Out of your head, into your body + my fave hack to soothe your nervous system

Ready to have a deeper conversation about body and soul, sacred leadership, and our collective evolution? Welcome to the Wise Body, Ancient Soul podcast with me, your host, Charisse Sisou.

In today’s episode, we dive deep into getting out of your head and into your body. Why that’s a thing and my favorite hack to get you started.

Today’s topic really came out of a conversation I was having yesterday with a old slash new friend. And this idea of, this happens a lot in the…

spiritual community, personal growth, that arena where we’re so focused on this journey, and whatever your name might be for it, ascension, evolution, enlightenment, et cetera, et cetera. There’s this idea that we’re like, eschewing the

physical and embracing the spiritual, right? Meaning not of the body. And yet, as you can probably guess from my podcast name, Wise Body, Ancient Soul, is these are not separate things. Our body is our soul physically focused. And…

Because of that, ascension is a little bit of a misnomer. We’re not going up and out. We’re actually going in to in this next stage of our dynamic evolution. This is where connectedness is. This is where our link to all that is, is it resides in the body, not outside of ourselves.

And it’s something that, you know, if you follow any channels, wise beings, you know, whatever your favorite flavor is, whether you, you know, listen to Lee Harrison, the Zs or Abraham Hicks fan, just about any channel that’s tapping into this higher source is talking about the importance of

um getting in the body 

So how do you know whether you’re in your head and not in your body? First of all, what does that even mean? You might immediately resonate with that, or you might be like, what are you talking about? I’m in my body right now listening to you. So have you ever had that experience of kind of replaying, spinning, thoughts spinning in your head about the events of that day, maybe a conversation that you had, a scenario that you wished.

had gone differently and then kind of like spinning it, spinning it, spinning it in your head of like what you could have said, how it might have gone down differently, reliving the details. Or maybe that’s one of the ways that it can show up. It’s basically like not being present, either like spinning about something that happened or it could alternatively be.

you know, like something that’s to happen in the future, you know, like maybe you’re agonizing over a presentation you need to do tomorrow or a job interview next week or, you know, whatever that looks like, right? And so that kind of like that experience of spinning, that is one example of being in the head and not in the body, right? Another might be like just kind of feeling like you’re floating through life, a little bit untethered, right?

This is something I’ve experienced as well. Just as I’ve experienced the like, you know, the kind of like the spinning is also.

this feeling of being untethered, ungrounded, right? This is what we’re talking about. But very specifically, just kind of like moving from distraction to distraction, like just kind of trying to fill the void of the day. I’ve definitely had multiple periods, it’s like something that I’m constantly in my own life.

having to pay attention to and keep an eye out for because it’s one of the ways that my fears or stories expresses itself is keeping me distracted from what it is that I know I need to do and distracting me with like, Oh, here, like shiny, you know, shiny object, like, Oh, go do this thing. Okay, now go do that thing. Okay, now do this thing. You know, anytime that you’re, you know, you have some important thing that you need to do, but instead of doing that thing, you’re frittering the time away on 10 other things before you get to that thing. So procrastinating.

distractibility, just kind of like floating through the day, not wanting to be in the earthly here and now, fleeting from distraction to distraction to fill the day. It can look like, it can also be like devaluing the body like I was talking about in the beginning, this idea that somehow so many…

spiritual or I should say like religious paradigms put the body, put the physical on a lower plane than the spiritual, right? So then we’ve integrated, incorporated literally that those teachings so that we discount the body, right? And I’ve talked extensively about this in other episodes, but we’ll, you know, we’ll ignore the body’s needs. We’ll, we’ll delay

um, uh, pleasure or nourishment or relief or what have you, um, because we have more important things to do, you know, um, we have more important things to think about. Um, or it can simply be that sort of like wanting to reject the body altogether. Like I’ve, um, you know, heard people go as far as calling it like a meat suit that their soul is just wearing and they can’t wait until they, you know, can just.

wrap up this lifetime and not that they’re like trying to hurry that along or anything, but like they just want to be back in that disembodied spiritual, you know, oneness with all that is and that is a really blissful place to be. And, you know, and very often we can reach that through like meditation, journeying, different practices, right? That in effect.

One could think like, take us out of the body, and yet, what’s the best and easiest way to meditate is to simply track the breath, right? Which requires deep presence in the body. But this sort of this whole idea of like devaluing the body, considering it less than, itself kind of creates a paradigm where we’re not really…

paying attention to the body or even if you look at chakras, this is something that came up in the conversation with my friend yesterday of like certain chakras being higher than other chakras. And the vision that I was given some a couple of years ago around our energy system is that the only reason why it goes from quote unquote lower to higher or first through seventh chakra.

in our current energy system is because of how things translate in the physical here in the 3D world. Like we’re this vertical body, right? And so the easiest for us to wrap our 3D earthly minds around the idea of energy centers is stacking them one atop the other. And that’s also informed by this paradigm, this paradigm that’s ending, but these like

old paradigms around hierarchy and, you know, everything has to be tiered. Everything has to be, you know, in some kind of hierarchy. And the new paradigm that we’re moving into is one of more of like circular level playing field honoring all perspectives, not just the perspectives of a select few, right? And

when you look the vision. So the vision I was given was that when you look at the energy systems in that paradigm, there’s not one that’s higher than the other. Like the root chakra is not lower than the crown chakra. That’s just our interpretation of that in this vertical two-footed body that walks, you know what I mean? And we think, oh, crown root, right? When in reality our soul, our, you know, our

the way our energy actually works is more like planets revolving around the sun, right? It’s not better or worse to be closer or further from the sun. You’re just closer or further from the sun, right? And it’s not like one planet is better than any other planet, right? Maybe better for human life.

but not better or worse in terms of like as planets go, you know, the great hierarchy of planets. It’s this, I really was shown our energy system as being these, you could think of them as concentric circles or you could think of them as dynamics that ebb and flow around each other. But the bottom line is there is no higher or lower. The root chakra.

is as important as the throat chakra, as the third eye, as the sacral, as the, you know what I mean? And although that is present in learnings about our energy systems, about how the chakras are presented because…

because of this paradigm that we’ve been stewing in for the last few thousand years of like, there’s got to be something that’s better than something else. We have this tendency to, you know, apply that hierarchical thinking to our energy centers and it really couldn’t be further from the truth.

There is no higher or lower. The body is not lower than spirit, it is spirit. So, you know, the point of that is, you know, this is why it’s so fundamentally important for us to get out of our head, out of that paradigm, and back in the body, right? So what are some of the ways that

you know, being out of your head, like, why does this even matter? What can this look like? So here’s some examples, right? I’m just, these are just from my own experience. So, um, it can be, it can look like emotional eating, right? Plowing through an entire family size bag of potato chips, my personal kryptonite, because of stress and unpleasant emotions pressing to the surface, I’m sure no one can relate to emotional eating. I am alone on the planet in that. But, um.

So yeah, so that’s a great example of not being in the body. Right, because truly being in the body, at some point the body goes, you know you’re not hungry, right? You know? It can look like taking on a client that you know will be a handful, but you do it because you quote unquote need the money. Right?

So then the story that’s playing in your head is like, ooh, scarcity, if I don’t take this client, I don’t know if there’s gonna be another one after them and I gotta take the, ah, you know. And again, I’m sure I’m the only person that’s ever done that, not.

It’s another example of being in the head, being in the belief system versus grounded in the body, paying attention to that, you know, that sort of that warning flag that the body threw of like, you can already tell talking to this person, they’re gonna need a lot of energy. You know, you can feel it. You can feel it in the initial conversation, but you bypass that intuition because of.

belief. This is why it’s so important to get out of that and into the body. Because when we ground first, when we get in the body before we make those decisions, that’s when things can get really powerful and we can give ourselves that space to take right action that’s not driven by a story or a belief or a fear or a paradigm, but that comes from our own inner knowing, our own

internal guidance. So this can also look like, and I alluded to this earlier, it can look like sitting in meditation or prayer for hours and then staying in inaction while waiting for an answer or solution to be delivered to you.

Don’t get defensive. This is me too. If you’re feeling called out by any of these examples, just know that first and foremost, I’m mentioning them because they are personal examples. And if it’s feeling like a little bit of a call out, that’s okay, that’s okay. Stay with me, right? I am on your side because I am you, like this is also me.

And if there’s anything that I’ve learned, right? It’s like, there’s no judgment here, right? These are not bad things. We’re not bad for doing this stuff. It’s just that.

as you may have experienced, as I’ve certainly experienced, these things don’t necessarily lead to the desired result, right? So, eating all those chips kept me distracted and soothed in the moment, right? Short-term, like short-term distraction, short-term like soothing of whatever was stressing me out in that moment. But that action didn’t actually resolve.

the stress or emotion, right? And I wouldn’t really feel so hot after, strangely, after downing an entire, well, I don’t think I’ve actually downed an entire Costco bag of potato chips. That would, I don’t know that I’ve achieved that as a personal best, but definitely way more than the suggested serving. And, you know, subsequent weight gain or inflammation were no party either, right?

taking on that troublesome client for the money, right? Often led to a plummeting hourly rate as the extra effort and time needed to keep that client satisfied far outweigh the original fee quoted, right? And then that third example, passively waiting for the answer, as opportunities pass me by, meant that I never had the chance to try something

and discover whether or not it was working, right? This is, oh my God.

Now, I am not saying don’t meditate and pray. That is actually like, those are daily practices of mine. I highly recommend, right? And they alone do not bring in the, and they’re an important part of putting the ask out there and receiving the answer, right?

prayer is like putting out the ask, meditation allows you that space to receive the answers of one simple way of thinking of it. And there’s still no action there, right? So they’re both really important practices. But what I’m talking about is the pattern of hoping and waiting for an answer versus praying and moving your feet.

we get into these habits of, you know, being out of the body more in our heads, not just because we’re in this paradigm, right? You know, I also want to speak to, for some of us, for many of us, we may have learned to step out of the body or detach from the body. Or what is the…

what is the word for it? It’s escaping me, but where you disconnect, right? And because of a traumatic experience, because of like, you know, shutting down, disconnecting to just as a protection, right? So I want to honor that as well. Like that’s totally valid. And what happens, and this is a part of my story too, is

You know, once upon a time, yeah, my ability to leave my body protected me during traumatic events. But when I was no longer in imminent danger, those signals and leaving the body became less and less helpful, right? So in each of these examples, your body is sending signals and messages in the form of sensations, maybe a sensation of fullness with the potato chips

oh, like I’m just feeling kind of frenetic and like, blah, you know, like anxious, right? It took me a while to pay attention and understand the messages because I would get too caught up in the emotions themselves and the feeling themselves. And rather than allowing them to play their course, I would distract, I would hop out of the body, I would, you know, do anything but be present with those feelings, right?

be present in the body. I actually, it started to become, it was such a thing where now that I’ve learned how to recognize when I’m doing those things, I recognize when I’m starting to feel ungrounded, when I’m starting to feel in my head, spinning or untethered, kind of floaty.

I recognize it as my knee-jerk reaction to avoid being present. And it’s often driven by fear, right? And you know, we’re once upon a time, maybe that fear was, and sometimes it is like legitimate, right? But most of the time, it’s something that even though our lizard brain still feels that my, our nervous system still interprets it like I’m in danger, you know?

The fear is actually something where our physical safety is not at risk, right? Fear of being judged, fear of being visible, fear of failing, fear of succeeding, right? That’s a good one.

And that’s okay too. That’s the ego trying to protect us. We’ve all felt some kind of fear around something we know is a required step toward what we desire, more love, a better relationship, more money, a better career, business results. And we’ve all felt that desire to be somewhere else, like anywhere but here, right? Out there in the ether, not here in this earthly realm where there’s like conflict and poverty and horrible stuff, right? And…

Like I’m serious, you know, I’m not being facetious about that. Like it can be really tough. Um, if you’re an empath or a sensitive like me, we take, we can take on the pains of other people, right? It takes some learning to really learn how to, um, have boundaries to really only, um, take on.

move through what’s truly ours, right, and release what’s not ours, right?

So this kind of desire to be out in the ether, kind of like looping back to what I was talking about before, eschewing the body for that blissful communion with all that is, right? We’ve touched the infinite through these esoteric practices and we just want to stay up there, right?

this moment that we’re experiencing right now on the planet, this awakening, this is an opportunity to create that blissful expansiveness right here, right now. What some people call moving into 4 or 5D. That transformation has everything to do with not going out there, but in here, in the body. Ascension is a bit of a misnomer. We’re not going up and out. We’re going inside our own infinite selves.

remembering, re-putting ourselves together, our connection with our bodies, owning, reclaiming all parts of ourselves, and reclaiming our connection with the earth, with all that is through this divine channel, right?

we’re connected to all that is through this brilliant wise body.

Our bodies are not accidents. This is not, your body is not an unhelpful detail to be overcome as part of being three-dimensional. On the contrary, infusing the body with spirit, understanding its expression of your ancient soul is actually the path to enlightenment. You know, if that’s something you want. But if you’re drawn to a podcast called Why is Body Ancient Soul?

My guess is you are on that path of spiritual growth and evolution. Connecting with the body allows us to reassure the ego, soothe the nervous system, calmly witness the fear or avoidance or denial and take action anyway. Be here anyway. Be truly present and make decisions that follow what we truly desire. What’s truly in alignment with us, right?

And to co-create a reality that can be blissful right here and now, it flies in the face of everything we’ve been taught in this dying paradigm, that our own pleasure is not important, selfish, that sacrifice is the foundation of service, when the reality is, how much more can we serve from a full or overflowing cup than a depleted or empty one? Right? 

Once upon a time, my emotions ruled my reactions. My emotions were my reality. I couldn’t distinguish between the feelings and what they were conveying. And don’t get me wrong, I still feel the feelings. I am not saying don’t, equilibrium does not mean not feeling the feelings. It actually means feeling the feelings instead of trying to avoid the feelings, escape the feelings, decline, deny the feelings, right?

The feelings are in the sensations, like those are the messages from the body. So instead of being caught up in them and marionetted by them, I’m able to truly witness the feeling arise, allow its passage through my body and let the healing happen. Let the guidance come through. Right? Behind every difficult emotion that we want to avoid, there is a piece of wisdom, there is a learning.

there is a something, you know, let the clear guidance emerge. For example, what grief needed to express, right? What boundary needs to be reasserted? What needs to be communicated in a relationship? This is just some examples, right? Feelings, including feelings of disembodiedness are the messengers. What do they want to tell you? And it’s all kinds of feelings too. It’s all kinds of feelings.

not just the less pleasant ones, right? Pleasurable feelings of joy, expansiveness, and ease bring their own messages. More of this, please. Yes, please. You’re on the right path. Or keep going. Yeah. There’s so much here. What I’ve been talking about is the foundation of my own groundedness. This is the kind of like the theoretical underpinnings, right?

My ability to integrate tough as well as fun experiences to create a life of joy, spaciousness, and service to the highest good for all. That is my deep wish.

has been really incorporating this belief system understanding that my body is my big brain.

If I rely on my little brain for all of the answers, I can sometimes miss key pieces of information, right?

And because I’m all about not just the woo, but the pragmatic woo, I can’t leave this topic without giving you some tools to ground in your beautiful body. A tool in particular, there are so many, so I’ll focus on just one, one of my top fave breathing hacks to ground and calm quickly.

Exhale. All the way.

Everyone has heard the directive, breathe, just breathe. If however, you’re in an activated moment where your breathing is shallow or your nervous system is on high alert, this piece of advice can feel, not gonna lie, super irritating, right? Like I am breathing stupid. Maybe just a million times faster than is helpful. Or we may be unconsciously holding our breath. So just breathe feels like trying to add.

ear on top of what’s already in your lungs. So this is a handy trick I learned as I dealt with my own anxiety.

Exhale or breathe out all the way through your nose or mouth, but I like breathing out through my mouth for this. There’s something particularly cleansing about breathing out through your mouth. Exhale fully like you’re wringing the air out of your lungs. Really squeeze all the way down your rib cage and your abdomen too, as if you’re a nearly empty toothpaste tube and you have one job and one job only to squeeze that last bit out. Don’t be afraid to get noisy.

push the air out.

Don’t be afraid to get noisy, push the air out. Once you’ve exhaled completely, hold still right there for a moment.

then another moment. You’ll notice a desire to inhale shows up pretty quickly. When it feels good, stop squeezing, right? Stop holding and allow your lungs to fill back up with air.

Ah. Note, this is not a hold your breath as long as you can exercise. This is an exhale all the breath out exercise. The inhale or breathing in is instinctive. The body naturally does it. You don’t even have to try. Try this a couple more times. Notice how your breath deepens almost immediately. Sometimes when we try to tune in with the breath or just breathe, we can fall into trying to control it, trying to take the biggest.

deepest breath we can. When instead we focus on exhaling, the in-breath follows naturally, allowing us to relinquish control and just breathe.

Exhale, get out of your head and into your body. From my heart to yours, I love you. Take what you need and pass it on.

Thanks for joining me on Wise Body, Ancient Soul. I hope it reminds you how magical and powerful you truly are. Kindly subscribe, rate, and review this podcast so more juicy light bringers like you can hear these transmissions. And if you’re looking to connect more deeply with your body and soul’s wisdom, visit CharisseSisou.com to learn how else we can play together. Here’s to your joy and wild success! From my heart to yours, I love you. Take what you need and pass it on.