The Effective Ways Feminine Embodiment Coaching Can Help You
Andrea de Baat 
A blog post that explains what feminine embodiment coaching is, what benefits it has, and why you should try it.
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In this post, I will share my personal life story, discuss the benefits of embodying your true self, and why this style of coaching is so effective.
My story
So, what the heck is Feminine Embodiment Coaching? I don't blame you for that question. I thought the same when I first heard about it. At that time, I was working as a freelancer for a big startup in the Financial World where all was about numbers, efficiency, and productivity.
Every move I made was monitored because of security reasons. While that was very understandable, it caused me a huge amount of stress and anxiety. I did not feel free.
Maybe you have come across the stereotype that Germans are the masters of efficiency in business? While I am not German - I did spend over 20 years of my life there and stereotype or not - I produced great results in a super-efficient way. However, I was feeling deeply stressed and exhausted.
Many other women were working there, but it truly felt like a very male-dominated business space.
Work was strictly organized within set systems and tied to fixed hours no matter what the outcome of my work was.
Working part-time? No way! For a while, I felt motivated to make a positive impact and prove that working less can lead to more success, better results, and save money. Many colleagues were suffering from severe stress symptoms and burnout, but I soon found out that nobody wanted to hear what I had to say.
I felt like an actor in the Netflix series “Silicon Valley”. While I learned a lot and generally enjoyed wearing many hats, I could not be me AND succeed in this business.
To be successful, I could not be me
To be truly successful I would have needed to abandon some of my core principles, sacrifice my health and bend my values. And this my friend - I have done so many times before - I was no longer willing to do so anymore. While it was a great company in general - it was no longer for me.
So I ended the contract.
It was then that I started to hear about feminine embodiment. About operating in business in a very different way. I heard about women with similar journeys. What I read, instantly resonated with me. I saw the huge potential and how this could be life-changing and help sooo many women.
I had secretly been wanting to become a coach for many years but I never followed through with it because is not everyone becoming a coach nowadays?
I did not want to be one of these people that call themselves a coach and talk all day about making 6 or 7-figures in their business while hardly being able to pay the rent. ;-) it turned me off deeply.
The Inner Conflict
Since I was a teenager, I had been struggling with my emotions. I generally felt that I felt too much. It seemed that everyone else was different from me. For a long time, I felt a like a stranger in this world.
I had suffered many years and tried almost anything I could, to overcome my struggles and suffering. I tried therapy, yoga, meditation, read books, traveled, and followed courses. For a while, it all helped a bit but it did not really solve my issues.
About three years ago I finally had a huge breakthrough and within a year my life changed dramatically, and I finally felt free!
I now had a proven plan, a shortcut, basically, a method that could help so many women. And a big part of that was overcoming the disconnect and starting to reconnect with me.
When someone from my network enthusiastically shared about feminine embodiment coaching, I knew the time was ripe. This was the perfect tool to combine my personal experience with a set of powerful tools that were designed to support women reconnect with themselves.
And it seemed I also finally found a new way to build a business that resonated so much with what is true to me, and all I stand for as a woman. I found my passion and purpose.
I could make a positive difference in the world. My so-called "weaknesses" were a strength. Coaching women, with all my emotions, power, and wisdom without feeling like I am selling my soul.
What is a Feminine Embodiment Coach?
Coaching is a common term that most have heard of - and some are a bit tired off ;-).
Coaching is a partnership with a client in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their potential.
It is usually a process where we are very much in our heads. We set a goal, make a plan, and define action steps. It is very focused on moving towards success in the fastest way possible, but often lacking sufficient depth.
Feminine embodiment coaching uses a very different approach. This style of coaching focuses on depth-first and direction later. It lets the body lead.
By inhabiting the full spectrum of feelings, sensations, emotions & sensual aliveness in your body, and noticing all that is present in regards to the issue we are experiencing or the goal we want to achieve. We use the body's wisdom and obtain a greater understanding of all that is present inside of us.
A Feminine Embodiment Coach uses the effective tools of Embodiment and creates a safe space for you the explore, feel and connect first, and help and support you move forward afterward with ease and flow.
What is Embodiment?
Do you ever feel like your body is a stranger to you? Like it's just one more thing on the list of things that don't make sense in your head. One more thing to lug around, to keep up with, and to worry about?
There are so many expectations for how we should look, what our bodies should be capable of doing, how they should react—it can all be exhausting.
The practice of embodiment helps us develop a stronger relationship with our bodies by acknowledging them as something that belongs to us.
We can learn to embody discomfort and find expression for it. Embodiment helps us to get a great understanding of all that is alive inside of us and improve our self-compassion.
Embodiment is inhabiting self. It is given our essence, our "Higher Self" space to fully occupy our body and soul. To let this light shine within our body, we need to be sensitive to be able to "hear and feel" our inner voice. In today's loud world this can be a real challenge.
In Embodiment we work with 4 Pillars: Awareness, Breath, Movement, and Sound. These are the tools we aid our sensitivity and experience of the felt senses.
This work is so effective because we can know something with our brain, but we become powerful when we deeply embody something before moving into action.
I regularly post about this topic in my Free Facebook group. In this group you can ask questions, find personal stories, free resources, and information about how I changed my life. I host live masterclasses in the group as well.
The Discipline of the Embodied Arts
Feminine Embodiment is a disciple of the embodied arts. I received my Feminine Embodiment Coaching Certification from the School of the Embodied Arts led by Jenna Ward. I can highly recommend this 6 months group coaching program that facilitates a real transformation.
Besides coach and founder Jenna Ward, it has an amazing teaching team, and l am very happy to still have this richly supportive community of embodied women in my life.
It has been a very important support network. Training alongside other coaches has been a really powerful journey. While completing this professional training, I officially started my journey as a practitioner and coach in January 2021.
What about Femininity?
When we talk about femininity in the context of embodiment, it has nothing to do with gender or sex. The "feminine" refers to the feeling, flowing states that we each have inside us irrespective of our sex and gender identity.
Feminine energy is about the "flow" while masculine energy is more about the "go". While a masculine way of operating is often very linear, a feminine way of operating is cyclic. The feminine is more linked to "creation", while the masculine is to "consciousness".
The feminine is a powerful flow of life force that moves through all things. In this context, the 'feminine' represents the ever-changing, often chaotic, creative forces of life. She is mother nature that gives birth to everything created by the universe.
Women often complain of a disconnect between themselves and their bodies. Femininity can be seen as an art form or outlet which seeks to be expressed. Finding a balance between the feminine and masculine aspects can often be very helpful.
An embodied woman is magnetic and attracts what she wants, instead of chasing after it.
Benefits of Feminine Embodiment Coaching
What is keeping us from moving forward is most of the time not, that we do not know what steps to take - it is most of the time because of the emotions and sensations we feel.
If we have experienced trauma (and those can also be small traumas) our body has most likely adopted some kind of survival strategy to not feel pain. For many people, this is disconnecting.
That is what I have experienced in my own life as well. I thought I truly felt too much but I was running from my feelings and ignoring my body's whispers.
This type of coaching works trauma-informed and on a much deeper level than other types of coaching. Because this new way of coaching addresses and liberates tension by focussing on depth-first, results are long-lasting, and moving forward becomes easier, and success becomes a naturally flowing process.
The Benefits of Embodying your True Self
What are the benefits of embodying your authentic self within society's expectations for women and why is this style of coaching proven to be so effective in teaching people about themselves?
Many women feel numb inside their bodies. We as a society are not in touch with ourselves anymore. We often let ourselves become distracted by social media and the loud world outside us. Because of this, we have a hard time identifying what and how we really feel.
We start to live with a very tiny bandwidth of emotions and feelings and therefore miss out on the huge other available range. We can not choose to not feel the bad stuff but only feel the positive emotions.
When we choose to suppress our pain, we suppress our feelings of joy and pleasure as well. We either feel - or we don’t. We numb ourselves by disconnecting and distractions.
An embodied woman is not afraid to feel. An embodied woman can receive. She uses her body as a roadmap to her choices. She knows herself. She is a human being, not a human doing.
Embodiment is a road to more self-compassion, pleasure, purpose, and better relationships. With yourself and others.
How does it work?
As trauma expert Bessel van der Kolk explains in his book "The Body keeps the score", traumas are stored in our bodies. We call this frozen tension.
We often think we can find all the answers using our heads, but there is so much more wisdom "below the surface" that we are often unaware of.
Our bodies can be honest in a way our minds cannot
Nikki Tajiri
Our bodies are like a giant warehouse of past experiences and emotions. Many of which were not consciously aware of. In Feminine Embodiment, we use a wide range of tools. One of these tools, which is freakin’ powerful, helps clients to liberate frozen tension.
I frequently see huge shifts after these "Liberations" in my clients. It is like you have been driving your car with the brakes on. When these brakes are finally released, you almost “fly” forward.
Embodiment coaching offers clear guidance to discover what feels true to you. As an embodiment coach, I create a safe space for you to focus on all that is alive in you in greater depth. And some of the insights your body will help you to discover, might come as a real surprise to you!
Who can benefit from this type of coaching
All women can benefit from this type of coaching. And to be honest: men could benefit from this type of support as well!
But this type of coaching is especially helpful for women that feel that they:
- are very much stuck in their head and tend to think and overthink a lot
- are looking for answers outside themselves instead of tuning in to live their own purpose
- feel disconnected, and often feel unsure of what they want or need
- have difficulties making decisions
- know that they avoid uncomfortable emotions
- tend to take feedback & others saying "no" personal
- feel uncomfortable to show up in the world as their true self
- often neglect their needs
- suffer from physical issues because they have ignored their body's cues for a long time
- are afraid to speak their truth out of the fear of being rejected
- notice that the push and grind mentally is not working for them and just making them feel exhausted and burned out.
- are curious about another way of operating that feels more natural to women
- have difficulty building healthy relationships.
How to prepare for a session
For you to feel safe, make sure you are in a space where you will be undisturbed and you feel comfortable and safe. Turn off your phone and pause the notifications on your computer.
Since these sessions often go deep, most clients find it useful to have some tissues handy ;-)
Want to explore if this is for you?
Since it might be difficult for you to imagine what this feminine embodiment work would feel like, and since you are very committed - you made it all the way to the bottom of this article ;-) feel free to book a mini-session with me to get a flavor for this type of work. This is also a great opportunity to get your questions answered.
Also feel free to check out what my clients have to say.
The bad news is: this is not for everyone
Before you do, please know that this is not for everyone. It requires some guts to step into your power. You need to be a bit badass and ready to be vulnerable and face your shadows. The good news is, that you don’t need to walk this path alone. I have been there, and I know how hard it is.
This is not for you if you:
- Are looking for a quick fix solution, and you are not ready to put in the work and be vulnerable.
- You are not ready to take 100% responsibility for everything that is in your life at the moment. Your thoughts, your actions, your results. Everything.
- You are not ready to invest in yourself.
- You are not ready to let go of the past.
If you are a woman that desires to become more embodied, that is ready to embark on a journey to transform her life, and my message resonates deeply with you, I invite you to book a call here.
Feel like getting some more inspiration on how you can start to find your happiness and learn to put it first?
>> Click here to download your FREE E-Book.
I also highly recommend to check out the article "Am I good enough?" for further reading.
Have a beautiful day, love!
Keeping reading:
> Recovering from Codependency
> What is my Attachment Style?
> Healthy Boundaries in Relationships.
Categories: feminine embodiment coaching