The following steps are critical to coming into a healthier relationship with the body:

1. Break down the patriarchal conditioning around what a woman’s body is. Conditioning that says women’s bodies are dirty, not to be trusted, sexual objects, and reproductive vessels. (And that her true worth is wrapped up in performing these roles.) It’s so important to liberate yourself from a societal narrative and legacy that has been unwilling to revere women’s wisdom and stories. A narrative that taught us that all the wisdom lay beyond us. In the men, in the mind, in the public institutions to which we had no access.
2. Make peace with your body. Step toward it as you’d step toward a dear friend. With compassion and love. With kindness and empathy. As the mind starts to rein down judgment and criticism, make a conscious decision to change the channel. We are all in the habit of giving more credence to the messages of the mind than those of the body. But that habit is based on choice and you are always capable of making a different choice.
3. Learn to listen to your body. The body isn’t loud like the mind. It doesn’t communicate in the same way. It reveals itself to you through physical expression. It’s a kinesthetic communicator. To hear it, we need to learn to hear messages that are delivered kinesthetically and develop our somatic intelligence.
4. Understand that the body harbours our emotions. It draws our attention to them and shows us wounds, limitations, and fears that need our attention. Rather than feeling the fear and ‘doing it anyway’. Feel the fear and meet it. Respect its presence in your life. Know that it’s showing up for a reason. Engage with it. Learn from it. Heal the wound and there’ll never be a need to ‘push through’.
5. Release stored emotions. The Visibility Methodology™ I teach our students at the School of Visibility involves the healing power of bearing witness. So often the wounded parts of ourselves simply want to be seen, acknowledged, and feel understood. A simple process that’s so easy to practice each day is to simply take 5 minutes to listen to your body. Notice the physical sensations that are arising. Ask yourself about the emotion associated with that sensation. Once you’ve identified the emotion, simply witness its existence. Let’s say the emotion you identify is fear. You’ll simply say to yourself, ‘I see you’re feeling fear’, ‘I understand you’re feeling fear’, ‘I’m so sorry your experience of fear feels so personal’. That’s it. ‘I see, I understand, I’m so sorry that feels so personal’™.
   Being seen, feeling understood, receiving compassion for how personal the experience feels to you, and receiving the hint that perhaps it doesn’t need to be that way will release so many stored emotions from the body. That’s how we heal ourselves without waiting, without delay, without causing undue disharmony in the body. It’s also how we’re able to set forward into the world; a more integrated self, ready to use our voices and our actions for the benefit of all.