5 Steps to living in a more soul aligned way in 2024

In the first episode of 2024 we explore 5 strategies to set you up to living in a more soul-aligned way.

Join me as I explore how we can become more integrated with our soul essence by:

• Practicing presence/mindfulness
• Regulating our nervous system
• Having strong boundaries and honouring our needs
• Practicing self-reflection or higher self journalling
• Listening to and acting on our intuitive hits

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Intro and Outro music: Inspiring Morning by Playsound

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Disclaimer: This podcast is intended for educational purposes only. It is not intended to be treated as psychological treatment or to replace the need for psychological treatment.

Transcript

Tatiana: 0:00

Welcome to the Integrated Wisdom Podcast. I am your host, Tatiana Da Silva. Join me as we discuss what it means to live an integrated life and explore ways for you to create a life filled with greater meaning, peace, and connection by integrating the wisdom of spirituality, psychology, Neuroscience, Epigenetics and Energy Psychology I hope to empower you to create deeper and more loving connections with yourself and others, whilst also paving the way for humanity at large to be reimagined and inspired to become the very best version of itself. Hello, and welcome to another episode. Of the integrated wisdom podcast, the very first episode of the year. Welcome to 2024. I hope all of you have had a lovely, nourishing, restful festive season and that so far, and we're only a couple of days into the year, but so far you've already started to have. A very promising 2024. I'm so grateful that you're all joining me. Yet again. This episode. So, I don't know about you, but for me, The beginning of every year. is an opportunity to just really think about how I want. Then the following 12 months to, to proceed. And so. I wanted today. To really start talking about. Some. Targeted ways in which you can start. To create. Oh, to set yourself up to have a year in 2024. Where you are more soul aligned, you are living from your soul. So today's episode is going to be a high level. Of what are some really key. Things that you can do. If you wanted to leave a soul aligned here. It's 2024 was going to be the year. Where you were. Going to work towards. Being more integrated. Really harnessing your soul essence and leading from that place. What are some of the things that you can start doing? That's going to set you up to be able to do that really effectively. And so I'll go through some. Some key strategies, five to being, to be exact. And today I'm going to keep it really high level. I'm just going to introduce the concepts to you. And then I will be exploring these different strategies in more depth. in subsequent episodes as we go on through the year. So, when you think about soul aligned living. There are some things that we want to be doing. That are going to allow ourselves to really access and integrate that soul wisdom. If you recall in previous episodes where I've spoken about. The fact that we have these three different layers, right? We have the soul layer. We have the mental, emotional layer. To be bored and I get that. Those are two different ways. And then there is the physical layer. So the way that our body works. And we exist and operate on all these levels. But often they don't communicate very effectively with each other for various reasons. A lot of it has to do with the way that our modern life is, um, how it distracts us. And disconnects us in many ways. Some of it has to do with traumas that we've experienced and programming. That we've had. We've adopted. From adverse situations earlier in life. And. It tends to be the case that as we go through life, These different facets of ourselves. Stay. Relatively disconnected. But there are things that you can do. To start to integrate that. And so there is this really. Strong and tangible alignment. Between your soul essence, your mental. Emotional self and your physical self. And they all talk to each other. So that's what I wanted to talk about today. When, one of the first things that you can do to start this process of really harnessing your soul. Really allowing. The different layers of you. To connect with each other. It is where you started to harness. The skill of presence or mindfulness as it's most often spoken about. When we're mindful when we're present in the moment. We're engaged with the things that are happening around us, with the people that are around us. We're starting to create this space. For connection. This space for greater insight into what's going on on those other layers. Right. It's like turning down the outside noise. The external. Sounds. So that you can really hone in on what's actually there. Because often, particularly our, our emotions and. In some aspects. Our thoughts as well. They can be really hard sometimes for us to connect with the more disconnected and mindless we are. The harder it is for us to be aware of what's going on on that level. And it's not uncommon for me, for example. To see clients in a therapeutic context. Where they're so used to using distraction as a way of self-soothing. As a way of managing their discomfort. That they had not even aware of the inner dialogue that they have, that's influencing how they feel. In some cases they're not even aware of the feeling itself. They show up to, to therapy. Because they're not sleeping well, and they're not sure why, or, you know, they start having panic attacks and they don't understand why. And it's not until we start really training them. To create that space for connection, for observing that inner landscape that they start to understand, or actually. There is this. Like myriad of self-critical thoughts or fearful thoughts, or really uncomfortable feelings that are there, but that they're often disconnected from.'cause they're just going through life in a mindless state. In a disconnected, distracted state. And so the first step in order to start integrating some of this and start to access. Your emotional and mental. But most importantly, your soul essence levels. It's really to start to create this space of stillness. So. That first strategy is always going to be mindfulness and being present. Practicing that. On a daily basis. And I know that that can be very, very hard. So one of the first things that you might be. You might want to start doing. It's a grounding exercise that we often set for people. In a clinical context. Which starts to introduce this concept of mindfulness in a way that doesn't feel too. Laborious too boring. You know, a lot of the time people associated with sitting still and just focusing on their breath. And that's definitely a very useful strategy, but for some people, particularly if they've been so. Conditioned to be disconnected and distracted. That can be very, very challenging. So one of the easiest ways to start to practice mindfulness, introduce it to your daily practice. Is to use your senses to connect with the environment. And it's as simple as noticing things that you see in the environment around you noticing sounds that you hear. Noticing sensations that you feel on your skin. Those are some ways, um, you can use other senses too. You can use your tastes buds. your sense of smell. But often in most contexts, the senses that are going to be easiest to use, uh, your vision and your, um, auditory sense. So listening for sounds, looking for things. Or like observing. Objects and shapes and colors in the environment. But using your sense, harnessing your senses in that way. Is one of the easiest and most effective ways to start to exercise the mindfulness muscle. And it is something that you need to practice every day to become more proficient with it. So I would encourage you to start testing that out every day, taking a minute or two. So carving out some time in your day where you just sit and notice what's around you. Listen for sounds, notice things that you can see if you're focusing on a particular object, really honing in on the detail. You might surprise yourself to discover things you hadn't even observed were in there before, you know, different like little lines and different shades. Yeah. The more you focus on these things, It's like, you're seeing it for the first time, even though it's something that you've been observing. Virtually every day. So the first strategy to start living more soul aligned has to be presence and mindfulness. The second one is a think, a little bit trickier to do. But it starts to pave the way for that mind-body integration. And that's working with our nervous system to regulate it and put your back in a state. Of calm, what we call a rest and digest state. Or a parasympathetic nervous system state. So. Normally, this is the state we should be in. We should be able to be relaxed and at ease all our bodily functions, free to F to do what they need to do. Because we're not attending to any immediate threats. But when we are confronted with a situation that our nervous system perceives as threatening. What then happens is we're kicked into our sympathetic nervous system. Which is most often talked about as the fight and flight mechanism. This is a hardwired survival mechanism that we have. We all have that. And it exists for a good reason, right? It's there to help us. Run away from a, from a threat, if we need to or fight. Uh, thread, if we need to, if we ever find ourselves in a situation where that's required. And in modern times. The threats that we used to respond to don't exist anymore. Right. We're not walking around, trying to Dodge. Saber tooth tigers or, you know, animals in the wild. But modern life can still be registered in our nervous system. Very much as threatening. So if we're rushing and we're feeling stressed about something like we're rushing in traffic, or we're worried about a meeting that we have coming up, our nervous system is going to register that as a threat. And so it's going to put us into that fight/ flight state. Okay. Sometimes when we're stuck in this situation where we feel quite helpless. Or we've been exposed to a lot of stressful. Situations for long periods of time. So our body's being flooded with stress hormones for a long period of time. Our nervous system might even kick us into. what's known as the freeze state. So that's often when we start to dissociate, daydream would become a little bit Spacey. We might be low in motivation, feeling a little bit apathetic. Depressed even. So these are all mechanisms that our nervous system has to try to keep us safe and to keep us going. Right, but that it causes problems. for us, if we're in this state for too long, we're not designed to be in this state for too long. And like I said, modern life. Tends to, to keep us in a, in this dysregulated state, a lot of the time. Because our lives are very stressful, the stimulation all the time. Whether it be social media, whether it be. You know, traffic, whether it be the demands of daily living, the concerns about. The cost of living, you know, there's so many things flying at us all the time. That are putting a strain on our nervous system. And so, because there is this. Mind-body connection, our body. Communicates to our soul and also communicates to our body. And one impacts the other in a reciprocal nature. So if our body is dysregulated. It's very, very hard to access the wisdom of our soul. That place of stillness. Right. And so. Regulating your nervous system needs to be, part of the practice. Of living in a more soul aligned way. And there are many different ways in which there are many different types of exercises that we would suggest for people to do to help them regulate your nervous system, which I will going to in, uh, an episode. Of its own because it's quite in-depth and there's a lot of things that we need to consider. But some of the easiest ways. To start the process of regulating your nervous system. For example, is. playing around with temperatures. There's a reason. You've all been hearing so much about ice baths and the benefits that that can have for us in managing anxiety and improving our vitality and so forth. That contrast of temperature has a really good impact on improving the vagal tone. So the vagus nerve. It's kind of like a light switch. That term, that kind of helps to activate our nervous system regulation. Process. And so the more efficient that, that. And that nerve is at doing its job. the easier it is for our body to be able to bring itself back to baseline. And so using. Contrasting temperature. Exposures can really harness that in. In a very quick way. So, whether it is having yeah, if you're brave, I mean, it's pretty hot these days in Australia don't know where else you're listening from. But in Australia we've been having some ridiculously hot days. So having a cold shower is one easy way to do this. Or if oh, whole shower is too hard. Just having like a blast of a minute of icy cold water at the end. That will reinvigorate your body, but also help your nervous system stimulate itself into regulation. Another way is you can actually immerse Your face in a bowl of cold water has to be a very cold water. So you might want to put some ice cubes in there. So it's really, really cold. And you would just immerse your face in for. For a minute or so for as long as you can tolerate it. And that itself will help your nervous system to regulate itself very effectively. So That's one strategy that I encourage you to start playing around with right now. in terms of starting to create that sense of safety in your body and that connection with your nervous system. the third strategy is boundaries. Having very good boundaries and honoring your needs. I'm going to do an episode on this separately. But a lot of the time when we dishonor our boundaries, when we don't have good boundaries, Where we put the needs of others first. That itself will disconnect us from ourselves, disconnects us from our essence. It drowns out that inner wisdom that we have that. That's soul guidance that we receive. And so it's very important to practice having these boundaries. And really being able to listen to the signals that are coming from your body and honoring it because the more you listen to it, The louder, it becomes. And the more aligned and authentic. You start to, to be in the way they interact with people. And the things that you do. So I highly recommend that you start thinking about some of the boundaries that you have in place for your, for your interactions with others. And maybe the easiest thing is to honor your needs. A very simple way to do this is not saying yes. When you want to say no. So if you're asked to do something and it really isn't something that you feel like doing, or it's something that's going to. Put your in a bit of a. Difficult situation or take you away from something that's important to you. Feeling confident to say I'm so sorry, but I can't do that for you. Or. That doesn't work for me. I mean, no is a complete sentence in boundaries is something that's really challenging for, for a lot of people. So again, that's another one that I will be diving a little bit more deeply later on. But w. One of the easiest, first steps towards, um, towards having better boundaries in standing to honor your own needs is listening to that. To that voice, that desire that says yes or no to something. If your desire is to say no. Honoring that. Not feeling the need to justify it either just saying. I'm so sorry. Uh, I'm not available to help with that. so that's number three boundaries. Number four is engaging with the practice of self-reflection. So creating the space for yourself to really explore your reactions to things, to start to understand yourself a little bit better. So journaling is one of the easiest ways to do that. But this also the practice of higher self journaling. Where you can create a space to sit down. And ask yourself. You know, write down this question. What is most useful for me to know right now? Or what do I most need to know right now? Or even, how can I best serve right now? And start writing everything that comes to mind without censoring it. At first, it's going to feel a bit awkward. Um, but as you start to write this down, Uh, I'll just start, just provide this stream of consciousness down. You will start to feel the insights coming through. At first, you might feel like it's a little bit weird. Some of the things that are coming out don't really make sense. But just persevere with it, write it to completion until you feel like there's nothing left to say. And more often than not. When we engage in these practice. You do start to feel like this there's some wisdom or some guidance coming through in what you've written. And that's a way of starting to, to connect directly with that higher self or with your guides even. All right. So again, I'm going to be doing an episode just on this, where we can do a little bit more of a deep dive. But as a starting point, I encourage you to start reflecting and journaling. Every day, it doesn't have to be really long. It can be just finding a couple of lines every day, where you reflect on. How you navigate in the day? Things that felt really comfortable to you. And any way that you had strong reactions with a positive or negative, really? And asking yourself the question, what was it about this. Particular situation. That elicited That response from me. Or what is it that that response is trying to show me? About what I'm most need. In this moment. In asking yourself those questions you're harnessing, greater self-awareness, but you're also starting to connect with that soul essence. The part of us, it's always there. And guiding us in observing and observing everything that we experienced. And lastly, the fifth strategy that I have for you is just actually listening to your intuition. To those little hunches and intuitive hits that we get and we all get them. And then acting on it. So whenever you feel yourself, Have you a little bit of a hunch or an intuition? Whether it be to say something or to do something or to go somewhere. Approach with curiosity. And just follow that lead, see where it takes you. You'll find that more often than not. You will be led to something that you really needed to experience, or you'll be led to give somebody a message that they really needed to hear. Right. I sometimes experience this with, with some friends or colleagues where I will. Be looking at something. And I just get this feeling to say, to tell them. About something. Or. To draw their attention to something. And sometimes, you know, you second guess yourself and you think, oh my gosh, this is coming out of nowhere. They're gonna think I'm crazy. Um, but it's been my experience that whenever you start to listen to that guidance, And you act on it. It actually lands for the other person in a really poignant way. And all for you, right? You end up actually receiving the message or the experience that you really needed it. And it starts to make sense as to why you got that hit. And the more you follow those leads. The louder, he becomes the more frequent they become until you're able to start really leading your life. And. Making decisions from that place. Some of the most successful people in the world. Will openly admit. to. Being led by their intuition. They credit their intuition with some of the best decisions that they've made with some of the success that they've achieved. And it starts with, it starts with this really simple practice of just honoring this little hits that we get. And the more you honor it. The louder, they become the more frequent that become. And again, the more soul led you become. So those are the five little strategies that I would like to invite you to practice as you start 2024. Really thinking about what 20, 24. Means for you, what you would like this year to be about. And if there's any part of you that would like this year to be one of integration where you're more soul led, then I encourage you to try these practices because they will absolutely help you to feel more integrated, to feel more connected with your soul essence. And be really leaning from that place in, uh, in, from a more authentic place. So just to recap, the five strategies that I've given you today. Uh, to practice being present or mindful. Too. Regulate your nervous system using some cold exposure, for example, is, and really easy way to do that. Cold blast of water at the end of your shower or immersing, in your face in an icy cold water bowl. Honoring your needs and respecting your boundaries. Practicing self-reflection or higher self journaling. And lastly, listening to your intuition and acting on those hunches and intuitive hits. So that. They can become louder and louder and more and more frequent for you. I hope this has been useful for you. I would love to hear your thoughts on, on the episode or the strategies that you may have tried. What worked, maybe what didn't work. As always you can find me on Instagram at integrated underscore wisdom, feel free to DM me. And I invite you to subscribe to the podcast. If you haven't already. Give me a rating. Give me a review. So I know. If what I'm providing to you is helpful. If there's more that you'd like to know more of, and also so that the algorithm knows to push it out to more people. I wish for you. A wonderful year ahead. I hope you'll have a great week. And I'll speak to you soon. Thank you for tuning in to this episode of Integrated Wisdom. It is my sincere wish that today's episode may have intrigued and inspired you to reclaim your power and step into becoming more fully integrated spiritual beings. New episodes are published every Wednesday. And I hope you'll continue to join us as we dive deeper into what it means to live an integrated life. So if it feels aligned to you, I invite you to hit subscribe and share it with others who you feel may benefit too. You may also find me on Instagram at integrated underscore wisdom. Remember, each moment is an opportunity to embrace your divine potential and create a world that is more frequently inspired. So for now, stay connected, stay inspired and keep shining your light. Into the world.