodied experience. So, I put my headphones on, pressed shuffle & no joke… “Believe in Yourself” by Lena Horne began to play. Seriously! I had to laugh out loud with love to the universe for the synchronicities.

I let Lena play because of course, it’s Lena. Then I rewound a bit to move with a song that was more attuned to the weight I had sensed earlier, to fully feel & process that emotion because they all deserve space.

So I started with a song that often evokes a sort of weighted tenderness within me — its quality met the immobilizing self-doubt & allowed me to begin metabolizing it rather than trying to bypass it, in which case it likely would have lingered beneath the surface. 

I noticed that there was a bit of weight in my movement too, similar to the resistance you might feel swimming through water. Yet, my movement was still strong, so there was this sense of “working through” something. I also remember the feeling of strength in my legs which offered a sense of groundedness as I felt & moved through my emotion. I took up lots of physical space in the room & engaged different levels of space with my body as well (think reaching up high, medium, and low). A release was definitely experienced. 

How apt then that a song about freedom would soon follow. By this time I had experienced a shift through movement. There was lightness where there had once been weightedness in both my movement quality & felt sense, but strength was still present. And, a time was had! With lots of jumping around, smiles & experiencing a sense of freedom through movement. I am recognizing now, in real time, how powerful this last part (the jumping around & such) is because it indicates that there was also a nervous system shift that occurred which allowed me to access play(fulness), which in addition to feeling mobilized, requires that we also feel safe & connected.

Lena then brought us full circle (naturally) as this movement session came to a close.

Check out a small snippet of moving through self-doubt to more spaciousness here.

Warm wishes ✨