12. Connecting With Your Body Through Spiritual Expansion with Emily Sorenson

In this beautiful episode, we dive deep into how our bodies with our spiritual selves are so deeply interconnected, and how we can cultivate deep self-awareness and self-acceptance through body-led spirituality.

Emily vulnerably shares her journey with self-image and body acceptance as a gymnast - how being in this world impacted her own body and self-image. And how her journey through her own spirituality lead her back home.

If you are ready to reconnect with your own beautiful body by awakening your own spirituality, this episode is for you!

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About Emily
She has been holding space for others’ inner transformation for the past 9+ years facilitating Yoga classes, Mindfulness + Meditation Retreats + Healing Sound Journeys. Stepping into the online coaching space in recent years, she offers private mentoring supporting women to soften into their most loving + expansive selves, to claim their limitless inner freedom, power + worth so they live the most deeply abundant + meaningful relationships + life of their making.

• Follow her on Instagram at @expansionwithemily

About Andi

Hello! I'm Andi and I'm a Voice & Expression Coach, Medium, and Actress, and I love all things spirituality, expansion and being brave. I have been on a really long journey with my body. If my journey has taught me anything it’s that as humans we are incredibly powerful self-healers. When we allow ourselves to be brave and share our stories, we embody our most transformative ally – our beautiful, empowered strength. I am here to help you reclaim your whole creative, connected and confident self so that you can become EVERYTHING that you are here in this life to be. xx

• @andi.matthies on Instagram
• Be a guest on the podcast

Transcript

Welcome to Body Diaries, the podcast that shares our real, raw and unfiltered body stories so that we can finally shake off shame, reconnect with our whole selves and ignite everything that our bodies are capable of.

 I'm your host, Andi Matthies and each week we connect with some of the world's most inspiring body-led humans and explore the energetics that changed their lives. If you've ever felt disconnected from your body, or you are craving to finally unlock your whole experience, this podcast is for you.

Andi M: Hey beautiful human. I'm really excited. This week I sit down with the beautiful Emily Sorensen. Emily is a self mastery and spiritual expansion mentor and a musician. And she offers... Beautiful private mentoring support to women to help them soften into their most loving and expansive selves so that they can really claim that limitless inner freedom and power and worth and start to really step into their full abundance.

In this episode, Emily shares with us her vulnerable journey with her self image and body acceptance, specifically as a gymnast. And she shares with us how being in this world really impacted her own body and self image. I do want to say that Emily does touch on some of her experiences around mental health, and self loathing, so if this feels a bit icky for you at the moment, we do understand.

But it is quite a powerful episode. and if you love it, please don't forget to leave a review so that we can make sure anyone who does need to hear Emily's story can find it. Let's dive in.

Andi: Hello, and welcome back to another episode of Body Diaries. I am really excited. Today I am with Emily Sorensen, who is a self mastery and a Spiritual Expansion Mentor and Musician. Welcome Emily.

Emily: Hey, Andi. Nice to be with you. 

Andi:

Emily: Let's do it.

Andi: Yes, absolutely I guess the first thing really that I'm keen to dive into with you is spirituality in the body. Like, what do you see as the connection between those two really critical things?

Emily: Yeah, it's a, it's a great question and it's a huge, a huge topic. Um, I guess. The first thing I'll say here is that they're so interconnected. There's not, you know, it's, it's not spirituality and the body. It's like it's one and the same. Right? And so in Um, in all of the work that I offer and teach, there's, there's one really key message.

And that is that our body is our greatest portal into our spiritual selves, our limitless selves. That, that part of us that is, you know, timeless and eternal and beyond, I don't even like to say beyond, but you know, that the part of us that's unaffected by our conditioning. right? And the part of us that is connected with everything.

Um, and the body is the portal to experiencing that. It's the greatest, most potent portal to experiencing that. 

Andi: That is fantastic. I love that framing, the portal, the body being the portal. Can you talk to me about your experience of that 

Emily: Yeah, yeah, for sure. Um, so for me, you know, I, we chatted briefly before the show started and you said a lot of your journey has been, you know, reconnecting in with your body, spending a lot of time disconnected and then, you know, that whole journey of reconnecting. So very similar for me. Um, my, my journey has been living outside of my body, living in my mind, living in.

in the mess and the numbness, trying to escape my feelings, not actually realising I was doing that. Um, but then, Coming, you know, I found yoga, um, in my late teens, and that was a modality that really helped me, um, have this experience of not only being embodied and, and connecting to my body, but having these really far out spiritual experiences.

Through doing that, through being with my breath, through, you know, feeling the sensations moment to moment in my body. And it was like, it was a really cool, um, almost like a light bulb moment, I guess, early on in my yoga practice where it was like, like to experience the most profound spiritual things, you know.

I don't need drugs. I don't need plant medicine. I don't need this. I don't need that. I just need to be here in my body. Wow. Like so incredibly magic. And so that is really formed the foundation of, yeah, all the work I do with my clients, you know, all of my clients when they, come to me are experiencing some level of disconnect from their bodies.

And so all of the work that we do is, is really body based and, and allowing them to have that, that deep embodied experience of themselves.

Andi: Embodied experience. That is a foreign concept, particularly for a lot of women who've experienced say trauma or not being taught how to connect with themselves from, from a very young age.So I'm really interested to kind of feel into what does embodiment mean?

Emily: Embodiment to me is, is having the awareness that you are in this body that you are having an experience of life felt through your body and it's a it's a moment to moment changing experience that we can always deepen and always Cultivate Yeah, more depth with, um, and it's, you know, embodiment is life, really, you know, some, something I like to really say is that life absolutely only ever happens here and now, like it's, it's not happening anywhere else and our bodies are always here and now.

So, you know, to really experience the fullness of life, it makes sense to me to, to really feel the, the full terrain and the full, um, you know, the complexities sometimes within our bodies as well.

Andi: I love that. And it's never surprising that yoga is such a key component of that embodiment and that feeling, particularly that tactile feeling, not only of the breath, but of the senses and of the body. How did you find yoga and what did that journey through yoga look like?

Emily: The first yoga class I went to it may, I may have been 15 or 16. I think I went with my mother. It was an Ashtanga yoga class here in Newcastle. It's like a really old wooden hall, like quite cold. And I remember, yeah, going through the set sequence and I was like, Oh yeah, this is kind of cool.

Um, I was still, I think I was still doing gymnastics at that time. I was at the end of my, my gymnastics career. And so for me, it was just, I wasn't really present with it. Yet, but I would I enjoyed that I was really flexible and strong and I was like, yeah, cool. This is easy This is cool. I can do this You know, um, so to begin with it was a bit more of like this superficial.

Yeah, I'm flexy yeah, this kind of ticks my boxes of of doing what my body can do But then it wasn't it wasn't long after that that I started to Um, find a deeper way with it when I started to really experience some problems with my mental health and, um, yeah, the terrible relationship that I had with my body was exposed.

And that's when yoga became such a, such an anchor for me and such a, such a powerful practice to help me navigate through all of those challenges.

Andi: That is a beautiful point I'd love to dive back, like I'd love to dive back into your journey with your body, I know you mentioned that you were a gymnast at a very high level. So what was your, what was your journey with your body like starting from a young age and then moving through to when you started to find some of these things and realize there was a disconnection there.

Emily: Mm, yeah, um, I was a, I was a competitive gymnast for, I actually forget how long. Um, it was quite, quite a real chunk of my childhood, you know, lots of rigorous training sessions and that was all of what I did in my spare time. So I actually have memories from being an eight year old and comparing my body to other girls and making a decision that I wasn't good enough.

Um, especially because I was quite tall for a gymnast. Um, And back then to be a successful gymnast and to make it into like the elite squad, which I didn't do, um, but my best friend did who had a different body type to me, right? Um, so the idea was as a gymnast, you were short and, you know, had, um, like real muscle power because, and, and that was kind of, that helped you more as a gymnast where I was really like, I was, The tallest out of anyone in my age group always, and I was quite lean and thin, and I just remember looking at these other girls who were getting chosen for these squads and these things I, you know, I wanted, I wanted to be on the squad and I had this mindset.

I was so determined. But even, um, One at a training camp down at the Australian Institute of Sport once a coach told me, you know I'll never be a competitive an elite gymnast because of my body and it makes sense, right? but at the same time that I made a story and a belief then that I wasn't good enough and my body was, was awful.

And you know, it should be this and it should look like that. And I hate my height and I hate this about me and I hate my lanky legs, all of those things. And you know, I'm okay with it now, but there've been periods of my life where I, I look back at that little eight year old and I just, I can't even believe that she, you know, she had to go through that.

Andi: It's so, I mean, it's, it's so common to hear these stories of us in these baby ages, I mean, the number eight is such a small number in the, you know, looking back now, yet it is so common for us to have these kind of comments or dreams that we're moving towards, and they're just slashed because of body related things.

How did you move through that? And how did that start to kind of play out and expand into other areas of your life? Cause that is a young, young age to be conditioned to hate your body.

Emily: Yes. So, well, I didn't move through it for a very long time and it did, it played, it wreaked havoc on my life until, early thirties to mid thirties. so yeah, I, again, I have these memories of even as a teenager looking at photos and always being so hyper focused on my body and what I looked like compared to other people.

And just like, I have, yeah, I have these memories of, um, the commentary that was going through my mind back then, I didn't realize it then, um, Just so the heavy judgment and criticism, like as a 13 year old, then a 16 year old, then a 17 year old, and then, you know, once I hit, uh, 17 or 18, I think it started when I figured out, oh, I can restrict my food. Oh, I can exercise. I can like, okay, I can control how I feel about my body from like, you know, running every day, like at high intensity and then not eating dinner. And then, oh, wow. Okay. Now I feel good about my body because it's starting to look the way that I think it should do. So that, and then that went on for, you know, years and

And then there was another part to this, which, um, you know, I'm sure people listening, there would be so many people that can relate to this and that I don't feel is spoken about enough is I went on the other swing of like over eating. So I learned as well in, I think I was 19. where I really developed this habit, eating and particularly overeating, like making myself feel really full to create a sense of safety. And, you know, to create a sense of feeling okay in the world. Um, and so then that went on for years and years and years, um, until I, you know, arrived at a place where I, I, I started to develop a lot of self awareness and started to see how what I was doing, you know, wasn't what I wanted to be doing.

Andi: It's really interesting that you talk about the, um the overeating to create a sense of safety. I know, um, there's a lot of episodes that we have on Body Diaries that talk about

this need to create this sense of safety. And I'm really interested from your perspective, like what was it about the eating that felt like you were in control or that you were safe?

Emily: mm. Yeah, good question. It was, it was the familiarity of it, right? And also, if I look to my parents, it's something that I saw my mother do, you know? I saw her reach for food. To cope with her emotions at times and so I think I learned that through that um, and then it just started to feel familiar, right? And especially, and this didn't click for a really long time though, it wasn't just that the food was comforting me, it was that the feeling of being full. Right? Started to become this sense of, like, groundedness, almost? Or, yeah, like, just familiar. Mm,

Andi: And it's, it's really interesting that you say that I, I think about my, um, my history with that binge eating that overeating and that sense of fullness. And it's almost like when you live so numb and disconnected from sensation and from that feeling of the physical senses of the body, feeling, having that distended stomach and feeling stuff to your full is like, I'm feeling, and this is comforting.

So I a hundred percent understand exactly what you're saying.

Yeah, such a big, such a big one. And so you kind of mentioned early on about finding spirituality being the turning point of some of these things. 

What was that journey and how did that kind of start to turn some of these things for you?

Emily: so I'd been practicing yoga for quite some time and I'd gotten really into a meditation practice. I really clicked with just sitting in silence. Um, I loved it. And Thank you So I'd, I'd kind of started experiencing, you know, having these spiritual experiences of expansion and feeling, you know, at ease and at peace and really connecting back into my body.

But I was still having, you know, these very human moments of, of repeating old patterns especially with the binge eating and the overeating And one of my yoga teacher trainings actually was a really big turning point for, my spiritual understanding, we'll say.

It was an advanced yoga teacher training in Bali and it was a six week intense, um, training program. And the final week, we sat in silence. So we spent um, eight hours a day meditating. The other two hours were practicing asanas, which are yoga poses, and um, pranayama, which is breath work. And There was something about this, like, this really appealed to my, like, competitive gymnast nature of, like, focus and discipline and, you know, like, I remember some of the other teachers totally freaking out at having to do this and I was like, bring it on. It, like, kind of weird, but also, like, that's where I was at. Um, and the first day I sat, I just had this incredible awakening. And this incredible realization into, the limitless aspect of myself. So I was, I was catapulted into the universe and had this, had this very profound experience of oneness that came about simply by feeling my body in the moment.

It was, you know, that, that real, um, deep, profound awakening into realizing that who I was, was not my past was not all of the programming and the conditioned beliefs and the who I think I am to be. Who I actually am is this eternal, expansive, limitless, timeless, formless being having this experience here in, in my body.

And so from that moment on, that then became my, my real anchor point for the transformation that I went through with, with my eating habits and with how I related to my body. And it wasn't until I had those kind of pieces in place, that spiritual piece of understanding that actually the real me, the real me is limitless.

The real me, isn't this body this body is part of it, but the real me is, is the spaciousness that is. So with that came an immense sense of freedom and peace, and especially around all of the trouble I was experiencing, with my relationship to food and my body.

Andi: What an incredible knees on the earth moment, like starting to connect all of this together,

Emily: indeed. That's, that's the perfect term. Knees on the earth moment. It was, it was, it's like, huh. And you know, the relief, like the massive relief that comes with that. It's like, oh, know. 

Andi: Like taking a breath for the first time.

Emily: Yes, yes, indeed.

Andi: Well, this might be a perfect point to dive into your diary entry? 

Emily: Let's do it.

 so this was back in 2019, I believe. I had just decided to move out of the place I was living in and head over to New Zealand and spend some time living in a Buddhist community. And so I had a transition period where I was staying at my parents' house. couple of weeks. it was really interesting because staying with them brought up, you know, a lot of, a lot of stuff from, from, uh, my teen years and from early adulthood around food and around my body.

And I was kind of at this point, you know, this is post awakening that I spoke about on the yoga teacher training. And so I was, You know, developing this real awareness around who I was and who I wanted to be and, um, the role that spirituality played in my life. And yet I was still catching myself just feeling really uncomfortable in my body.

And I remember, like, there was one moment where I looked in the mirror and I was just like, really? Are we here again? Like, I don't like what I see. I don't like what I feel. Like, when is, like, I thought I was past this. You know, I've done all this, I've done all this unraveling and I really thought I was past this.

So that's, that's kind of where I was. And then, um, this is what I wrote in my journal, um, at that point in time. It was a Wednesday, and I've, I've noted that it was day 21 of my cycle. I remember this was around the time when I started, uh, really taking notice of, of my menstrual cycle and how things played out there. And I wrote, what's here for me? Self loathing, frustration with my body, wanting to disconnect, resistance to trying to love myself and getting more frustrated with this, an old belief that I'm not worthy of love unless I look a certain way. Also noticing how I'm fault finding in others, viewing them the same way as myself at the moment, and this is really not serving me. Can I allow all of this? Can I just accept this is what's here? What do I need right now? Extra love, affirmation, connection, and support today. I am love, I am worthy of love regardless of how I look, and I love myself with all that is here today.

Andi: Oh, Emily, what an incredible diary entry. I love the level of self awareness that you have there, but I also love how you've turned it as well. And you're like, right, this is what I need. This is my affirmation, like incredible. Like sometimes I look back through my diary entries and I'm like, Ooh, that was heavy, but I love how you kind of served yourself,

Emily: I've got, I've got lots of those too, don't worry.

Yeah, and look, I um, I chose that piece because it was a real, it was that real turning point where I was, I was really I had the essence of wanting to be on my side, like cheering myself on, you know, I was just in that gray area still of like, Oh, am I doing it?

Oh, can I do it? This back and forth of, Oh my God, are we really here again? But at the core, there was that wanting to really support myself through it. And the key piece though, in there, and I, I love this about remembering back to this time because what I've written there is just such a key piece that's unlocked so much within me and that I still, you know, use with all my clients now is what is here.

And can I just allow this and accept it as it is? Right? 

Like, game changing. As soon as I started, you know, letting the frustration be there, letting the self loathing be there, allowing myself to really feel the depths of those things without placing any meaning on them. That's when everything changed.

Andi: I love that. I know for so long, up until I started adopting a similar practice to that, it was always this rush to kind of like feel, process, release. 

Emily: Yeah, that's such a great point um, and I see that a lot in, in the kind of the healing world. It's like, quick, let's, yeah, let's clear, let's clear this stuff. It's like, well, actually, let's just experience what we're experiencing, right? 

Andi: Yeah I agree! And it's really interesting that you've brought up that feeling of: I'm here again. Like, I can't believe I'm here again. 

Emily: Yeah, the heaviness is I'm here again and the, the freedom and the transformation is, and that's okay. Um, My spiritual practice had informed that, right?

The foundation of sitting in meditation and allowing the experience to be exactly as it is, allowed me to translate that over into an experience of, okay, I'm, I'm feeling this deep shame in my body, I'm feeling this, and that's okay, right? That's just, that's just the experience I'm having right now.

That's okay.

Andi: And I remember, um, a long time ago when I first started on my journey, simple things like, you know, these feelings, we want to acknowledge them as the clouds in the sky, like the clouds are here, it's raining. It's a rainy day, but they're not going to be here forever.

It's not going to be an endless, infinite rainy day. But to acknowledge that it's raining and know how to work with that was really powerful. And I thought such a simple analogy, but so powerful. And I remember going through really dark periods and, and recalling images like that and being like, okay, it's raining.

I'm cool. I'm just gonna get a raincoat.

Emily: Get the umbrella, get the raincoat.

Andi: It's okay. Exactly.

Emily: Yeah.

Andi: So such a beautiful, thing to be able to sit in it and be okay with it, 

What are the components that you lean on to be able to start enabling that transformation?

Emily: Um, so All of the work I offer is, is really body-based, so I'm always guiding my clients to experience themselves through the lens of their body rather than through the lens of their mind. That's a massive one. Um, through the, through the felt sense of the moment.

 Just coming back to this moment, the simplicity and the depth of this moment. 

Um, usually for people to get into a place where they feel really empowered through any challenges, it's really helpful to understand their emotions. You know, you, you just gave that analogy then about the, the rain clouds and the different weather being the emotions and it will pass, but to really understand this on an embodied level and to understand that emotions are just sensations. And emotion felt fully just frees itself on its own. Um, so really like there's a lot of emphasis on understanding the, how our emotions work, how our mind works, especially. The, the mind made self, especially the ego that the personal self that likes to make everything about us.

And we do, you know, we do this through lots of repetition. We do a lot of, you know, my sessions are very intuitive and, uh, they, everyone looks different depending on what we're, what we're working with. Um, But there's a lot of repetition about feeling the body now, feeling the breath now, allowing the emotions to come, allowing the emotions to go, softening into the body, softening into the moment.

And then It's, it's usually this really organic process. It's, you know, the, the common feedback from my clients, especially my long term clients, is that the process that we do is just, it's so organic, it just happens. naturally, right? All the stuff just falls away. That's, that's unnecessary. The thinking and the stories and the beliefs, it just kind of naturally falls away when you give more focus to the part of yourself that is already free, already whole, already, you know, is completely limitless and, and eternal.

Andi: I love that, And like you said, that visceral experience in the wisdom that already exists in the physical body, it knows, it knows how to do this. It knows how to release. It knows how to move into that expanded state, but it is the mind that's keeping us kind of manifesting these symptoms and signs and blocks and things in the body, which is shifting that physical experience that we're having in the external world and that intention setting. And then the manifestation, I know you use the law of attraction a lot in your work, particularly with your clients. So I'd love to, you to share that.

 We, we use the Law of Attraction in a really, in a really grounded way, right? 

Emily: And so the way that I use Law of Attraction is by encouraging, people to understand the terrain of their body, right? And that they are always drawing towards them what they are feeling and believing to be true and what you believe to be true creates a lot of the time what you feel and and vice versa.

 We are constantly manifesting we are constantly creating our reality Moment to moment so with my clients, we, we work on the, the, the conceptual understanding of that, but more importantly, the embodied understanding of creating our own experience.

 My main advice would be to follow that like, you will be presented with a book or you'll find a podcast or you'll find, you know, someone on Instagram or you'll listen to something that someone says and just pay attention to those when your body starts to light up and when you start to get a ping of interest, that's where you start, you just keep following that, follow, follow, follow, and it all, you know, it all happens in divine timing, it all happens perfectly, right?

Andi: Absolutely. I love that. 

So I guess I'm really excited then to ask you, what does your coaching work look like? How can we connect with you? How can we work with you?

Emily: Mmm. Yes, 

 So for, in the spiritually minded women who are really interested in diving deep into the wisdom of their body

 I do have a range of different ways to work with me. And so the best thing to do would be to connect with me on Instagram and you can find me at @expansionwithemily, send me a message and we can go from there.

Andi: Amazing, Emily. This has been such a delight Thank you for sharing some of those candid moments with us in your diary entry. I am definitely going to continue following you on Instagram, which I have been for a little while now.

And, um, I'm really excited to see what you create next.

Emily: Oh, thank you so much for having me andi. It's been a pleasure.

Andi:

Andi M: This is such a beautiful conversation with Emily. I just love spending time connecting with her today. And I really hope that you were able to find some beautiful golden nuggets in there to help you on your own journey towards spirituality and abundance. If you do feel drawn to connect with Emily, I encourage you to reach out to her on Instagram.

She's at, @ExpansionWithEmily. And of course, if you want to connect with me, you'll find me on Instagram at @andi.matthies.. 

Thank you so much for tuning into today's episode. If you loved listening, please subscribe to the podcast and leave a review because I'd love to give you a shout out. You can find us on Instagram at @bodydiariespodcast.

You can also find me, your host, at @andi.matthies. And if you're feeling ready to share your story on Body Diaries or you have some powerful insights from your own work that you know would help others on their own journeys, fill in the guest application that's in the show notes.

This podcast was recorded in Naam, the traditional lands of the Kulin Nation, to whom I pay my respects to Elders past and present, as well as any other Aboriginal Elders of other communities who may be listening.