Episode 139 - 3 Ways To Awaken The Senses For A Vibrant Life
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Mary Lofgren
Hello, beautiful beings, and welcome to Come to your Senses. Welcome to today's episode, which is a continuation of a previous episode. So episode 137 was all about how to create a renaissance of radiance, and when I say radiance, what I mean is that sparkle that is emitted when we can see a person's soul, visible through their body. So to give you an example of that, I just got a new foster doggy. If you're a listener of the podcast, you know that I frequently foster dogs and Fred is my 10th foster this year. He is the sweetest little creature and when I got him he's like a pit bull mix, very underweight. You could see his ribs. He's all white like a snowball. And when I got him he was the most traumatized creature I've ever had in my care and he wouldn't leave his little mat once I got him home and just, I mean, I was looking in his eyes, or I was, you know, looking at his eyes, and it was like there was nothing in there, like nobody was home. And then on his first night he woke me up by what's the word? Bleeding is what you might say for a sheep. Bleeding is what I call it meeping, because he had had an accident on the floor and he was distressed about it. So I went into the living room, cleaned it up and I just sat on the couch and I petted his head and when I took my hand away, his little paw reached out and paw pod my arm like more please. And it was so precious and it was the moment where I saw his soul drop back into his body. And now we have just become the best of friends and every day we make new progress, like his tail doing a full 180 degree wag. That happened on let's see Monday. Then on Wednesday he got the zoomies, where a dog just gets the uncontrollable urge to run in circles. So that was huge growth. And each day he is just showing more and more of his true personality and his true soul. And the reason I share this story with you is because when we talk about a renaissance of radiance, what we're really talking about is shaping our lives with a fresh start, where that soulful quality takes a place at center stage. And so in our first episode we explored body and beauty as these sources of renewing your radiance. And today we're going to go through the remaining four phases of a renaissance of radiance. These phases are the very structure of the Come to your Senses coterie, which is my six-month immersion that starts in January and enrollment closes on December 12th. And so if you feel like you are ready for a fresh start in 2024, you know, I was talking to my mom this weekend and she's having knee replacement surgery soon and she was talking about joining the coterie and she's historically taken almost all of my programs but in the last few years has not participated, mostly because I've been doing mainly one-on-one coaching.
04:16
But I asked her like well, why do you want to enroll? And she said because I'm ready for a renaissance. Like my knee has really taken me out this year and I'm ready to have a fresh start and fresh priorities. My mom is 81. So it is never too late. We have another woman in her 80s who joined the program to beep out to you my darling M named starts with an M and it is never too late to start a renaissance, because renaissance is timeless.
04:57
And so if you are desiring this year to make a fresh start where you are no longer dominated by the intensity and crazy making of endless arbitrary action, you know, the biggest concern and issue that my clients share with me is this feeling of being chased by their to-do list and they wake up in the middle of the night and they just think about the things that they have to do. And that is the condition of living in a patriarchal world where masculine values of doing, compartmentalizing, reducing, are what's at the center of culture and therefore becomes the center of our own personal value system, often without even our knowledge or consent. You know, coming to our senses is essentially awakening from the trance of our programming and allowing this awakening of the body, awakening of the senses, the awakening of beauty, the awakening of presence, the awakening of boldness, these are some of our values here at Come to your Senses. And as we awaken, often the pain and the pressure feels even more acute because our bodies are starting to wake up and say, uh-uh, this isn't how I want to live.
06:38
And whether that's a knee, a, a relationship, a way of being, an identity that you have both penned yourself but also been penned into by the cultural perception of the feminine, whatever is happening in your life that keeps you from living your full radiance through your body and courage, you to bring it to the coterie, and coterie means a small group with a common purpose, and that's really important to know, because the master classes in the kouturi are extraordinary, if I do say they are the culmination of 25 years of professional experience in different areas of the embodied arts. They are truly the chef's kiss. They are my masterpiece. However, they are all centered around things that are intuitive to your body, and the magic of the kouturi is having a small, contained group in which to dive into and be saturated with the magic of communal practice. And so, once again, before we dive into our gems, I encourage you to go to alifewellsavoredcom, read the enrollment page. I put so much heart and soul into that page because I wanted to speak to the exact woman who needs it, who wants it and is ready for it. And you can also book a free face-to-face with me, where we won't just talk about the possibilities of the kouturi, but we'll also talk about some of those pain points that are leading you to want to make a change and make a renaissance, start a new renaissance in your life, and you can book that on the page as well. And with that, my loves, we are now going to dive into our gems on your own personal renaissance of radiance.
08:59
And so in our previous episode on a renaissance of radiance, which was titled how to Cultivate Radiant Feminine Presence episode 137. I'll drop a link to it in the show notes. Our focus was around the arts of awakening the body and awakening beauty, and today we're going to fill in the next four phases, which begin with awakening the senses. So your body is a garden of delight and it teams with wild beauty and sensory and sensuality and sensory and sensual boldness. There are so many ways to ignite your sensuality that reach so far beyond the bedroom. And here it comes to your senses. We redefine and recenter our relationship to pleasure and sensuality, not just as an escape or a source of feeling good although bring that on, please, I'm not pushing that away but as a daily nutrient for our mental, physical and spiritual health, and also as a guiding force for living in a way that feels most true to our soul. One of the episodes that I did this year that I'm so proud of and is a great episode if you're new to the podcast, a great episode to start with. It's called the Art of Trusting Pleasure and it's episode 111. I'll put that in the show notes as well. And so pleasure, sensuality, the richness of living a life that is devoted to the senses and the way that the soul plays its music through the instrument of the body is an essential part of calibrating our compass in life and moving towards what feels true, honest and right, and away from what feels wrong, false or shadowy.
11:28
I was listening to I'll never forget this. I was listening to the trial for George Floyd's murder on the radio. It was being broadcast and I was on a road trip and one of the witnesses who took the stand was the radio operator for the police station. Her name was Jenna Scurry and, even though it wasn't her job to do so, she called what she saw on the camera footage into the sergeant to report it. And her words on the stand were my instincts were telling me that something's wrong, something's not right. I don't know what, but something wasn't right In the Attorney General who was grilling her about it, but why? She called it in over and over. He asked why did you do this? You know, looking for a concrete and tangible answer, and she bravely replied it was just a feeling.
12:37
And anything that we do to connect to our senses also connects us to our animal body. You know there's a reason that it's quite literal the language of. I can sense it, you know, you can feel it. There's a reason why our senses guide us towards things that smell good and away from things that don't smell good, like spoiled food or a partner who's maybe not compatible for you. And when we talk about the sensual, you know it can be a loaded topic. As someone who's worked in the world of coaching and facilitating experiences for women to explore their sensuality beyond the way in which it's conflated with sexuality for over a decade, I want to be clear that when I talk about awakening the senses and the sensual body, what I'm really talking about is awakening the soul through our erotic energy, and erotic is just another way of saying our aliveness.
13:54
So my mom was visiting this weekend and my mom and I are TV buddies where our favorite activity is to eat delicious food and cuddle up on the couch and watch seven hours of Masterpiece Classic on PBS Poll dark. That's all I'm going to say. One word poll dark, run, don't walk, but anyway. So we were doing that this weekend and there's always a point where I cross over from succulent, supple, delicious, comforted, cozy enjoyment to feeling like the odometer of my being has just dipped far below the horizon line. And that was happening, and I swear to God, I think we had been on the couch for six hours and my mom is getting leg cramps. And what happens for me when I get into that state which from a nervous system perspective is called a dorsal vagal state, which is almost like being too relaxed, where the heart rate drops and the body is craving some sort of energy so that's typically when I crave overeating, especially like eating lots of sugar, because sugar will bring my blood sugar up really fast and I could feel myself I had dipped below the horizon line.
15:32
So I said I'm going to take a shower and I did a beauty ritual in the shower, which I call polishing the marble. I teach it in the coterie and it's a way of scrubbing your body through the lens of unconditional reverence. And after being bathed in Dead Sea Salt that was infused with rose and chamomile and jasmine the heat of the steam I put a mask on my face, I anointed my body with this intoxicating oil by Kate's magic it's called Firefly and I walked out of the bathroom like I am a new person, and that was an example of how I used one of these principles of creating a Renaissance of Radiance to reconnect with my life force. And I returned to the couch and I said, mom, how would you feel about reading with the rest of our night? I have this adorable book on the holiday of Yule, which is my absolute favorite holiday Solstice Celebration and she was like sure.
16:57
And what was so moving about that moment was when I get into a dorsal vagal state, I also lose my sense of cognition and choice. So whenever we're in an activated state of the nervous system, whether it's hyper activated, in a state of anxiety, fight or flight, or it's hypo activated, through this state of dissociation, fogginess, depressiveness, the prefrontal cortex, which is the part of our body that's able to interpret the present moment, it's our thinking brain, it's what comes on board when we feel regulated, that part of our brain literally starts to shut down and so we can't think clearly and therefore we lose our sense of agency and choice. And I was really skirting that avenue of feeling like, okay, another episode, is there any more apple pie, you know which? Like there's nothing wrong with watching a seventh episode or eating more apple pie. These are neutral circumstances. But what's not neutral is the state that I felt in, where I felt like I had lost choice and after I completed a sensory ritual to connect to my body and also to help to raise my energy through pleasure. You know, because when I'm in that state and when you're in that state, you probably know that taking a walk in the brisk cold will revive your senses. You probably know that taking a break from watching television will help get you regulated. But again, when our energy is so far below the horizon, making an effort like putting on your coat to go outside feels herculean, and so, of course, you're gonna choose the comfort of watching a seventh episode of Pultark. But something like beauty and pleasure is just enough of a crest and an uptick in that sense of energy that, because it's enjoyable, doesn't require a huge summoning of resolve to take care of yourself. And so some other ways that you can practice connecting to your senses I mean, I just toot the horn of beauty and beauty ritual non-stop on this podcast because it is one of my core practices for returning to myself and my soul through a feminine lens. So toot, toot once again. And some other ways that you can help bring your nervous system back to a state of baseline, whether it's hypo aroused, in that more depressive state, or it's hyper aroused and you're feeling anxious Are some of these sacred tools of the sensual. So, for example, slowing down how you walk to feel your feet and lead from your hips.
20:41
One of the things that I did when I got into the bathroom was I lit a bunch of candles and I looked at my body in the mirror through the eyes of unconditional reverence. And if you're thinking, oh yeah, let me just go do that right now, that is a practice and it is a mind and sensory retraining. But a way to think about it is, if you go into an art museum or you walk out onto your porch and you see a gorgeous expanse in nature, there is a natural sense of awe and your body is also nature and your body is also art. So, even if I'm looking in the mirror and my more critical mind wants to obsess over some detail, that is not quote unquote, perfect, you know, I'll just use my experience from last night by the glow of candlelight I can gaze at the rise and fullness of my breasts and think, yes, nature, this body which houses my soul, follows the drum of the same heartbeat that sustains the earth itself and that is worthy of reverence and of awe.
22:08
And then one last way to connect with your sensual body, whether you're feeling dysregulated or you just want to have some fun, is to expand and fulfill your lingerie drawer's potential. Putting on a gorgeous piece of lingerie, perhaps brushing some delicious moon dust you know those. I actually used to have this edible kind. It's a powder that has little flecks of glitter that you can brush on your skin, placing some silky hair product in your hair to give it a little tassel, and adorning the temple of your body with the lace and satin and little tiny buttons or soft cashmere and cotton or bamboo. You know you might be a pajama kind of girl or fella or human. Lingerie with jewelry is one of my favorite ways to clean my house oh, I'm laughing, because I live alone and you know I speak to thousands of you every week and sometimes it's just a little funny that I do these things and they just don't get a lot of airtime. But here they do.
23:37
So just a tiny nod for your system in the direction of sacred adornment actually physically changes your chemistry, and so anytime you wish to reignite your radiance when, like little Fred, it feels out to lunch with no sign of return, or if you want to build your reservoir of radiance. These are just tiny gestures that have the power to change how you feel in your body, which changes how you think in your mind and that changes your self-image. Your self-image impacts how you see the world, how you see possibilities for the future, how you interpret your past, and so the reason that these are called phases in a renaissance of radiance or portals is because this is like a magic mists of Avalon veil that you can part and step into your resplendent, natural born magnetism, because this world is starving for it. And my loves were at 24 minutes and we only went through one phase. So you know what we're going to probably have to make this a series.
25:08
Next week we have a very special guest star, the most sumptuous, sexy siren of self-sovereignty and growth, pearl Noir, absolute burlesque icon.
25:24
She and I sat down for a conversation recently that I'm so excited to share with you, and then, for the rest of the year, we're going to fill out these different phases of a renaissance of radiance. And, lastly, I will say that if you enjoyed what you heard in this episode, know that we spend an entire month cultivating a radiant sense of sensuality In the coterie, and in that month, some of the gems that you'll learn are how to give a soul-stirring strip tease for an admirer, whether that admirer is a person, your reflection in the mirror or your foster dog. How to create a lingerie drawer that you fall in love with. How to use romance, beauty, charm and delight to create your sizzling self-love affair. And how to bring the art of magnetism into every moment, from how you eat and walk and think, to how you kiss and talk and wink.
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So, https://www.alifewellsavored.com/, there is a $500 early bird savings that expires on December 7th and the last day to enroll is December 12th. So head over to https://www.alifewellsavored.com/ and let's make 2024 your renaissance of radiance. Thank you so much for listening, beloveds, I will see you in our next episode.
00:00 / 27:07
In this episode you'll discover how to awaken your senses and create more vibrance in your body, beauty and being.
Links from the show:
Episode 137 - Cultivate Radiant Feminine Presence
Episode 111 - The Art of Trusting Pleasure
JOIN THE COTERIE
Join The Coterie
Immerse yourself in artful embodied living and make 2024 your year to cultivate vibrant, luminous radiance. The Coterie is a six month, body-led coaching immersion. Journey through the six phases of a feminine renaissance, and be supported in a lifestyle of nurturing your body, awakening through beauty, and relaxing into a renaissance of radiance. Take advantage of the Early Babe Savings and join the Coterie today. https://www.alifewellsavored.com/
