The Felt Sense: A New Beginning for Your Body

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Welcome to The Lavish Well—where this week, the revelation is something only your body can tell you.

THE PULSE

This is what matters this week.

Every January, we're handed the same script.
New year. New you. Fresh start.

But what if the beginning you need has nothing to do with turning the calendar page?

What if it's not about becoming someone new, a new year, a new job, a new location? What if it’s about a new relationship with your Self? A different way of enacting your life?

That relationship doesn't live in your thoughts. It lives in sensation.

I'm talking about the felt sense—the embodied knowing that lives in your body before your mind tries to organize it.

The ache in your pelvis when something's true.
The constriction in your throat when it's not.
The heat that rises when something calls to your deepest desire.

This isn't esoteric. This is biology.
Your body receives information faster than your conscious mind.
It knows what's aligned before you can articulate why.

The felt sense isn't just for navigating pain or trauma.
It's the gateway to what lights you up.
What nourishes you. What makes you feel alive.

It tells you when to stay, and when to go. It tells you what's no longer yours to carry. And it reveals your desires—not as fleeting wants, but as living wisdom.

And when you learn to listen to this intelligence—when you stop overriding what you feel in favor of what you think you should do—everything recalibrates.

In today's issue:

• The felt sense decoded—what it is, why it matters, how to trust it

• My decade-long vendetta against my own past (and why I had to surrender it)

• Why "Can you love me through the anxiety?" changed everything

• How the same body that holds your pain also holds your deepest desires

• Practical ways to cultivate this knowing and let it guide your life

• A curated playlist for your own Felt Sense.

A new beginning for your life starts here, in your body. 👇

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THE DEEP TAKE

Where we go deeper—science, story, truth.

I started my healing journey over 15 years ago.
Therapy. Somatic work. Energy healing. EMDR. Ayurveda. Breathwork.

Each one gave me something. Each layer revealed more.

But I was on a mission to fix myself.

I believed that if I just dug deep enough, processed thoroughly enough, understood clearly enough—I could somehow make what happened to me disappear.

And every time something resonated, I was sure:
This is it. This is what will finally break me free.

From the anxiety. From the perfectionism. From the sadness in my bones.

But it just revealed another layer.

Until one day, something shifted.

My felt sense resonated with something more true.
Something that felt like water finding its way into all my metaphorical cracks.
Something that whispered: You don't need fixing.

What happened to me cannot be undone. And I don't need undoing.

What I needed was to feel.

Not to analyze my feelings. Not to process them away. But to be with what my body was holding—without the agenda of making it go away.

The first time I truly let my body speak uninterrupted, I cried.
Deep, heaving sobs.
Time stood still. Like I was suspended in the cosmos.

Like God knew the Universe had to pause for there to be enough space for that amount of sadness to spill out. That much.

And then—in the stillness after—my body told me something my mind never could have articulated.

Not in words. In sensation.

A quiet yes in my chest—this is right.
A soft loosening in my belly—you're safe here.
A breath I didn't know I was holding—you can stop now.

That is the felt sense.

The body's way of knowing before your mind can name it.
The truth that arrives as sensation, not thought.
The wisdom you feel before you understand.

The Science of Sensation

Psychologist Eugene Gendlin discovered that the clients who truly transformed weren't the ones with the best insights.

They were the ones who could feel something murky and unformed in their bodies—and stay with it long enough for wisdom to emerge.

He called it the felt sense: the bodily awareness that holds more truth than our thoughts can organize.

Neuroscience confirms this: Your body receives and integrates information faster than your conscious mind.

A tightness in your jaw. A grounded heaviness in your thighs.
Nausea in your stomach. Constriction in your throat.

These are not distractions. They are transmissions.

The felt sense is not here to be managed. It's here to be trusted.

The Question My Nervous System Asked Me

When I finally stopped excavating trauma like an archaeologist with a vendetta, something unexpected happened.

My nervous system asked me a question.

Not in words. In sensation.

"Can you love me through the anxiety? Can you love the anxiety itself?"

This felt exhilarating and nerve-racking at the same time.

But it felt right. It felt like home in my body.

I had never been so sure of something in my entire life.

My felt sense was not leading me deeper into trauma work.
It was leading me into love.

The fierce, unconditional, devotional kind.

The kind that says: I will not abandon you anymore.
I will not override you. I will listen.

Everything shifted.

But Here's What Surprised Me

When I gave myself permission to just be with what was in my body
without trying to fix it—

I didn't just find my pain. I found my pleasure.

The same body that held decades of anxiety also held deep, unarticulated desires. Longings I'd been too busy fixing myself to notice.

The felt sense that whispered "Can you love me through the anxiety?" also whispered:

"Can you feel what brings you alive?" 
"Can you trust what makes you expand?"

And I realized: The body doesn't distinguish between processing and desiring.

Both require the same skill. The same willingness to feel without judgment.

If you can't feel your joy, you can't follow it.
If you can't sense your desire, you can't honor it.

The Erotic Intelligence of the Body

When I say erotic, I'm not just talking about sex.

I'm talking about the life force itself.

Eros—in its truest meaning—is the creative pulse that animates all of life.
What draws you toward beauty.
What pulls you into full-body presence when you're doing what you love.

Eros lives in sensation.

Women's bodies are designed for this. Not as weakness. As architecture.

Our capacity to feel deeply—to experience waves of sensation,
to surrender to pleasure, to let joy move through us—this isn't frivolous.

It's wisdom.

But we've been taught to fear it.

That kind of stuff can get you into trouble, don't you know?

So we override. We rationalize.
We choose what's "responsible" instead of what makes us feel alive.

The Practice Is the Same

The same practice that helps you sit with anxiety also helps you access joy.
The same skill that allows you to process trauma also allows you to feel desire.

Because it's all the same practice: presence without agenda.

Feeling what's there. Without trying to fix it.

Without needing it to be different.

When you can do that with pain, you can do it with pleasure.
When you can do that with fear, you can do it with desire.

And suddenly, your body becomes not just a site of healing—but a source of revelation.

Your body doesn't need you to understand it. It needs you to feel it.

The warmth in your chest when you're doing work that matters.
The ease in your shoulders when you're with someone who sees you.
The aliveness that pulses when you're creating something true.

These sensations are directional.

Your body knows what nourishes you. What depletes you. What lights you up.

And if you can't feel these signals—if you're so disconnected from your body that you only notice it when something's wrong—you're navigating your life with half the data.

When I started asking my body what it wanted instead of just what was wrong, everything changed.

I started choosing differently. Saying no to what made my stomach clench. Saying yes to what my mind couldn't justify but my body knew was right.

My felt sense became my compass—not just for healing, but for living.

When More Therapy Becomes the Problem

It is possible to over-therapize yourself.
Therapy fatigue is real.

You can understand your patterns.
Name your triggers.
Trace every wound back to its origin.

But if you're still living from your head instead of your body,
you're missing the deepest intelligence available to you.

Feeling is not the same as processing.
Feeling is presence without agenda.

This is where the felt sense becomes revolutionary.

It doesn't require you to understand why you feel what you feel.
It just requires you to be with what's there.

And when you do that consistently, your system begins to trust you.
The hypervigilance softens. The need to control loosens. The chronic bracing releases.

Not because you've healed the past.
But because you've chosen presence in this moment.

IN REAL LIFE

What it actually looks like.

The felt sense is not a theory. It's a practice.
Here's how to begin:

→ The Morning Body Check-In

Before your phone, before coffee, before the day makes its demands:

Place both hands on your body—belly, heart, wherever calls you.

Ask: "What do you feel?" Not think. Feel.

Heat? Tightness? Ease? Expansion? Nausea? Ache? Tingling?
Say it out loud.

Don’t feel like you have to fix it. It’s not right or wrong.
It’s just what is in the moment, and it’s okay. You are okay.

This is your baseline. Your truth before the world gets its say.

→ The Yes/No Body Response

When facing a decision, say the choice out loud. "I'm going to say yes to this."

Notice what happens. Does your breath deepen or constrict?
Does tension rise in your jaw? Does your belly soften or clench?

Then say the opposite. "I'm going to say no to this."

Your clarity is in the contrast.

Your body always knows.

→ The Pleasure Practice

Choose one thing today that brings your body pleasure.

Not as reward. As research.

Silk against your skin.
Something slow and delicious.
Warmth of sun. Music that moves you.

Where does pleasure live in your body? What expands?
Slow down and notice, feel.

Say: Mmmm, this feels good.

You're training your system to recognize aliveness.

→ Anchor in Ritual

Choose one daily act—tea, skincare, walking.

Use it as a moment to drop in. Not to plan. But to feel.
What's here right now? What does this body want?

Ask it, and then listen. Feel. Your body will speak to you.

Presence is where both healing and desire live.

FROM THE WELL

What’s supporting the rhythm.

🎧 “Felt Sense Embodiment” — A Sound Ritual for New Beginnings

There is music that will ground you. Draw you home to yourself. Expand you. Invite you to dance. Awaken your sensual nature. And softly land you in your own knowing.

This is that playlist.

A 48-minute sound journey I curated for nervous system softening and devotional embodiment. It starts in stillness and opens slowly into resonance, rhythm, and return.

Use it for:

• Embodied journaling or tea ritual

• Morning movement or sacred pause

• Post-work decompression

• Meditating that leads to dancing

• Anytime you need to hear your body more clearly

Let this sound ritual become part of your practice. Not background noise—but foreground presence.

🌀 Listen on Spotify

THE LAST WORD

The beginning you've been waiting for doesn't arrive with fireworks or resolutions.

It arrives with sensation. Breath. Presence.

With a whisper in your body that says: This. This is the way.

The felt sense is not just part of you. It is the source of you.
The place where your soul speaks.
The pathway to every truth and every desire you'll ever need.

It will show you what to release and what to reach for.
It will guide you through the pain and toward the pleasure.

Because the same body that holds your trauma also holds your power.

And when you choose to honor this—when you let sensation guide you instead of overriding it—you come home to the most powerful navigation system you'll ever know.

This is not about perfection. It's about permission.

Permission to trust what you feel.
Permission to choose from your body.
Permission to follow your desire—unapologetically, devotedly, fiercely.

Begin here. Begin now. Begin again.

Not with a plan. With presence.
Not with your head. With your body.

That's the shift. That's the medicine.

Until next week…

Be well. Be fierce. Be lavish.