Understanding the Map You were Born With
The Wrong Map
I developed and have taught an Embodied Intuition workshop since 2020. And I was teaching the wrong thing.
Embodied intuition and somatic understanding is incredibly important. In fact, I believe it’s the future of the human race. Reconnecting with our bodies is literally what will save the world.
But until this winter, I was blind: I was thinking about and teaching from within the construct of capitalism, underscored by patriarchal and white supremacist narratives of intellectual dominance over felt sense. At least by the last time I taught the workshop, I’d incorporated asking our bodies for consent to scan and engage in conversation first, but I still led with brain-over-body toward a predetermined end. I characterized our bodies as tools, as dashboards with information to feed into the algorithm of our brains. Intuition became a muscle to train and optimize. The body provided data, something for me to extract information from. Meditation was a productivity hack.
That’s extraction. That’s accumulation. The body as resource. As fuel. Power for your Self, but not necessarily a relationship with the body.
I was teaching a better way to extract.
No wonder I was burned out and my body revolted.
What would it look like if we approached embodied intuition from a post-capitalist perspective? What might it look like to be in relation to our bodies in a way that fully respected our bodies’ autonomy? From a place of reciprocity instead of extraction. How might we come into understanding of ourselves and our communities in a different way? How might we change our actions if we understand not only our bodies as equal, not submissive, but also the bodies of our communities? Of the land itself?
We Stand at the Crossroads
The world is holding its collective breath as we await the change we can feel is coming. So many people are looking for guidance on the way forward, a map to help orient us in a destabilizing time.
What if you already have the map?
What if, by learning the language of the map, you can begin to repair harm? Begin to repair relationships? In real time, without waiting for anyone else.
The most important relationship of your life is with yourself.
And when we begin to heal our relationship with ourself, we will begin to heal our relationships with our families, our friends, our communities, our lives, our ancestors and descendants. It’s a powerful ripple effect, one I’m experiencing as I begin to trust where my body takes me.
Reading the Map is a Post-Capitalist Act
When was the last time you actually listened to your body? When it told you to rest, to eat, to talk to somebody. I’m willing to bet there have already been a thousand different prompts from your body today that you have received — and ignored.
It really can start today, right now. Take a moment; what do you feel in your body right now? Are you in pain somewhere, is your belly rumbling, can you feel a tight muscle in your back? Tuning into these mundane feelings is the start of listening to your body. You don’t have to do anything with the information; the practice of listening is the point. The more you practice, the easier it will become for you to understand what your body is telling you.
I recommend daily body scans each morning. Here’s a quick, revised version of the embodiment practice I teach. Notice that there is no goal. If your body says no, that’s the end. That’s radical.
- Ground and center in your favorite way.
- Ask your Body for consent: “Can I scan you today?” If you sense a “no” anywhere in your body, immediately stop. That’s the end of your practice for that day. DO NOT CONTINUE.
- If the answer was yes, start at the top of your head, and work your way down your body.
- What do you sense? Feel? See? Hear? Taste?
- What colors? Temperatures? Shapes? Sizes?
- What muscles are tight? What hurts? What feels great?
- Don’t worry about analyzing it.
- Don’t worry about whether it makes sense.
- Just keep going.
- Journal after.
Common Questions
What if I don’t sense anything?
That’s a sensation in and of itself, yes? So note it and keep moving through the scan. Maybe poke at the “nothing” and see what happens. Ask it questions.
What if it’s all black, or it’s a void?
That, too, is a sensation! Your body may not be ready yet to share with you. It may not trust you yet. That’s okay. Note it and keep moving through the scan. Maybe poke at the black or void to see what happens. You may also have a different way of processing information in your brain, a less-visual way. That’s okay too.
What if I can’t move beyond a certain point in my body?
That happens all the time! Some areas are NO-GO zones right now. That’s okay. In fact, that’s really great data to know. Note it and keep moving through the scan.
What if the sensations are really yucky?
Oof, a common reason why folks won’t continue the body scans. Our bodies hold a lot of emotion, and most of our trauma is buried away in our cells. As soon as you realize that a sensation or visual is disturbing you, note what the yuck feels like. Is it tarry? Sticky? Chartreuse?
Check in with your body again: Is it still okay to be doing the scan? Remember: Consent is ongoing and enthusiastic!
Simply the act of observing, of bearing witness to, our Body’s messages is enough to begin to unravel the knots that have kept our intuition under wraps.
Your Body Speaks the Same Language As Your Ancestors
This is the most primal language. It’s sacred. Often we’ll “see” or sense weird colors, shapes, or things. For instance, a former student has a turtle in her knee. Another has a “hippie tree” in her midsection. Sometimes, my head is a candle flame and other times it’s an ice cube.
That’s okay. Go with it. It’s part of the process. Think about it this way: Your Body doesn’t speak in words. It speaks pre-language. The information has to come to you through symbols and archetypes. Do you really have a turtle in your knee? Not literally, no. But turtle-like energy? Absolutely.
This is the language through which the land speaks to us. It sends information to our bodies, and our bodies relay that information to our brains in archetypes that span continents, time, and cultures. These symbols illustrate your map, helping you to determine your course.
Now it’s up to you to understand what that symbolism is and means to you, specifically.
The more often you do a body scan, the quicker you will learn your Body’s language.
The Radical Terrain of the Mundane
Your body’s felt sense bridges the gap between your conscious and unconscious minds. The body is a brain; it thinks. I’ve started referring to it as a bodybrain, a second intelligence that predates the one in your skull. Daily body scans help you tune to your body’s frequencies to begin to understand what it is saying and to develop your intuition, but the magic truly happens in the mundane. When the spiritual and energetic meets the physical.
When you’re in the kitchen, doing dishes and your shoulders and back ache. Will you listen to your body and let yourself rest? Can you prioritize your body’s needs over that of capitalism’s? Can you decenter what the patriarchy demands of you?
Can you prioritize rest or calm or a slower life, even if that means someone might be disappointed in you? Can you hear what your body is asking for and begin to design your life around that?
These aren’t silly questions: They’re the questions of someone trying to feed their family, rest their body, and live by anti-capitalist values inside a dying capitalist world. The real-life, real-time decisions that we need to be prepared to make if we truly want to bring about a change in the world.
Beyond understanding intuition, listening to—and honoring—your body is the work of the revolution.
Global change really does begin with you. You and your body.
Wonderfully, the astrology of this year, and the upcoming years, strongly supports the fall of current empires. The time is ripe for change, ready for it, crying for it. The universe/source/underlying field of energy is ready to support those who are brave enough to stand at the crossroads and say: I know where that path goes, and I don’t want it. Let’s take this fork in the road. Make friends with our bodies, with our emotions and feelings, with our unique energetic signatures.
If this resonates, subscribe. I will always keep all posts free. Paid options are just that — options. If you feel that a monetary exchange is a reciprocal action that is right for you, there are choices to support me monetarily. But it’s not necessary. This Substack is a form of reciprocity that my guides have gently requested in exchange for other support they are providing.
And coming soon, a community that will always remain free to access. (Free in terms of dollars; not free from energetic investment!) I’m working on building out a container for a space that will let folks bring their weird, awkward questions about how the heck we’re supposed to build a new way of being when the old one is terrifyingly nearing extinction. Where you can bring your questions about listening to your body, or decoding what your body is saying. Questions about how to feed, house, and clothe yourself/family in a capitalist structure when you have decidedly anti-capitalist views.
Your body is waiting for you. Are you ready to listen?
Hawth Reiter is a trans husband, dad, artist, writer, and Tarot reader who talks to dead people (and spirits of all kinds).
Claude AI provided suggestions for titles and headers, and provided light editorial guidance. All body copy was written and edited by me—including those pesky-but-beloved em dashes.