THE ACCRESCENT™ PODCAST EPISODE 225

The Accrescent (00:02.848)
Well, Rae, welcome to the Accrescent Podcast. We were just chatting off air a little bit and kind of sharing, I was sharing some background from my practice and the work I do, but I think it’s always such a great place to start with a little bit of your origin story, how you got to where you’re at today. I know from your bio that you weren’t always in somatics.

Rae Alexandra Enos (00:25.998)
Yeah, absolutely. I actually am coming to this after a big career change. So I’ll kind of, I’ll give you the real origin. And that actually starts a really long time ago in my childhood before I even knew what somatics was. I, I grew up in the practice of gymnastics and dance and I was someone who was always in my body. And I was really, you know, I remember

feeling so empowered as a child and just loved these things. like these were like, you know, what my life was always about. I was always moving. I was always dancing. But somewhere in childhood, I sort of began to fall away from that a bit, especially when thinking about career and goals. I was really perfectionistic in my real life and maybe gymnastics didn’t help with that portion.

But just felt like there was a way to just do life right. And, you know, I grew up with a single mom. I really wanted to succeed. And I became very outwardly focused on like what I could do for my resume, what looked, you know, and maybe I didn’t consciously know, but what I was doing was outsourcing how I was defining success and, know,

what was prestigious in all of this. I, you know, through my teens and then definitely into my twenties, was sort of chasing things that were outside of myself. And in that process, you know, going on medication for chronic anxiety, for chronic depression, and I was not connecting the way of being and…

not really ever asking myself what would be supportive, what do I actually want? It was always, I need to do this, you know. So I ended up through this process, you know, finding myself, you know, right before law school was a time that I was looking to heal a little bit deeper. I was in my mid-20s going through like some toxic relationship patterns, different things were showing up.

The Accrescent (02:21.742)
Mm.

Rae Alexandra Enos (02:41.813)
And the first real somatic practice I found and implemented hard into my life was yoga. And it did help because I started like consciously being able to sense my body again. whenever I went into law school things kind of, you the stress of that, I was also in a very toxic relationship at the time. And all of this kind of led me to a point of

The Accrescent (02:55.886)
Mm-hmm.

Rae Alexandra Enos (03:10.839)
Feeling like I was breaking down, like feeling like I could not keep going at the pace. I was doing great in school, but I was suffering like I never had. And I decided to take a time out. actually checked myself into a facility and, you know, just was like my coming home to self moment. Something is wrong. I need to take a step back. And I started getting on my mat every single day.

The Accrescent (03:19.788)
Yeah.

The Accrescent (03:31.662)
you

Rae Alexandra Enos (03:36.014)
And around the same time of like coming out, I’m like dedicated, I’m going to heal, I’m not going to keep being this way. I was looking for alternatives because I was on medication for several years. I was actually having bad side effects mentally as well. you know, just, I knew I needed something different. And I found this studio where this woman was teaching, it’s like some,

The Accrescent (03:52.75)
Mm-hmm.

Rae Alexandra Enos (04:03.713)
somatic movement and sensual somatic movement. was a studio called Minks and Muse in Austin and I’ll never forget that space. It doesn’t exist in a physical form anymore. She’s online. But she was really brought me back to or taught me what embodiment on a deeper level was being connected with what my body was saying, where my boundaries were and what I actually wanted.

The Accrescent (04:32.312)
Mm-hmm.

Rae Alexandra Enos (04:32.777)
And so I know that’s a very long answer, but that really started this deeper journey and going into learning about somatics, incorporating these practices. And by the time that I was graduating and about to accept my first job in law school, I was like, so in love with what I was doing that I knew I wanted to do yoga and somatic dance and study somatics further myself. So I had

You know, I still, I went and practiced. There was a lot of struggle and actually letting that go. That was a years long process. But whenever I was practicing my first years and I got my first certification in yoga and I just started studying for these years that I was practicing and knew that I planned to make a transition. And this January was the first January. I did not accept any more legal work. I was part time for a period and went full fledged into what I do now.

The Accrescent (05:30.274)
Yeah.

Rae Alexandra Enos (05:32.959)
So thank you for the space to go through all this. Yeah.

The Accrescent (05:35.305)
my gosh, it’s so exciting. I love hearing the origin story because I think for so many of us practitioners, it really does come from a lived experience and a transition, a confrontation in many ways for a lot of us of.

kind of the soul being like, isn’t it. There’s, there’s something more or there’s something else or something different. So it’s really powerful. I think for, for all of us to hear the transitions and to be able to just like see and have something modeled to us of it’s never too late to have a more aligned authentic life. You know,

Rae Alexandra Enos (05:58.466)
Thank

Rae Alexandra Enos (06:12.159)
Absolutely.

The Accrescent (06:13.688)
But it takes courage to get there. So it’s really cool to hear that story. I think what I want to start with is probably an oversimplified question. But I like to ask the really simple, straightforward questions. And even though we’ve had other somatic experiencing practitioners on, I really like to hear how everyone in their own words describes the work they do and kind of the art of what they do. So let’s just start with what are somatics?

What is kind of the essence of this? What might be things that fall under this umbrella?

Rae Alexandra Enos (06:43.98)
Mm-hmm.

Rae Alexandra Enos (06:50.121)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Somatics itself, and I can break down the root, because the word Soma is the word for the living body, and I believe it has a Greek origin, but whenever we’re thinking of something that’s somatic, it’s coming from the experience of the body, as you know, you would observe your body, and there’s

many things that are somatic practices. I think I mentioned like yoga is a deeply somatic practice because it’s drawing you into that full observation and connection with your body. But there’s, you know, many things that people are doing with somatics and myself, I’m a somatic coach and I’m working, you know, specifically with embodiment. So I do do some healing work into this, you know,

some training and somatic healing facilitation and that work. But I am working with people who are, you know, looking to expand and just learn to live in a more rooted way with their bodies. So rather than a deep focus on trauma healing, I am working with women who are coming from, you know, a background of, you know, sort of

my similar story, a background of living outside of themselves, chasing achievement and how to live in a way that is more rooted in themselves, more embodied, really owning and understanding and having that deep connection with who they are. And I also do, you know, so it’s a heavily body and movement based practice where

everything that we do is about, strengthening that mind body connection and, having that deep connection with, you know, what it is our body is communicating with us at all times. So many of us have lost that understanding and we live in a culture that. Tries to get you to override those symptoms and those.

The Accrescent (08:54.702)
you

Rae Alexandra Enos (09:05.556)
those things that our body’s sending us, so many of us just normalized living with exhaustion. But our body is really always communicating. And when we can slow down enough, when we can be with the body and we can start to understand the language that it’s speaking, there’s…

It’s such an incredible way that we can live in truth with ourself and understanding when our body says yes and when our body says no. So as a somatic coach, that’s where my work is primarily at. But somatics is such a big umbrella. There’s somatic therapists, there’s all sorts of somatic practitioners out there. I hope that answers the question.

The Accrescent (09:33.07)
Hmm.

The Accrescent (09:48.771)
I think that’s totally, yeah, because I think that’s important to start with because I do think the word somatics is being used much more in pop culture and public spaces. And it’s so important for us to be able to understand somatics is a big umbrella. There’s a lot that can fall underneath it. So not everyone is practicing it in the same way or using it in the same way. And the more we can understand the nuance that’s being brought to it.

the more individuals are able to understand, here’s what it means, here’s the different ways people might use it, and therefore, here’s what might be a good fit for me. Here’s what I might wanna look for or find in a practitioner. It sounds like there’s so many pieces of this. sorry, did I cut you off?

Rae Alexandra Enos (10:27.04)
Yeah.

Rae Alexandra Enos (10:34.7)
I was just going to add it, I think it can be helpful to kind of contrast with sort of mind first, kind of approaches to things like mindset work, kind of talk based therapy, these things that work mind down and are also super important and super great. But somatics kind of reverses the process of the work that you’re doing or the healing work that you may be doing by focusing body up.

work. So it’s we’re changing what’s happening in the body to signal, you know, to our mind and understand that connection that opposite way. So sometimes that’s a helpful orientation for people.

The Accrescent (11:16.847)
Yes, I want to get so much more into the nuance of this because those are some of my questions, right? Is why do we even need to get into the body? Why do we need to come out of the head? And as we talked off air, I work with the unconscious. So a huge part of that is getting out of the intellect and the logic and so much of psyche and the unconscious is the felt sense.

Rae Alexandra Enos (11:21.484)
Mm-hmm.

The Accrescent (11:42.735)
and the imagery that comes up for us. And so it’s not very intellectual, but so often I talk with clients about like, we’ve got to get in the body. There’s so much information in the body. And so this was kind of a question that came up for me as you were talking is when we talk about why even get in the body, I’d love to hear more of your perspective on this, but already what’s surfacing for me from what you’ve shared is

Rae Alexandra Enos (11:49.452)
Mm.

Rae Alexandra Enos (11:57.069)
Thank

The Accrescent (12:10.943)
There can be two parts to this. One is as a form of expression. I need to metabolize some anger. I can do that verbally by talking to someone. I can do that by writing out in my journal. I can do that by, you know, imagining something in my head, or I can do that more viscerally with body movements and vocalizations. And so it’s another form of expression.

Rae Alexandra Enos (12:16.544)
Mm.

Rae Alexandra Enos (12:36.148)
Mm.

The Accrescent (12:39.631)
for us. That’s super, super important because on any given day, in any given year for any given person, the form of emotional expression that’s really going to allow things to metabolize for them could be different. And I totally resonate with this because I have times where I really do a lot of in-depth psychology, what we would call active imagination. It’s kind of going into sort of a daydream hypnotic state and imagining the things in your head.

Rae Alexandra Enos (12:52.947)
Mm-hmm.

Rae Alexandra Enos (13:04.256)
Mm. Mm.

The Accrescent (13:06.541)
And that really is what serves me well and allows things to mobilize. And then I find that there are times where I’m really like, that’s not really doing it for me anymore. I need something different. Maybe I need more of the somatic movement and the visceral. So a form of expression and metabolizing.

But I also think you said something that I really want to highlight, which is there’s a lot of information and possibly even clarity we can get from a tuning to the body. Meaning I’m at this dinner with these friends and I don’t know why, but like my throat always constricts when I’m around these people.

Rae Alexandra Enos (13:46.571)
Mm-hmm.

The Accrescent (13:47.179)
You might not have conscious knowledge that, you know, there’s something going on there, but when you are attuning to your body, there is information, there’s communication there. And when we learn to attune and take note, we start to go, maybe that throat constriction around these people is speaking to something. Do I often have to like choke back words around these people?

Am I hiding parts of myself around them? So I wanted to kind of point out that it seems to me like it can be twofold. And it might even be, there might even be more beyond that, but expression and then also kind of communication, information and clarity.

Rae Alexandra Enos (14:23.245)
Absolutely, and I think those are two big parts of the work that I do. And I think a place where we, you know, kind of overlap, I’ll speak to expression first, because I do think that this was, you know, knowing now a little bit more about your background in the overlap of sort of disease and chronic illness, and whether there’s an emotional component, there is so much research coming out that shows that absolutely, yes, there is this component.

And whenever we don’t have a way to express our emotions fully and we suppress, and especially as women, many of us socialize to kind of push it down, put on a smile. We’re told that’s how we’re being strong, that’s how we’re being big girls. And it is actually making us sick. And I see it all the time.

And what we can do when we come into the body and we take a safe space away to have a visceral reaction to allow our body to express whatever it may be. And anger is a big one, so I’ll use it as an example. We need spaces to have that temper tantrum. And it actually allows us to, you know, because we know that…

before we had language, the things that happened in early childhood, especially when we didn’t have language, those patterns are stored in the body and that’s for a reason. We learned all of these things to keep us safe. So maybe the first time we started closing up and holding back is in childhood. And so to rewrite these patterns, we go back and we give ourselves this language of the body that existed even before.

all of the mental chatter and the language came in. These are things that get to the root cause of some of those patterns that we’ve been holding onto. And it can be so empowering just to see, you know, letting out some punches, letting the anger actually come up and activate us and give us, give it somewhere to go that’s safe.

The Accrescent (16:10.575)
and

Rae Alexandra Enos (16:28.823)
can be so, so empowering and actually move that energy and move that emotion and allow it to be released and processed so much faster. So expression is definitely key. And then I think on the other side, you’re saying, and I wanted to speak on sort of using the body as this reference point. And as a coach, this is something that I’m really interested in cultivating because like you said with your throat example of like, you know,

The Accrescent (16:40.377)
Mm-hmm.

Rae Alexandra Enos (16:58.753)
Why is this here? I kind of want to close down. I do a lot of time working on clients to do that in their own body. You know, for some of my clients who, you know, have been, you know, they’re just in a stressful environment. They realize that they, they raise their shoulders. They realize, you know, this tension here is telling me something. Well, where do, where, when do I soften? What are the parts in my day when I soften or what activities do I do where that’s not there? And we’re kind of like,

piecing together to get to the truth that is actually being communicated at their body so that we can, you know, really define and get clarity on where do you, where do you find purpose? What is it that you really want to be putting your attention and your energy into? You know, what is our body telling us about this relationship that drains us? There’s so many, you know, symptoms there often. Or, you know,

why do I feel all choked up whenever, you know, my boss comes down on me about something and I hold back and I hold back and I don’t speak up, okay, what needs to speak up and come through? So we’re paying attention to all of those messages and I think that’s another beautiful, beautiful part of somatic work. And the two major kind of things I would say, you know, for the work that I’m doing in culture.

coaching that stand out. is really coming to mind, but something may. But I think that you nailed it perfectly. So thank you for this space to speak.

The Accrescent (18:26.489)
Yeah, completely. I mean, we’ll keep breaking it down more, but I want to lean in even more to what you said, which is the body speaks through movement and words and thoughts, but it’s particularly important when we might be working with patterns or narratives that were created when we were pre-verbal. And our cognitive brain hadn’t fully come online yet.

Rae Alexandra Enos (18:48.962)
Mm-hmm.

The Accrescent (18:51.757)
We might not be able to verbalize things or describe them or talk through them, but there’s going to, there could be a ton of sensation within the body as we are working through things. And so being able to attune to that and honor that as very real communication, right? We might be talking. In my case, we might be talking about something and she’s like, well, I don’t really have any memories of when I was three. And as she says that, like this fear grips her stomach.

And that in my world is very real communication of, okay, there might be some unmetabolized fear from that little self that we don’t necessarily need to know the what, the where, the how, just that it’s here, it’s showing up. Can we tend to it? But I also think for us adults, that’s really powerful, especially for those of us caught in perfectionism and people pleasing, because I think a part of that is our

navigation system has been a bit skewed for so often the people pleasing and the perfectionism is all the shoulds. Well, I should do this and I should do that. And I really should go to this party and I should make dinner for that person. It’s all the shoulds. And so if you were to ask them intellectually, Hey, what, what’s misaligned for you in your life? Cognitively, that might be really hard for them to answer because they’re like, but

Rae Alexandra Enos (19:58.67)
Mm-hmm.

The Accrescent (20:17.837)
I should be doing all these things so I don’t really know. And so being able to bring online a different form of communication can help. think those people get the clarity that they might be having a really hard time getting cognitively. I don’t know what’s right or wrong, but when I think about, when I think about going to that party on Saturday, chest, I get a huge pressure in my chest.

Rae Alexandra Enos (20:33.069)
Absolutely.

Rae Alexandra Enos (20:43.591)
in the hands.

And that’s why, you know, early on, I work with my clients on learning how their body says yes, like an excited, real yes versus a no. Because so many people, like you said, they’re, caught up in the sheds. They’ve, they’ve signed up for all of these roles. And my job is to start getting rid of what is not aligned here and listening to our body to answer that for us. If something is, feels like a drain, something that we have scheduled every single week, but it causes irritation and resentment.

and this gross feeling, you know, my job is to challenge you to say, can we pause? You know, is this, you know, we say that we want this life that, you know, feels really good that that takes a lot of intentional design, and a design that is unique to us and that our body already has the blueprint for. It’s just we have to get out of the we have to get out of the shoulds and all of the other mental chatter and all of the other

wired patterns that, like you said, with people pleasing and perfectionism started very young. It started as a way to keep ourselves safe. We learned that it’s safer to just accommodate everyone else’s needs and to push what we wanted aside and to do things really well and

The Accrescent (21:54.159)
you

Rae Alexandra Enos (22:11.061)
get that gold star, like these things that we have just been wired to do and until we can say, we take a step back and we get still with ourselves and we can halt those type of things. And then we need to show our nervous system, our body that it’s safe to make a different choice. We’re not worried about getting yelled at anymore, because we spoke up with a boundary. That’s how…

The Accrescent (22:30.08)
Mm-hmm.

Rae Alexandra Enos (22:39.193)
We start to take those mini actions after we pause. We know that this isn’t aligned anymore. We make a new choice. And every time we make a new choice, it shows our body that we’re safe. But we can’t just tell our body that our mind that at times, it sometimes takes showing the body a new reality and that it’s safe to be there and that we can handle the activation that comes up. And it’s not something we just need to, you know,

The Accrescent (22:55.983)
Mm-hmm.

The Accrescent (23:01.199)
100%.

Rae Alexandra Enos (23:08.385)
to run away from that feeling anymore. So powerful stuff.

The Accrescent (23:11.247)
Can we talk about the difference because somatics of the body, we’re getting in the body. so technically running on the treadmill is being in the body. But how might some of the work you do be different than the maybe exercise that people might think of? And not that there can’t be benefits in that realm, but I do, I think there is some difference in

Rae Alexandra Enos (23:22.167)
Mm-hmm.

The Accrescent (23:38.489)
how might it be a little bit different? Even yoga versus maybe more free somatic movement or somatic attunement, how might it be different from maybe just more stereotypical exercise?

Rae Alexandra Enos (23:44.257)
Mm-hmm.

Rae Alexandra Enos (23:50.058)
Yeah, absolutely. So I think exercise you can do from a place that’s mindful and a place that’s not. I think sometimes like definitely, you know, there was benefits. So I’ll use my own story as an example, there was benefit of being able to be in my body enough as a gymnast that I sort of knew where my toe is pointing in there, all of these things. But, you know, I wasn’t necessarily

very mindful or tapping into what my body was communicating. In fact, maybe in that sport, there was kind of a push to override the signals at times and to hyper stretch and to kind of push ourselves or to do so for the perfect 10. We’re outside of ourself mentally kind of in that. And when we’re in a competitive sport, not that they don’t have benefit, but

The Accrescent (24:30.255)
Totally.

Rae Alexandra Enos (24:47.269)
are we actually very present? Not so often. Now yoga is kind of a step further because there is kind of this intention of being very present in the body and beginning to pay attention, but there’s even, you know, somatic form of yoga takes you further where it’s not just about finding stillness of the mind, but learning to be with the sensations. And now whenever I’m doing somatic forms of movement,

it is really all in with establishing that connection between the mind and body, beginning to understand our emotions on a level of the body where, know, instead of keeping going with the narrative of our mind or I feel this way because where do we feel that in the body? You know, how can we begin to move that? How can we pay attention to, you know, the tension that’s there and begin to

consciously release that. How can we let that anger that’s sitting in your belly have a place to release what movements would feel really good. So we’re really tying in, you know, that experience of the inner world getting honest about how we feel, and then letting our movement sort of be the the vehicle for expressing for healing and for transforming.

The Accrescent (26:12.927)
Mm-hmm.

Rae Alexandra Enos (26:13.247)
So it’s just really, really rooted in the deeper self.

The Accrescent (26:18.507)
Yeah, and to me, think what I hear in that is there’s an intuition and a felt sense and a spontaneity maybe. Whereas when I think of lot of exercise, it’s very structured and rigid. I’m going to run on the treadmill for this, at this pace, for this length of time. Even yoga is a little bit of whether I like it or not. Like here’s the position we’re moving into. So I’m moving into this position.

Rae Alexandra Enos (26:32.567)
Mm-hmm.

The Accrescent (26:45.505)
even a Pilates class, right? It’s, now we’re doing this movement and this movement for this number of reps. So there’s a little bit less spontaneity and felt sense. And that’s so much of what I hear what you’re saying is. And honestly, this is so much a practice of what I bring in with clients in a lot of the internal imagery we do is just what would feel so good. I do somatic work, but through the imagination.

Rae Alexandra Enos (26:55.745)
you

Amen.

Rae Alexandra Enos (27:07.295)
I guess.

The Accrescent (27:10.519)
And then I might send them home to do somatics outside of that. And it’s like, in my mind’s eye, if I could visualize any kind of movement or vocalization, what just feels like it allows this energy to move through me? And that could be imagining, right? Again, because I’m working more internally, that could be imagining breaking plates or climbing a tree. And it really doesn’t need to make sense. It’s all about attuning to the felt.

Rae Alexandra Enos (27:10.529)
and then.

Rae Alexandra Enos (27:25.152)
in this.

Rae Alexandra Enos (27:36.236)
And then.

The Accrescent (27:38.231)
sense and then allowing the spontaneity of it to kind of move through you.

Rae Alexandra Enos (27:39.356)
Mm-hmm.

Rae Alexandra Enos (27:42.638)
Absolutely. And there may be times where I take like a movement pattern or I design something, someone’s trying to get over anger. Okay, let’s put together kind of these movements, but they’re always up for me. I find it to be the most powerful and I always bring it in of this moment of connecting to the intuition and just reminding ourselves that we really do know ourselves best and our bodies are its own best guide. So when we can get out of

trying to do the perfect movement or the perfect exercise routine. One of the first practices I really bring people into is just a routine of asking yourself what would feel good for the body and just doing that, just that. Letting movement be something that can be pleasurable again. Coming into deeper relationship with ourself.

by becoming a friend and a supporter and really listening to what the body is asking for and needs. And often what the body is asking for is better than any movement practice that I could prescribe you. more powerful point is just the space and the permission slip to be able to do that. And no matter how weird it looks, no matter how out there it is. Now there’s definitely movements that I think

can be really helpful whenever you’re trying to, for example, help someone who’s been stuck sort of in a stress response. I definitely have different movements that I come back to. Somatic shaking is one of them. Self-havening practices, rocking, all of these things that we know kind of activates that parasympathetic, that rest and digest state, and can help shift us from those, you know, higher states of activation.

The Accrescent (29:11.469)
Mm-hmm, totally.

Rae Alexandra Enos (29:29.237)
But I think that learning to move intuitively and learning what your body is actually asking for, giving it that space is one of the most powerful practices. And it’s so simple, but so many people have not allowed their bodies to just move without expectation of how it looked or correct form or trying to make it aesthetically pleasing. A lot of people have not tapped into that. And I think it’s…

something that shifts things so quickly and something I absolutely love.

The Accrescent (30:03.093)
Absolutely, yeah. To your point, when it’s new to someone, we do need a template of like, hey, Ray, what are you talking, I don’t even know where to start. And so it’s so helpful to be able to go, let’s do some pillow slams, know, let’s do some paper tears or whatever it might be. And then you give them all the templates or, you know, a number of different templates and then they start to play with.

Rae Alexandra Enos (30:06.633)
One.

Mm-hmm.

Rae Alexandra Enos (30:17.673)
Thank you.

The Accrescent (30:26.987)
yeah, that does feel good. And now I can start to move into a little more spontaneity. So it’s, it’s not that some structure can’t be super helpful and wonderful. And to your point, I think us as practitioners, we do tend to see the patterns of here’s a movement pattern that tends to work really well for this thing that you’re experiencing right now. So I’ll offer that to you, but you now make it your own.

Rae Alexandra Enos (30:35.104)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Rae Alexandra Enos (30:47.825)
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, absolutely.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And yeah, adding your own twist and some of this might not align. Like I always say, you know, some of the things that we do today might feel really bad for your body. Like, please, you know, empowering them just to always know that, their body is the number one guide here. I am just, I’m just a guide. But our bodies have so, so much intelligence.

The Accrescent (31:12.707)
Yeah.

The Accrescent (31:16.525)
I think a really fun question to sit with just because it helps us start to like conceptualize things a little bit more is, and I know this is so nuanced, it’s, you work with us here. But if you had a woman come to you who’s like, I’m really struggling with people pleasing and perfectionism, just where does that, where does it start for you? What might that look like?

Is there sort of a minimum number of sessions? How long are the sessions? I think it’s helpful. Not that this is how it looks for every single person, but here’s a sense of what that might look like to start off with. Here’s some general places I tend to start with clients. Here’s places we might move into.

Rae Alexandra Enos (31:58.959)
Absolutely. So, yeah, I can kind of give you kind of my approach to that because I do tend to work with a lot of people pleasers just because the area that I worked in and I actually work with a lot of former lawyers and I think a lot of, you know, people who find themselves in these high achieving spaces, not always, but at times there is this pattern of sort of

tending to others outside of yourself and having this, having a struggle with boundaries. And I think, you know, coming from a background in big law, it’s almost in that environment, we are really trained that, you know, you’re here to do whatever we say. And, you know, there’s not a lot of boundaries being practiced. You are kind of taught to be on call. But if we do not,

learn these things, it can be a real problem. And I see burnout all the time because we really need to understand where those boundaries lie for us. so getting you know, there is this aspect of, you know, learning and to be with the feeling and to understand our triggers. So there has to be some sort of kind of

mental attention that’s brought to that, to understand when we feel that tendency to kind of self abandon. But what we’re going to do is we’re going to be with those feelings, we’re going to we’re going to dissect, you know, and I have weekly calls, so I do, you know, 60 minute sessions every week, I do do a minimum of 12 weeks, because I’m often it takes a while to kind of dive into someone’s world and to, you know,

The Accrescent (33:42.351)
Yeah.

Rae Alexandra Enos (33:43.513)
pick up, know, parse out those goals and to understand all of the moving parts. But with someone who’s really struggling with people pleasing, starting to understand those patterns of when we feel like we’re abandoning in ourselves, when do we feel resentful, what does that actually feel like and teach them to be with those emotions. And then teach them to, you know, not only be with them, be with that discomfort at times.

but to get to know, okay, what is this feeling that continues to come up? know, say it’s a tightness of the chest or a sinking of the gut whenever, you know, you’re confronted with this triggering situation or this, you know, the request from your boss that you don’t know how to say no to, you just get this feeling in your stomach. What is that actually saying? You know, and often when we break it down as uncomfortable as it is,

The Accrescent (34:33.775)
Hmm.

Rae Alexandra Enos (34:38.538)
It’s saying something that is true and we can let the real self come through. It’ll often say something like, I don’t want to keep doing this. you know, I so deeply want to stand up for myself here. And then it’s a work of, what micro changes we can make this week. know, it may be, you know, I’ve given assignments to clients. Your assignment is to say no.

to this one thing this week. I know, you know it’s coming up. They’re gonna ask you to do this. It’s saying no. And showing our nervous system that we’re safe in doing that. We’ll have all of these tools whenever we are feeling activated, when it feels really tough. Okay, we’re gonna practice this body-based practice. We’re gonna hold our no. We’re gonna sit with this discomfort that comes up.

We might find a way to express that in a different way, but we’re building nervous system capacity to change the way that we’re acting. But we have to understand our triggers. We have to understand where we fall into the same patterns, where we continue to say yes when we mean no, and then show ourselves a new pattern. And that’s all from a body-centered way that I hope I helped to come across, but that’s how you would approach it.

The Accrescent (35:29.731)
Hmm.

The Accrescent (35:58.807)
Yeah. Have you ever had someone who you’re, you’re working to help facilitate their somatic attunement and they’re just like, I don’t feel anything. I can’t, nothing’s coming up and there there’s, they’re not able to attune.

Rae Alexandra Enos (36:09.571)
Mm-mm.

Rae Alexandra Enos (36:14.414)
Absolutely. And I think this is really common for people who have gone through past trauma, especially body based trauma in my experience, who really have a trouble connecting to those felt sensations. And often, that’s a sign to slow everything down. you know, sometimes whenever we get beneath that, it may be that it feels really unsafe to go into the body.

And for me, someone who’s working with more an expansion of capacity, that may be a client that I sort of refer to someone else depending on how triggering I feel that it may be. I want to send someone who has that deeper trauma to unlock to someone who handles that. But if they’re not having, you know, a triggered reaction, really just…

more practice on slowing it all down and just helping yourself to ground into those feelings and to practice feeling, not these more complex emotions, not the people please yourself, like those things can be quite nuanced, but just sensing in general. So it may be, you know, micro movements, it may be, can we feel our fingers wiggling? Can we feel our toes wiggling?

The Accrescent (37:22.734)
rain.

Rae Alexandra Enos (37:30.026)
Okay, can we, know, and moving up the body and doing sort of these active scans to bring actual physical sensation to where it can be hard to feel would be step number one there because before we feel safe in our body and a baseline connector to our body, everything else is just going to be confusing. So it really depends on where the client is. But the first session I ever do in any module,

The Accrescent (37:43.289)
Hmm.

Rae Alexandra Enos (37:59.535)
is sort of a dive into feeling safe in our body, creating a grounding, hopefully accessing feelings of safety and groundedness within the body. And then I can tell if it, from there, where we need to go. It may be that we need to stay there for a while for several sessions. This is not something that can be rushed. So yeah.

The Accrescent (38:18.063)
Hmm.

The Accrescent (38:24.579)
Right. Yeah. I think that’s important to acknowledge because there might be some individuals who are listening to this and starting to try in a tune and they’re just like, I got nothing. Nothing’s coming up for me. And it’s not that something’s wrong with you or you’re just not trying hard enough or your body’s broken. You know, I think that gentle reminder to ourselves is this might be a protective mechanism. I might have kind of shut myself off from the body.

Rae Alexandra Enos (38:30.126)
Okay.

The Accrescent (38:52.685)
because there are things I don’t want to feel. And so to your point, it’s not about strong arming ourself into it. That’s only going to re-traumatize us and probably inflict similar emotional wounds is what we experienced, you know, in the original trauma. So, but it’s about honoring that. And I think even knowing like if I’m having a really hard time attuning to my body, that might just be a protective mechanism. And I need to find someone who’s able to…

Rae Alexandra Enos (38:52.737)
Thank

Rae Alexandra Enos (39:05.667)
Thank

The Accrescent (39:18.039)
Identify that and pace me through that kind of as as you’re talking create safety to tune in not just forcing ourself to go in even though there’s all these kind of alarm bells sounding in the psyche

Rae Alexandra Enos (39:30.094)
Absolutely. And I think what you mentioned is really important for people to mention with somatics like that possibility of re-traumatization. It is important to work with someone that you feel safe with because whenever we do go back into the body and connect that with experiences of the past, there can be some really difficult activating things that come up.

not tiptoeing around that fact because there is an intensity sometimes to the memories that our body stores. And so we always approach things with a process of kind of pendulating into sort of activating moments, not to just diving deep into those traumatic memories right away and

all of this that exists and even in my work, you know, especially I, you know, I’m not really focused on that heavy trauma, but still there are activating memories and we learn to find that safety, that groundedness, those things that make us feel safe to kind of dip our toe in and kind of then go back into some maybe some memory, some body based sensations that might become not be as comfortable and then

to back out, back to safety. So we really wanna approach it in a gentle way as not to reactivate and cause more trauma to our body.

The Accrescent (41:02.307)
Yeah.

The Accrescent (41:06.688)
Yeah. You know, you’re making me think of a client I’m working with who at some point we were like, let’s just start by attuning to more benign sensation. For example, what does it feel like to eat this meal? And can I just pause and go, here’s what it feels like in my jaw. Here’s what it feels like as it, as I swallow this food and

Rae Alexandra Enos (41:21.774)
Mm.

The Accrescent (41:29.879)
Here’s what my stomach feels like and trying to, here’s what the water from the shower feels like on my skin and trying in some of these ways to just bring an attunement to more of these kind of everyday things we might be doing anyways. And sometimes that can be a good starting point for people.

Rae Alexandra Enos (41:47.502)
Absolutely. Yeah, really, really good to start with those neutral neutral places. Stephanie and Green.

The Accrescent (41:54.253)
Yeah. Okay. So many, so many questions I’m excited to get to. I do really want to ask about, you said something that really caught my ear, which is some, I work with people to help them identify what does a yes feel like in their body and what does a no feel like? I would love to hear more about that. How, how do you even coach someone through that? And then as kind of a tangent question to that.

Rae Alexandra Enos (42:10.199)
I know.

The Accrescent (42:20.365)
distinguishing, and this is actually something I feel like I really struggle with, fear and anxiety versus excitement. I think I often feel very triggered by excitement. Like it’s very overstimulating for me. And so I’d love to hear about that too. Like the difference between two of those, they’re both kind of high energy or can be kind of high energy. But first, how do you guide a client into deciphering what an authentic yes versus an authentic no feels like?

Rae Alexandra Enos (42:27.851)
huh.

Rae Alexandra Enos (42:41.518)
Mm-hmm.

Rae Alexandra Enos (42:49.422)
Mm So I often start with baseline of experiences that people have already have of like, things that were a super yes and things that were a super no. So it might look like, okay, you know, identifying what was the last moment you were really excited to say yes to something and kind of going

guiding them to go back into that memory and go back into and then go back into the felt sense of what that was like. And so, you you may be able to identify what, you know, that the excited yes feels like. It may be like your chest opened, your shoulders softened, or I felt, you know, just sort of this buzzy-ness. You know, I felt myself perk up.

It was something I wanted to lean into so you begin to notice those subtle sensations that Were present there, you know, what what was you know, you wanted to go get ready right away Like whatever it was whatever the urge behind that was And then it may be about deciphering okay, well distinct from that, you know Well, what was the last time you said, know, yes, you know what was

there may be a more subtle way that it exists. And it’s so different for each client. I mean, there’s definitely like patterns of like openness with a yes, or like this feeling of like leaning in. Whereas no, kind of causes you to kind of like shrink or shirk away or your stomach kind of drops, but everyone is going to have this different. And so then we identify, well, what is like the big no, like what was like just easy to be like, my gosh, this was asked of me and it was like, not.

And then so like you’re saying, there is so much nuances and so much it takes so much practice. It’s not something that can just happen in one session. And we’re like, I understand how my body reacts. Because like you’re saying, like, excitement and anxiety and like fear and like these things can all activate in different ways. And sometimes it’s like

The Accrescent (44:46.211)
Right.

Rae Alexandra Enos (44:59.822)
I personally believe some of the best things for us is to lean in whenever there is both excitement and fear. Because I think that alongside the things that are of our highest excitement also bring up a lot of fear because we’re going past what we know. And our body is kind of designed and wired to keep us safe and like survival first. And we need to…

The Accrescent (45:20.399)
Mm.

Rae Alexandra Enos (45:27.72)
recognize that because if we want to go beyond, there is going to be fear when we go beyond what we know, because our body always is like, to the unknown, it’s like icky, right. But I think whenever you’re being so intentional, and you’re getting to know, you know what, you know, okay, well, how’s our body reacting, we’re paying attention.

The Accrescent (45:39.353)
Mm-hmm.

Rae Alexandra Enos (45:49.229)
you know, part of me feels like yes, and expanded here, but part of me wants to shrink away. Okay, that’s actually the work. That’s the challenge, right is like, can you lean in whenever fear is present, knowing that this still feels like what you know, I know that I’m walking towards this decision with an intention that this is to expand me that this is something that I really want for myself when I think about my life, you know.

five years down the line, this is in line with, you the growth that I’m looking for. So sometimes it’s okay that, that the yes and the fear is still present and it might be just activating, you know, excitement does always bring up fear, but that’s kind of like a principle is like when it’s towards your highest excitement, then the fear becomes that that’s exactly what we’re building the capacity to hold is how to show our body that it’s safe to

The Accrescent (46:20.397)
Mm-hmm.

The Accrescent (46:39.896)
Yeah.

Rae Alexandra Enos (46:43.371)
Take action when we’re fear and that’s the real courage. It’s not waiting until the fear is not there It’s having the capacity to walk forward while it’s still there

The Accrescent (46:52.793)
Completely. Well, I’ll give you like the quickest example, which is I’m thinking about like, for example, sometimes when I decide on a new project for my business or a new offering or, you know, a new something I’m going to do, I get so excited and then I start working on it and then it sort of turns into this hyperactivity, hyper arousal. Now I’m in this sort of like kind of workaholic go, go, go sort of.

frantic place and so it’s almost like just the the energy of excitement is over stimulating for my body that I don’t know how to be excited and grounded at the same time maybe I get excited and then it leads me into this and now I’m up till 12 a.m. working on this project because I couldn’t stop myself from working on it and not that there maybe is a time and a place to do that but I’ve noticed this as a big big pattern for me where

Rae Alexandra Enos (47:49.87)
Mm-hmm.

The Accrescent (47:50.403)
I think oftentimes things initially start as excitement and then actually become anxiety because I don’t know how to like navigate that heightened flow of energy, you know?

Rae Alexandra Enos (48:02.402)
Mm hmm. Absolutely. And that’s, you know, that’s really interesting and something they, you know, kind of keep paying attention to is like, okay, well, where is this shift happening? Because, you know, sometimes it’s like we get started from genuine excitement, but then sort of we’re operating off of an old pattern of like, I need to do this, or I need to get this done right away or

You know, this needs to like be done perfect or by this certain time. And like, all of a sudden now we’re like operating off of like that old survival pattern or like that anxiety is driving the train and keeping us awake rather than like, we know that we’re excited. And so, you know, sometimes, um, it can be about experience. Like if we know that about their, that about ourself, you know, can we set a boundary of like, at this time, you know, I’m going to.

I’m going to turn this off and your mind might still be awake. It still may be wired. But just the challenge of, can I do an activity to show my body that it’s actually safe to rest before this is all finished and perfect? Can I go into this moment of actively practicing stepping away and being okay with that and seeing, okay, well, if this activation or

you know, does it start to activate the mental thoughts of like, no, what’s going to happen if I stop or like, you know, what is it that’s actually living there? think challenging yourself to do the opposite in that moment and take that intentional pause and that slow down and doing things to kind of signal safety and rest, even if the mind is still kind of running. That could be one way to interrupt that pattern because that sort of land.

The Accrescent (49:54.763)
yeah. Well, what, what you’re making me think of in terms of somatic attunement is I imagine if I were to really tune into that somatically, the initial excitement would probably feel one way in my body. And then when it tips into the anxiety, it probably would start to feel very different and bring in more awareness around that so that when I feel that shift happen, Ooh, okay. It’s time to pause, bring it back over to this space.

Rae Alexandra Enos (49:55.247)
Bye.

The Accrescent (50:24.077)
and then kind of continue working from there. And to that end, I do think some of that pattern, sorry.

Rae Alexandra Enos (50:26.51)
It takes. I was just gonna say like, exactly, like, getting it really like being with the body and somatic and tuning tuning, tuning, tuning really takes like that intentionality of like getting so you know, connected to like what that shift is like and to understanding.

Okay, this is this is genuine excitement, but this is what it feels like when I am now operating from like an anxious state like there may be a tension that shows up it may you know, but it takes time to to being in those situations and then having that mind body connection that that allows you to sort of

be present as that’s arising. And it’s something you know, these things take a while having that level of attunement between mind and body take a while. But once we do see the pattern or the habit, that’s a, you know, that’s a cue that in those moments, that’s exactly when you need to be taking, you know, going into the body. Whenever you notice that the clock is like, you know, it’s 2am. okay. I know that I’m okay.

just to check in, you know, it might not be, but how am I feeling? I, you know, do I have that tension? Is, you know, do I have like this achiness? Am I starting to feel like sort of irritated because it may be that we’re now operating from, you know, that anxious self. And, you know, it takes a while to decipher, but just learning what’s true for you, you know, in moments of activation, that’s why.

The Accrescent (51:43.577)
you

Rae Alexandra Enos (52:06.178)
those are the moments that can be most powerful to tune in somatically, but that doesn’t happen automatically unless we’ve been practicing this, unless dropping into the body becomes kind of second nature, which I really hope to establish for my coaching clients of this way of being that is just rooted in your being that it becomes natural to check in with your body in that moment. yes.

The Accrescent (52:20.303)
Mm-hmm.

The Accrescent (52:31.513)
completely. I just love that because there again, there’s so much communication there and what I want to keep reiterating, especially for so many of us, really any of us, but when we’re stuck in overperforming, overextending, I might like, I do this work. I talk about emotions all day long and I still will have days where on a cognitive conscious level, I’m not having anxious thoughts. I’m kind of like,

Rae Alexandra Enos (52:59.566)
and

The Accrescent (53:00.471)
Life’s good, I’m going through my day. And yet when I attuned to the body, my body is like, Whoa, girl, we need to slow down. And so I think that is what is so important because so many of us, and there’s, think there’s conscious and unconscious protective mechanisms at play, which is I don’t want to let those thoughts into my consciousness. Cause then I’ll have to reckon with them. Then I’ll have to confront the fact that I’m overextending myself. So I’m not, the unconscious isn’t letting those thoughts through.

into consciousness and yet the message might still be coming through from the body. So for people who might feel like they have a really hard time, I don’t, maybe I’m anxious, but this is just kind of how my life is. don’t know. Learning to dialogue with the body will be able to give so much insight, even if you’re not having a bunch of conscious tension. And then likewise, there’s many of us who are also having a ton of conscious tension. So it all kind of aligns a couple last.

Rae Alexandra Enos (53:50.754)
Thanks.

Rae Alexandra Enos (53:55.471)
Yeah, with our, sorry, I was just gonna add one more point, but you know, with like, especially with high achievers, this is exactly the group who kind of, you know, it’s almost like we’re so used to powering through that we will over like it becomes automatic to override the signals. And so it’s like, it becomes normal to function. But there’s sort of these, you know, different things that you can kind of look for, you know, for those of you listening who

The Accrescent (53:59.815)
go ahead.

Rae Alexandra Enos (54:24.078)
that might resonate with or that like, you know, we’re just kind of like on it’s like, is there, you know, any, any chronic tension pain that’s just there that, but it’s unexplainable feeling irritable at times, feeling like you’re the type of person who’s just wired when they’re tired. That’s like a big one of, know, just, you can not slow down. It’s, it is often a signal that your body for some reason does not feel safe slowing down.

If you’re just like the person who thinks that they’re just running, you know, I only need five hours like often, not everyone, all of us need different amounts of rest. But often that is like a big sign. And so paying attention to kind of these signals, it’s not normal to have, you know, just, you know, pension fatigue all day, just like it’s not normal to just feel like wired and like going all of the time. So just wanted to point that out.

The Accrescent (54:54.222)
Hmm.

The Accrescent (54:59.951)
you

The Accrescent (55:18.945)
Mm-hmm. Completely. Completely. I want to ask, I’m going to really try and squeeze as many questions as I can in here. You, you actually, I was on your Instagram looking at some of your different posts and they’re wonderful. And I want to talk about the two way dialogue between the mind and body, body, mind, and how we want to make sure our messages are lining up. Meaning for example,

Rae Alexandra Enos (55:26.412)
Yeah.

The Accrescent (55:45.611)
If I’m working on, say, let’s say someone’s working with me, Leanne on the unconscious roots of their low self-worth and lack of confidence. We want to make sure that our, our, our conscious thoughts, our behaviors are giving our psyche messages of self-worth and confidence. But if we’re working on all, you know, if someone is bringing in all these thoughts of, you know, I’m, I’m worthy, I’m deserving whatever it might be. And yet they’re walking around hunched over.

and like kind of slouched, that physical body posture is giving your psyche a message of low confidence, low self-worth, whatever it might be. And so can we talk about that? How it’s, guess here’s one more layer of it, right? It’s not just about expression and getting clarity. We can use our body to give messages to our overall being and our psyche.

Rae Alexandra Enos (56:42.344)
Mm hmm. Yes. And this is where the body kind of becomes that vehicle for transformation. You know, getting into the body can be where the real alchemy happens. We know that, you know, the brain sends messages to body what what we’re thinking can often be reflected here. But we talk less about the fact that the signals of the body and I believe it’s actually more messages that are going from the body to the brain.

And so what you’re saying here about posture, about the way that we actually are being in our body, which we might not be conscious to, we may have learned to shrink a long time ago and our posture is just here, but you’re absolutely right at sending a message. And so one of the most powerful things that we can do with this work is, once we are conscious of what our baseline is, what our patterns are, how our posture is,

shifting, you know that, I always say, you know, putting on your confidence every day is one of the best things that you can do. Just finding a way to put the shoulders back, to, you know, to bring in, you know, finding, and an exercise I just did with my client today and I often do is, you know, I think about, okay, knowing that I, you know, I may feel one way and I honor that.

But knowing that I can begin to shift things by bringing in something different in my being and my body. you know, there was, I remember this Ted talk, you know, from long ago that was famous. And I can’t remember the woman’s name, but I remember listening to it about power posing, about how, you know, if you can just come into this powerful stance, this powerful pose, it can shift the way that you actually feel, the way that you’re actually talking to yourself.

And so, you know, doing this every day, you know, thinking of, okay, well, how would I like to feel today? I want to feel empowered. Can I find that in my movement? I walk around the room that way? Can I find that in my posture before I walk out the door?

Rae Alexandra Enos (58:50.606)
you know, and just really finding that energy within and that actually is going to do so much work of the actual shifting of the mental and we, we focus a lot and it’s powerful to focus on shifting the mental, but at the same time, shifting the body. Otherwise we’re going in two different directions. So shifting the body can also be a really important component of that.

The Accrescent (59:08.431)
completely.

completely. Yeah, it’s we can use the body to aid in shifting our deeper narratives. And so that at point it’s let’s make sure all the messages we’re giving are aligned. Let’s make sure with my body, I’m giving messages of strength and empowerment as well as with my thoughts and my behaviors and my words, et cetera. How can we make all of those?

Rae Alexandra Enos (59:23.938)
Mm-hmm.

The Accrescent (59:35.859)
send aligned signals and messages to my psyche. So I love that. That was something I really wanted to make sure we touched it on. Okay. Last two questions. One is in your ideal world, what does a somatically kind of inclined lifestyle look like? You know, is this the kind of thing where you’re like, man, ideally people, I’m making up random numbers, but people are doing like an hour of somatic movement once a week or

Rae Alexandra Enos (59:42.734)
and

Rae Alexandra Enos (59:54.391)
Hmm.

The Accrescent (01:00:03.925)
Is this something where it’s like, we should be doing this every day. And here’s a little bit of what that might look like. And also the kind of the difference between, I do think it’s worth acknowledging that anytime you want to start something new, like somatic work, having a practitioner to guide you and give you templates and help you create a safe way of moving through that is always the best place to start. And also feeling powered to, and I can start to do some of this on my own.

Rae Alexandra Enos (01:00:28.472)
Mm.

The Accrescent (01:00:33.071)
is important, but for the ideal person, what would you hope it looked like for someone?

Rae Alexandra Enos (01:00:39.552)
Yeah, so for someone who wants to kind of live in this way that’s semantically in tune, and I really like the word embodied here as well because embodiment for me is like this idea of living in a way that’s rooted in who you are.

I believe having a point of your day, it may look different every single day. I don’t try to give these big habits that take an hour a day, because most of the clients I’m working with, for one, they’re already feeling like I have too much to do. But having a point of check-in and that point of check-in, that point of just asking yourself how you’re doing.

The Accrescent (01:01:13.497)
You

Rae Alexandra Enos (01:01:23.086)
you know, checking in with your body, finding a little bit of movement, 10 to 15 minutes a day, preferably earlier in the day, I think is a really, you know, kind of baseline practice that shifts a lot of, know, no matter what it looks like coming in, saying that I’m going to come into my body for a moment, I’m going to have that dialogue of asking my body how it is, how I can be supportive and just kind of, you know, letting myself move for a few moments.

Now that might not be the perfect practice for everyone, but I think it’s sort of like this base level of, know, no matter what you do, even if you choose, okay, I really need like an hour of power yoga every morning, but you’re still consciously choosing that connection to your, your body. every single day is where that starts. And then beginning to live in a way that connects with the bodily reactions that you go through.

The Accrescent (01:01:52.239)
you

The Accrescent (01:02:06.319)
you

Rae Alexandra Enos (01:02:22.134)
you know, learning to pause in moments that you’re triggered, in moments that you’re activated, learning to be with heavy emotional sensations rather than, you know, living in a way that ignores them, suppresses them, runs away from them in some capacity. So many of us have, you know, habits around kind of getting away from our feelings that we actually learn to be with our feelings as they arise, that we’re befriending them.

The Accrescent (01:02:44.249)
Mmm.

Rae Alexandra Enos (01:02:49.698)
So we use those moments of activation that cause those uncomfortable feelings to rise up within us for whatever reason, that that causes us deeper, to go deeper within ourselves and to get to understand that rather than pushing that aside and trying to live without a deeper connection to that. So it’s really a shift in the way of being and the way that we’re connected to our body, especially in those moments of discomfort. And I think

from there, then using our body to, like you said, this embodiment work of just putting on your confidence every day, of using it to shift how we actually feel. I think that’s kind of like the master level of that you’re not only connected to your body, you’re checking in with it, that you’re able to be with uncomfortable sensations, that you own the story, you can bring that through, you can…

You can own who you are and how you feel. And then with, you know, this, this further level with that information, okay, how can I choose how I want to feel? How can I, you know, let this change my way of being where, you know, I’m, choosing to draw different boundaries here. I’m choosing to make this change in my life and be with the discomfort of that. But all of this is related to

The fact that I know my deeper truth now, I know where my body’s saying yes, I know where it’s saying no, and this is how I’m gonna operate in a way that’s true to myself and my being, rather than the way that so many of us learned living from the shoulds, living from the patterns, living from everything that’s telling us to do whatever it is telling us to do. We’re living in a way that’s rooted in what’s actually true for us. It’s a completely different way of being.

The Accrescent (01:04:43.983)
Yeah. what I want a couple of things I just want to highlight there is it’s so practical. There really are so many ways we can use this in the day to day. know, what I’m kind of immediately thinking of is we want to use the somatic awareness to help us identify the bigger misalignments and what are things I might want to try to work towards shifting or changing or maybe releasing from my life completely. And on the same token when I might have

Rae Alexandra Enos (01:04:44.62)
Hi.

And

And

The Accrescent (01:05:13.313)
A day where it’s like, I feel this in my body. I’m not excited. This was a no, but I’m already in. can’t change anything today. How can I use my body to still send these signals? Right? You guys, some of the listeners can’t see, but I’m like straightening my shoulders. I’m lifting my back up. Kind of lifting my chin up. And when there’s a day where it’s like, I can’t really change anything about today, but I can use my body to send these signals of confidence, empowerment, safety.

That might make a difference today and still having that bigger commitment to myself of, I’m going to work on changing some of the things that need to long-term. But beyond that, it’s also there’s the context of I might want to work, use this to heal and change certain patterns. But what I think I really want the audience to be left with is it’s not like our message here. I don’t think at all Ray is.

Rae Alexandra Enos (01:05:53.889)
and

The Accrescent (01:06:08.915)
And once you’re, you know, if you’re no longer a perfectionist or you’re no longer a people pleaser, great. We don’t need to do somatic stuff anymore. That’s not it at all. There’s, there’s an element of, might be using this really intentionally to shift and expand specific things. But beyond that, it’s a practice in my opinion of being in relationship with yourself.

Rae Alexandra Enos (01:06:15.374)
Thank

The Accrescent (01:06:33.375)
And the essence of my work is really, think, guiding people back into relationship. And the body is a part of that that we cannot separate.

Rae Alexandra Enos (01:06:44.622)
Mm I identify with that was so much. It’s really, you know, I consider myself a guide to bring people back to that connection with the self that relationship, and just what it means to live in relationship to the self. It’s not something that’s just a season of our life. These are this is a way of being and a shift that happens in our way of being that

continues throughout our life and it’s also a lifelong practice. It’s something that we can go even deeper and deeper into and as I continue to strengthen my own connection between my mind and body, it’s almost it’s like shifted like second nature the you know, I remember when I first started like meditating it would be impossible to not be in my thoughts like it really was but you know over time and it gets only more

Only better with time as we’re practicing this way of being and understanding the reason behind why we’re doing it and, you know, taking this time to really get to understand our inner world, our inner landscape, our body, and, you know, that relationship with our body, the signals it’s sending us, you know, it just shifts the way that we operate in the world.

you know, we stop being, you know, we stop being so closed off to, know, what, what we actually want, like why we’re actually here and those the signals of truth only get louder and louder. And that we’re able to hear what it is, you know, that we actually need. And I think whenever you’re thinking of living this life that’s

you know, that’s authentic, that feels like you like these things that we all want, we all want this life that feels fulfilling, that feels like us, that feels like breathing. We can’t think about designing that without a relationship to yourself, because you could model off of anyone else all that you want. But unless it’s actually true to you, and you know what that means, and you connected to that, and you know why it is that you do what you do. We can’t we can’t approach that.

Rae Alexandra Enos (01:08:55.724)
you know, deeper level of our life. And I think it’s just a beautiful lifelong journey. And one that we carry with us from the, you know, the day that we start going within and opening up and just seeing what’s there, it begins to shift to the way that we are in our life.

The Accrescent (01:09:11.087)
I love that. It’s so beautiful. I want to close with a question from one of my healing alchemy members that was submitted earlier today for you. she asked is restricted movement or pain in specific joints associated with specific emotions? Meaning, you, do you tend to see patterns with like, for example, my hips are super tight.

Rae Alexandra Enos (01:09:31.031)
Hmm.

The Accrescent (01:09:37.389)
or I have a lot of chronic hip pain, are there any patterns you see or sort of, yeah, are there patterns you see?

Rae Alexandra Enos (01:09:43.881)
there are certain patterns and I’ll say that, you know, tension and stiffness in general tend like often tends to have this emotional component in the way that I see things. But I am very, I am apprehensive to say that, it’s always sadness when this isn’t part of your body. And there are, you know, traditions of body mapping and that exists. And there are practitioners that do it.

The Accrescent (01:10:05.924)
Yeah.

Rae Alexandra Enos (01:10:12.354)
But from my experience and my background, it is a question that’s specific to yourself. And now I think that, you know, people talk about, I hear all the time, like, you know, we store our emotions in our hips. And there is, you know,

like our hips, this area, this watery part of our body, this sacral chakra, it is related in yoga, in yoga philosophy to our emotions. And so I do, I think that there is something to that overlap, that hip tightness, and sort of our emotional processing in general, but.

listening to your own body of like, you know, whenever we’re going through this period of grief, okay, well, how is that manifesting? How does our own anger manifest? Where does our sadness manifest? And as we can dive into each of those and take the time with our own emotions, you’ll be able to see where it’s creating patterns in your own body, because I do think that it’s so individual.

based on the experience that we’ve lived, we’ve all lived such different experience. There may be a reason, for some people in childhood, they could have the same exact parent, one person shrinks at something that happened and one person was expanded and emboldened. And so we have to like break down our own patterns. And I really focus on an individual level doing that. So you can look into kind of body mapping there’s certain traditions, but for me,

The Accrescent (01:11:43.321)
Mm-hmm.

Rae Alexandra Enos (01:11:51.854)
I think that it’s nuanced. There may be patterns, but there is definitely nuance to it as well.

The Accrescent (01:11:59.021)
Yeah. And I think what I hear in that is for me, it’s let’s go dialogue with that part. What is this pain? We’re talking about the hips. So let’s use that as the example. What is this pain? this pain in my hip could speak, what would it say? If this pain in my hip wanted to, in your case, maybe do a certain movement, what movement does it want to do? I also in depth psychology, we’re so about metaphors. So it might be like,

Rae Alexandra Enos (01:12:05.858)
Yeah, exactly.

The Accrescent (01:12:26.751)
What is this pain in my hip preventing me from doing? It’s preventing me from walking. Okay. How could we bring the metaphor of that in? Where, where in life do I feel like I’m not able to walk through? You know, so that’s, that’s all the different ways we might go into relationship with that somatic sensation, that somatic symptom to see what some communication in it might be.

Rae Alexandra Enos (01:12:31.127)
and

Rae Alexandra Enos (01:12:41.154)
Mm-hmm.

Rae Alexandra Enos (01:12:47.566)
Thanks.

Mm.

Exactly. And that’s a, you know, kind of a big part of, you know, the practices that I do is, you know, when there is that chronic pain, whenever there is some sort of tension, we do exactly what you said. It’s really a dialogue practice. First, asking how it wants to move. What’s a way that we can bring relief there, getting to know it a little bit deeper, but asking what is the deeper message it may be trying to send if it could say something, you know, what, you know,

Just starting to under uncover that and I think you know our intuition I’ve been amazed sometimes in dialoguing with my clients of what actually comes through when we get still enough to have that Conversation so it’s something that you can do, you know on your own if you’re listening out there You know, there’s something you know, just get a little bit curious, you know Settle into it for a minute. Let yourself feel it. But ask is there

Is there something that this is trying to tell me? What would that be? And trusting, know, trusting your intuition and yourself as those things come up. So, yeah.

The Accrescent (01:14:01.369)
Thank you so much. This was fantastic. I’ll make sure it’s linked in the show notes when the episode goes live, but just also for the audience listening, where can people find you? If they want to learn more, what are some different ways they can work with you?

Rae Alexandra Enos (01:14:15.925)
Yeah, absolutely. So my business and my website is embodied eSomatics. So that’s www.embodiedesomatics.com. That’s where you’ll find all of my offers. I am taking on one on one clients for somatic coaching and also have a group

program that meets Tuesdays and Thursdays at 2 p.m. Hawaii time called Movement Alchemy. And it’s like a movement based somatic group session. I also offer private retreats here in the Big Island, Hawaii. That’s a new offering I’m really excited about to be able to offer more in-person experiences for my community and actually bring you to this beautiful island I happen to be lucky enough to live on.

with my husband. those are the ways to work with me. I would also love if you followed me on social media on Instagram. I’m rae.alexandra.embodied. So that’s rae.alexandra.embodied. And the same on TikTok. So that’s how you can follow me on socials. And I love to share some insights and tips there all the time as well.

The Accrescent (01:15:32.633)
Yeah, I love it. Like I said, we’ll make sure it’s all linked too so people can find it really easily. Well, Rae, thank you so much. This was fantastic. And I feel like we really got to break down Somatics in a way that I haven’t on the podcast yet. So I’m super, super excited for beyond the memberships, the rest of the audience to get to hear this conversation.

Rae Alexandra Enos (01:15:37.645)
Perfect.

Rae Alexandra Enos (01:15:52.522)
Yeah, same here. Thank you so much. This was a joy. I realized just speaking about it. my gosh, I love this even more. So what a blessing to be here and yeah, just to meet you and learn more about your work as well.

The Accrescent (01:15:59.887)
Totally.