Episode 58: Unlocking Fear and Shame, Embracing Joy and Transforming through the Menopause with Marcela Widrig

Marcela Widrig, founder of Fierce Embodiment, teaches men and women to release old beliefs, hurts, fears and the restrictive way they are held in their bodies today. She trained extensively with the Grinberg Method® for over 18 years, and continued her development with Embodied Movement training, Body-mind Centering®, Embodied Flow™ yoga and Motion Theatre®. This combination of somatic bodywork, movement training, breath and expressive arts has given her a rich variety of body-centered tools to guide clients through trauma and emotional challenges, such as fear, shame, humiliation and anger.

In this episode, we talked about:

Anger is meant to stop something, e.g to right a wrong, or prevent harm
If you drop into your body and feel the movement of the emotion, you can make a clear choice in response to the emotion
Particularly for women, we’ve been taught to be terrified of our own anger.
Trying to block and control anger
Healthy shame - “if we recognise our vulnerability, we won’t need to dominate others”. “It’s like a barometer of how to treat people. It’s been used to make us feel lesser”
The damage of “tucking away” feelings of shame
The liver area- related to anger
The spleen- sense of responsibility and guilt
Guilt and anger co-exist
“The belly is where shame resides”
“A lot of things that we were taught to hide are in the pelvis”
“If we let shame move through our bodies, it takes us to a new clarity about how connected we are to each other”
Being attuned to your body helps you to respond more accurately than just using your mind
“Where in the body is someone over-efforting and where are they under-developed or under-contained?”
For women, power is connected with the lower half of the body: feeling the legs and belly, sexuality and sensuality, being perceptive. For men, the power is in the heart and chest
Daring to be sensual, tender or setting a boundary
Clear ‘yes’ and ‘no’
When a person taps into blocked energy, they can connect with more delight, joy, pleasure and contentment
Pleasure as a body experience
Marcela’s experience during menopause let her to work more deeply with the impact of shame
Hot flashes, sleep issues, outbursts of rage and the associated shame
The Menopause Collective
On menopause: “it’s a wild moment to transform and do something with your power”
The wisdom and power of elders
Using movement to explore themes such as simplicity and fluidity in workshops
Endless free-flowing movement can lose its potency- instead of cultivating and collecting energy so it can be directed
“We’re terrible at rest. It’s become something that we have to earn”
Holding ancestral patterns in the body