Episode 115: When Writing & Embodiment Combine: A Conversation with Philip Shepherd

[00:00:02] What you want when you want it, where you want it. This is the MESH.

[00:00:08] Hello everyone, welcome to another episode of The Written Compass. I am super, super, super excited.

[00:00:19] Y'all know that I do not often have guests on the podcast. And so when I do it is very, very, very intentional.

[00:00:27] And I am going to kind of celebrate myself for just kind of saying, you know what? What if in reaching out to the amazing human that is going to be joining us today?

[00:00:39] And he said yes. So I'm super excited to welcome Philip Shepherd. Thank you so much for being here today. How are you?

[00:00:47] I'm super excited to be here today. It's the light. Thank you for reaching out.

[00:00:52] For those of you who potentially, if you're in my circle, you probably know who this human is. But just in case I want to do a little introduction and then he and I are just going to dive right in.

[00:01:02] Philip is a recognized as an international authority on embodiment. Is that where it's unfamiliar? I say it all the time and use it all the time.

[00:01:12] But he is the authority. I'm going to get him to talk about how that feels. That word he used with it. He's the author of two amazing books and hopefully more to come that we'll talk about today.

[00:01:25] New self do world, which was published in 2010 and radical Holness, which was published in 2017. Both books lay the foundation for the embodied present process short for TEP which is a unique set of practices that Philip developed.

[00:01:41] For you, the anxious restless pace of the intelligence in the head with the deep present and connected intelligence of the body. He travels the world teaching this process through workshops and runs lots of programs.

[00:01:54] We were just talking about these things before we got started today. He trains and certifies other facilitators in this embodiment process.

[00:02:03] Welcome Philip. I'm so excited to have you here and I want to start with what are you writing right now?

[00:02:10] It's more than I'm being written. There's a book that is not being made.

[00:02:18] And it's not, you know, it's my writing. I write to discover. I write to bring things into relationship.

[00:02:26] I write in order to find my own clarity and so it's not that this book is in the background waiting to be written.

[00:02:35] It's that the adventure beckons and I'm just hoping to set foot into it as summer sometimes.

[00:02:43] Amazing and I love these said that because I as a former English teacher for years and years and supporting so many humans around their words and now helping heart-centered people who.

[00:02:59] I also feel that to know that a book is talking to them. I personify our words a lot and in their relationship and between our our messages and the things that kind of bubble up.

[00:03:14] I love how you approach it from that place as well. Talk about why talk about what that looks like for you in the books you've written of how you were able to be in that nice back and forth relationship of the words teaching you.

[00:03:32] You trying to support the words so on and so forth.

[00:03:36] In my case, you know, with yourself in world I was ambushed by the book. No kind of intention of writing a book and I was on holiday with my family which we don't do but there we were.

[00:03:59] I kind of became a person and I sort of decompress for a couple of days and then had like six o'clock in the morning.

[00:04:06] I was as wide awake as I've ever been in my life with this first line of the book. In my head, I sort of lay there in dark and the first chapter began to form itself in my mind and then a sense of the next two chapters.

[00:04:23] So the holiday was spent, you know, dad was staying back well. The family went out and visited various places. I just it was an obsession and it was an obsession that carried me for ten years and people say, oh, how wonderful that you were able to persist for ten years.

[00:04:46] And that wasn't it at all. It was, it was excruciatingly painful, not to be writing.

[00:04:55] It was this soul need that was drawing me forward.

[00:05:04] I love that and every aspiring writer who then becomes a published author that I have the deep honor of working with shares that similar story of it was something was always there.

[00:05:20] They were always feeling or saying things like, well, that's going to be a chapter in the book one day. Or if I ever write a book, here's what I feel like here's what shows up here's what it's going to be.

[00:05:32] They have other people who say, if you ever thought about writing a book which I'm sure you've had that as well.

[00:05:39] And I think it's interesting because coming from the world of education, writing is often not remotely talked to us in that way. It is a very you don't know things, right?

[00:05:52] Let us give you structures and rules and guidelines all well intentioned, right? All very well intentioned.

[00:06:02] But it's the idea that we can't put words out there without knowing these other things. I'm curious if you have any like memories from those school days or what writing looked like then for you.

[00:06:16] If you read it all in school and then like compared to now on how you approach it.

[00:06:22] Yeah, I know that school days school and I didn't didn't do that well together if I'm not scared of that.

[00:06:31] Yeah, it was I was so much I wanted to learn and I just wanted to be set free. So I read a devour and learn.

[00:06:45] I mean, while it was felt like I was in a straight jacket in class listening to this ponderous incremental irrelevant information irrelevant to my life.

[00:06:57] In the way it was being presented and the questions were burning within me and none of those questions were satisfied by what was being offered.

[00:07:06] So there was a point I can tell you where writing really took hold for me.

[00:07:12] I was wrestling with some question and there was a blank piece of paper and I just started writing.

[00:07:20] So what's this really about then? It was like writing to myself in the second person and it was so liberating and so alive that sort of I never stopped doing that.

[00:07:35] And on the other hand, I mean you speak of structural rest of it.

[00:07:38] I had a sort of fanaticism for words, you know, local mania was familiar to me.

[00:07:48] You know, I really did, I hate to admit it but I really did read dictionaries.

[00:07:53] I loved usage and abuse and all, you know, books on, you know, striving to be able to wield these tools of language with a delicacy that would enable me to circle the wagons.

[00:08:13] I mean, I don't think the writing I do. It's even though it's non-fiction.

[00:08:21] The writing I do isn't about presenting in words the facts as I see them.

[00:08:33] It's really about a spiral that circles what can't be said.

[00:08:40] And in that responsive spiraling hopefully the reader will sense that and, you know, for themselves in their own way.

[00:08:49] Yeah, absolutely and I think that's part of often what is missing in the writing that we get asked to do in more straight-jacket settings that school can often feel like

[00:09:00] is we don't have that sense of a relationship with the reader because the reader is the teacher, right?

[00:09:06] We don't actually, our words aren't actually going anywhere legitimately.

[00:09:11] And I think that's such a missed opportunity because I think yeah, these words are on the page but when you brought whatever you brought to them to

[00:09:24] you breathe life into them and help them come to fruition as they were informing you and you were informing them.

[00:09:30] And then I hear I am the reader bringing all of me to it.

[00:09:35] And as I read those words, there's this beautiful new meaning and construction that gets to happen that maybe you intended for me to experience and maybe not.

[00:09:47] Have you ever had a moment where someone has reflected back to you?

[00:09:51] I know the answer is yes, but I'm gonna ask it anyway.

[00:09:54] Where someone was reflected back to you, you know, something you written and they just took it in a whole different direction than you ever intended or imagined or, you know what I'm asking?

[00:10:07] And that's one reason for the spiral rather than trying to hand the reader what you want them to take from it.

[00:10:19] You can't make anyone think a certain thing or feel a certain thing.

[00:10:26] It's a co-creation, you know, reading is a co-creation between you and the author and in the process of writing.

[00:10:34] There's a long imperceptible transition on my part from being a writer to being a reader.

[00:10:43] So I am at the outset, I am just writing for myself and trying to bring my clarity and I tend to edit endlessly in that process more and more.

[00:10:56] I'm becoming a reader and then in that journey, I'm sensitizing to little bumps.

[00:11:07] And oh, there's a little bump and how can I, is it a rhythmic thing?

[00:11:12] What, what is it and how to, how to smooth that bump to make it as easy ride, you know, in that way for the reader even even as the material may be challenging, how to give them every opportunity to engage with it without struggle.

[00:11:35] Yes, so many things because again to harken back to how we're often taught you basically were talking about, you know, word choice syntax grammatical, without saying those things at all.

[00:11:50] And yeah, that's often when we think when the tension that I see is these beautiful amazing humans so many people have truly believe we're all message beings and have so many important things to share with the world.

[00:12:05] And books and words are such an amazing embodiment of those messages, like a great way to get them out there.

[00:12:13] And I don't remember the statistics off my head, but you know, the percentage of people who aspire to versus who actually write a book and put it out there, it's really a big gap right like 80% to like 3% or something like that.

[00:12:27] And I have the tension that I often see is, okay, I get this like intuitive hit, these words have been coming, they've been building, they need me, they need me to bring them the life I have to do this.

[00:12:39] This is just a part of who I am and how I want to be in the world. And then this external understanding of what writing is the rules, the structure all of that kind of stuff.

[00:12:49] And they collide big time and so it is such a freedom, like as soon as you said, I'm just here to, you know, make it as easy as possible for the reader like the bumps as few bumps as possible so they can get what they need to get whatever that may be.

[00:13:06] Yes, what I have to control over that my whole body just went like, it's such a relief and some reminder to people about that but it's it's like lovingly frustrating for me when that is a stop gap right for some people like, oh, but I'm not a good like I would hear with my students all the time.

[00:13:23] Hey, Dr. Hartman, so excited to be in your class by the way I'm terrible at grammar by the way I don't know how to write sentences you know what I'm just like, what are you literally talking to me?

[00:13:34] I'm literally forming sentences right now. What are you talking about? Yeah, what do you hear kind of as I'm sort of?

[00:13:42] Yeah, I think there's there is people carry expectations that fort their natural desire to explore and you know if you're if you're carrying an expectation of what a book is as this some kind of achievement that and you're going to feel you're not you're not ready to do that yet.

[00:14:07] You're not well, you're ready to start exploring and to say with it. And you know the process for me is that the beauty of writing is that I'll sit down and I'll put something down on paper that is as clear as I can possibly make it.

[00:14:27] I fiddle and I tweak and there it is. And I come back two days later and now I'm sort of a reader and I I it's as though what I've written is no longer mine, you know, I'm I'm encountering it and and it provokes question and is it complete?

[00:14:48] Oh, something else is needed and the questions lead somewhere else and and it begins to dilate and accommodate or sensitize to a larger context.

[00:15:02] And the sensitivity of the words is you know it's like every every word every phrase in my book is in accord with every other phrase there's a sort of grace and accommodation in that and it's play writing is play writing is this gift of

[00:15:29] being able to bring questions to your own thinking being able to bring questions to and and new perspectives to your best effort at clarifying and gorgeous it's such a phenomenal gift.

[00:15:47] It's an amazing gift like I can't ever express enough. I don't always know how it's going to show up, but when we put our words out there.

[00:15:58] There is going to be a moment where someone receives them and speaks that back to you whatever they received in a way that you just you cannot bad them, but thankfully when you say yes to your words and you put them out like that's that's your job.

[00:16:14] And then what gets to happen after is just this magical beautiful like you said gift of a ride after and I.

[00:16:28] And how because I want to kind of connect this to what you do write about wholeness and embodiment.

[00:16:35] Where do you see yourself embodying your words or putting where do you see the relationship between your process for writing about the thing while also like engaging in the chair writing about embodiment and wholeness.

[00:16:53] So I mean for me you read, you read prose and it's so clear for me either it's alive or it's not.

[00:17:03] The life of the prose is in the rhythm with which it moves forward and you know that I think of heart rate and and healthy heart rate is variable.

[00:17:18] If you lose the variability of your heart rate it's assigned the things are in trouble, but the same thing with with writing this is this pulse of variable rhythm that moves like a river through through through the words that comes from the body.

[00:17:36] I mean it is, it is the body that recognizes the life of that rhythm. So so rhythm is as important to me as the ideas that the words are exploring.

[00:17:55] And the words themselves, I find them in my body. I don't celebrate over them.

[00:18:05] I really, you know there is an emptiness to the body and I spend as much time when I'm writing, I spend as much time waiting as I do actually scribbling.

[00:18:20] And it's that thing of wrapping down into the body, you know, present to this issue that I'm writing about and I just wait and I wait.

[00:18:33] Honestly, sometimes I fall asleep waiting and if I wake up I, the next step is clearer. And if I don't fall asleep I wait until I am, I am moved so it's not it's not a sense of having made a decision.

[00:18:51] It's a sense of some gateway opening and the life is ready to flow.

[00:18:58] Yes, it reminds me of a lot, you know there's all kinds of little writing terms and one thing people talk about struggling with or why they can't write something is I'm not consistent enough or I can't get in a flow.

[00:19:15] And it's again the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves are always so interesting. So I love how you're talking about a bit of your process of waiting and listening and tuning in and that waiting so much,

[00:19:31] that you know, you will fall asleep at times and I love that whatever subconscious things happen and then you wake up and there's something potentially there and if not waiting waiting some more.

[00:19:47] As you have written these books, how has that waiting process like looked in the practical sense? Like I imagine, at least for me, there's sometimes big swaths of gaps of if I'm not writing but I'm.

[00:20:02] Waiting like I am, I always feel like we're always writing in some way shape or form words are out in front of us are not I can't I want to page somewhere or not but yeah talk about like how has that waiting.

[00:20:14] Help you or supported you in your process for your books.

[00:20:21] In so many ways one is that I am I am trusting something deep within me in the waiting.

[00:20:36] I am not trying to come up with an answer I'm waiting for a sort of guidance to illuminate the way forward to activate me and without the waiting I would feel I need to accomplish this in some way that would for me anyway.

[00:21:00] I'm not trying to come up with a simple process would complicate it would cloud it so to come back to the clarity of that.

[00:21:09] That moves my writing forward in the excitement and the curiosity and the play that facilitated that's crucial for me and out of that patience you know I my first book was ten years in writing as I mentioned and I rewrote it from scratch four times.

[00:21:31] So it it it it was as if I was trying to forward a river and each each draft was was.

[00:21:41] I can deplacing a rock as far as I could into the river and then I could stand on that and get another rock and reach as far as I could and you know each each draft.

[00:21:54] I brought me closer and at the same time revealed what was what was erroneous what was missing and it's eventually it's like it's like a the book in its potential is like a ball of string.

[00:22:12] And what I'm looking for is the end of the string that leads to everything else and so part of the process was was getting my you know mind around this ball of string defined that one thread that would lead to everything else that it was part of it.

[00:22:35] I love that and I love how you were writing your way to that versus trying to think your way right trying to be in the cranial brain and think your way there and then you can write like that's often we think.

[00:22:50] That's something unfortunately we think we need to know and then we can do.

[00:22:54] Yeah and the whole I mean I know it works for some people but that whole thing of well you've got a map out your book and chapters and the subsections and and and.

[00:23:06] And you know just it doesn't work for me I I feel my way forward and I trust the life of that I trust that that life will carry the reader in turn.

[00:23:18] Absolutely I agree I think the people that I tend to work with and then my own process as well is it is a transformative experience like I am experiencing myself through my words.

[00:23:31] So that hopefully someone else can have their own experience you know whatever that may be and it's just I'm glad those other things are out in the world and you know right your book in a weekend and all that.

[00:23:43] Exactly we kind of make faces I'm like okay I mean you're probably not gonna write your book in a weekend but I'm glad that exists for people who want that and.

[00:23:54] What has been your experience allowing yourself to take what's on the inside and putting on the outside. What do you feel like it has done just for you in your journey.

[00:24:06] Well you know my my big the big issue in my work is presence and how we to drive ourselves of it and how we are.

[00:24:18] Contention out of it by our culture now.

[00:24:25] Your culture it's like water to a fish it's what you're born into it's what you're a bit your it was a great.

[00:24:32] Sufi joke about to fish.

[00:24:36] Meeting up one day a big fish and little fish bump into each other and little fish calls after the big fish.

[00:24:43] Hey how's the water today and they went along together and finally dig fish stops and looks at the little fish and say so what the heck is water.

[00:24:53] You know so the challenge in my writing was to begin to see the water begin to see our culture is devoted to left hemisphere thinking to a world that is basically dead.

[00:25:16] And and that there's this biochemistry happening but we we have not only.

[00:25:24] To vort ourselves in a sense from the body by retreating up to the head but the body is what feels the world.

[00:25:35] And and the head you know as is is devoted to left hemisphere thinking which is enclosed it builds models of the world it lives in a world of ideas and the body lives in a world.

[00:25:49] A feeling so in the process of writing I was basically finding within the body and within the instructions of my culture the prohibitions against my own life.

[00:26:04] You know live it that that journey up to the head to you know one of the reasons the book took so long was was seeing how it began in pre history with with the arrival of agriculture and we used to experience our center in the belly.

[00:26:24] And you can see you can trace through literature and art through Homer and Plato how that journey moved us increasingly up into the head into a realm that wants to control and and seek power and find security and acquisitions.

[00:26:47] And we we began in the late Paleolithic in a state of harmony with the world where you know it's called the original leisure society the sort of Magdalene period where our ancestors were so in touch with their world that it offered them what they needed when they needed it.

[00:27:12] And and that harmony it took me a long time to to read and learn and discover what what I had been instructed to forget in my life.

[00:27:33] So you know my first book Jesus that apart and shows how you know our relationship with the body.

[00:27:43] Is our primary relationship there's nothing more primary than that and so it becomes the template for all other relationships and when when you separate from the body and and achieve a top down relationship with it then you seek a top down relationship with all else including writing.

[00:28:03] So that you know that that top down relationship has nowhere to go but we we've lost the ability to drop back into the body we we've lost our way.

[00:28:20] And it took it was writing was hugely instrumental in helping me find my one.

[00:28:29] I love that and I think this is going to be a great time for me to read one of my favorite quotes not from New South New World but from radical wholeness because I think it connects.

[00:28:39] And I love that you shared the process because it makes sense that that first book needed a lot of space in time because you were literally.

[00:28:48] Learning and discovering and figuring and writing your way to learn alongside what you want it how you wanted to share that and so.

[00:28:58] You know that's a that's a different kind of book and how amazing and I love that that I don't know if you see it as a foundation or umbrella to the others but you know I'm guessing radical wholeness did not take you know as long to write because you kind of like.

[00:29:16] You're a new South New World took.

[00:29:18] January's radical wholeness took five years and my third book deep fitness took about a year and a half.

[00:29:27] Yeah, isn't that interesting?

[00:29:29] Yeah, and because of that you can almost see yourself.

[00:29:32] You're learning your process what supports you and obviously they're different books and required different things but.

[00:29:39] I think one of the power things is for people to figure out what their processes for taking what's on the inside and putting it on the outside and any kind of communication but.

[00:29:48] The quote that I kind of as I was preparing for today that I pulled.

[00:29:52] Is this one?

[00:29:54] Holiness isn't a destination or a goal.

[00:29:57] This beginning that can only be initiated with a surrender to the present and a sensitivity to what is asking of you right now.

[00:30:07] I don't know how often you go back and read and use your words. I think it's always a fun experience for someone to quote you in front of you so if I may tell me what shows up as I share that.

[00:30:19] What shows up is that.

[00:30:26] I mean, it's sort of a large context but in mythology.

[00:30:31] There are these two central characters that of course are our in or nature and one is the tyrant and the others the hero.

[00:30:40] And the tyrant Joseph Campbell describes as the man of self achieved independence and it's such an evocative phrase because I can't think of a more accurate depiction of the American dream.

[00:30:55] Then self achieved independence.

[00:30:58] We are chasing the tyrants fantasy and it is a fantasy.

[00:31:03] There is, for example, no such thing as independence you can search the cosmos for an example you won't find one everything.

[00:31:13] Everything depends on an influence is everything.

[00:31:17] And you know, the hero is described by Campbell as the man of self achieved submission so that surrender is not a surrender to tyranny.

[00:31:29] It is a surrender to your fullest reality and to what that is asking of you.

[00:31:36] And I think each of us is born with an utterly unique cluster of gifts.

[00:31:43] And no one's been born with your gifts or my gifts or anyone else is it's such a unique, a malgum of sensitivities.

[00:31:53] And I believe the world is whispering to each of us every moment to put those gifts into service.

[00:32:01] And that, you know, the surrender to your fullest reality is at the same time a surrender to what the world is calling forth from you, what the world is asking of you.

[00:32:13] And you know, our body is to come back to the body.

[00:32:20] Have been neglected in our allegiance to doing, you know, being and doing and being is an afterthought.

[00:32:30] Because what's important is what we're doing and the compushing and to come back to the body is to surrender to its true nature.

[00:32:44] And when I think of being, I think of five qualities that all of being shared shares.

[00:32:54] So so being is fluid everything is in flow and the body is in flow where 66% water.

[00:33:05] And there's an inner ocean, but we clamp against that. We core and off the body. We compartmentalize it. We lose our fluidity when you surrender to that reality.

[00:33:17] So it's not never matter of accomplishing something that you need to reach for. It is here. This is your reality. Your fluid. Can you feel it? Can you surrender to the body's fluidity?

[00:33:30] And when you do, you're not unlocking of the body's energy tends to settle onto the earth.

[00:33:38] And then you're grounded, which is the second quality.

[00:33:42] And you know, we are from the day we're born. We are at rest on the earth.

[00:33:48] But in our culture, when's the last time you felt yourself truly at rest on the earth?

[00:33:55] We have sun-drug that relationship. And when you do, feel that settling back onto the earth, the body's spaciousness begins to open.

[00:34:07] And again, spaciousness is the nature of being. You can look inside a lump of coal with a physicist's eye.

[00:34:15] And it is mostly empty space. But our bodies become congested and consolidated. They become thick.

[00:34:23] And to feel the emptiness, the spaciousness of your being, is to make room for your relationships with the world, to be lossuming within you, to be moving you in every moment.

[00:34:40] And when that spaciousness opens, and again it's a surrender that enables that. You can begin to feel your center.

[00:34:51] And what we've done in our cultures, we've tried to locate our center in the head.

[00:34:56] And then we wonder why our lives are off balance and to come back to the body and feel your center there.

[00:35:04] Then you can begin to attune to the world and recognize its harmony and join that harmony in the work it's doing.

[00:35:13] And so, attune is the fifth quality being.

[00:35:17] Hmm.

[00:35:19] Thank you for one, just helping us put words to that felt sense of self.

[00:35:28] And thank you for walking us through those five qualities of wholeness and being present. And I think the thing that was a game changer around your work and just being introduced to it and becoming, you know,

[00:35:44] about my coach myself and just being committed to this is the idea that I have everything I need already. Like you said, it's already there in me and it's definitely embodied in my body.

[00:35:58] And just what are the ways and things that work for me to constantly come back to that.

[00:36:07] I love myself asking myself the question of what is being asked of me right now. What do those parts of things that I'm noticing.

[00:36:17] What are they saying, giving them a voice because they are communicating it is communicating to us and it's this beautiful like you said creating space.

[00:36:27] It's a embodied separation to me in some sense because I do have to kind of like step people can't see this but it's sort of setting back and separating my hands.

[00:36:38] And yet, it's a part of me.

[00:36:41] But creating that time and space to reflect and look back at myself, look within it is it is it is a and tithesis to what we have been taught.

[00:36:53] And I am forever grateful that I, that's something that I have learned to do and of course it is a practice. It is not a perfect, it is a constant ongoing so yeah thank you.

[00:37:08] I think it's the word I want to say there.

[00:37:11] Just like to maybe it'll be helpful to some of your listeners just to clarify for me and bodyment isn't about listening to the body valuable though that is.

[00:37:27] But in that act of listening to the body, basically you're sitting in your head as though they're a wall separating you from the body and what's happening on the other side.

[00:37:39] And it's occasionally a attention to it and it's necessary that quality of listening and attending is necessary to encounter where the body is consolidated, held out of fluidity lacking spacelessness to achieve that surrender.

[00:37:59] As that happens your body becomes a resonator like a singing bowl and you're no longer listening to the body, you are listening the world through the body.

[00:38:09] That is such a countercultural thing because we're taught that we are alone and and the consequence of feeling alone even though we are held in the world's companionship at every moment

[00:38:25] is that our number one job in life then becomes to organize the self.

[00:38:33] And so we seek well being by organizing ourselves, to win, to feel good, to be successful and we organize everything we organize our thoughts, our bodies, our emotions.

[00:38:47] And for me that that is an impediment to presence because as I feel it being present is the experience of feeling myself being organized by the present, being touched by it informed by it guided by it.

[00:39:10] And so that I speak of my truest thinking as co-rational thinking.

[00:39:18] Yeah.

[00:39:19] What I mean by that is that I'm not thinking alone within my head through the body, I am attuning to the world and thinking hand in hand with it.

[00:39:29] I love that it's it's recursive, it's yeah, it's it's side by side and I think that deeply connects with what you've shared around your process for writing and giving us and sharing these messages.

[00:39:45] And it's ongoing, it's it's never rending and I personally love that. I'm sure it's frustrating for some people but it's like oh yay, like I get to keep going I get to keep growing and deepening and having this beautiful internal infinity symbol kind of happening.

[00:40:03] Yeah, and what you know what could be more wondrous it doesn't stop it keeps unfolding.

[00:40:11] Yeah, absolutely. I want to come back to the idea of exploring I know you've got some things coming up you've already shared that you're kind of in a recursive process with the potential next iteration or words that are showing up in a potential book.

[00:40:26] Talk to us about other things that are going on that people will want to potentially check out and get connected to you with what have you got going on.

[00:40:34] Yeah, I I a few things come to mind.

[00:40:39] I've got a course that is a couple courses launching on June 1st which will be on the website.

[00:40:49] Okay. I've got workshops in the states coming up in Chapel Hill in Ohio and the West Coast in the fall.

[00:41:03] And I'm off to Europe on May 14th to to all the workshops in Vienna and Amsterdam and Oxford.

[00:41:17] We're treated by for their retreat in Dublin any of your listeners are close to any of those that will be a delight to share the work with them in person.

[00:41:29] And I've got a facilitator strain that's booked for the begins next October. So it's a year-long program where we get together for three five day periods over the year.

[00:41:44] And we have a weekly Zoom call where there's a new practice and a discussion. It is such a rich rich experience. There is there is such a quickening to these issues and to what the body holds and deepening into its mysteries and clarity.

[00:42:10] Those are the main things that pop.

[00:42:13] Just a few things going on. Yeah.

[00:42:16] As always and I love how it's so many layers, right? People can have access by following your social media, email.

[00:42:27] You have your website and of course we'll put all of these in the show notes. We'll have links and everything.

[00:42:32] And body present.com is a great way to get connected to fill up in all of these amazing amazing events. I love how there's opportunity to experience just for yourselves and then also the opportunity.

[00:42:44] If you are a person who supports others in some of these things and want to deepen that ability and want to facilitate this process in some way you've got those opportunities as well.

[00:42:55] So it's not often, you know, there's plenty of businesses out in the world, especially in the kind of online sphere and in person sphere. And so I always love when people have created and developed something that's really aligned really into and just feels like an outward representation of what you are here to do in the world.

[00:43:16] So thank you for continuing to share your gifts. Are there any final things you'd love to kind of share with our listener? Maybe sometimes I ask if there's someone who's pondering, writing a book or putting their words out there or anything you'd love them to know.

[00:43:31] Yeah, you know, there's one thing that might be helpful.

[00:43:38] Everything is known through the body. They've shown even how abstract ideas are known through the body.

[00:43:46] We know our world because we've bumped into the counter and so we know what it is.

[00:43:51] I've got a one year old granddaughter and a watcher. She's just touching, tasting, countering everything.

[00:43:59] And so to understand that ultimately we know the world through the body is to open to the possibility of letting that power move your words.

[00:44:16] And it's one thing, you know, there are so many amazing things in Shakespeare's writing but the thing that strikes me most saliently is his languages embodied.

[00:44:29] The world is alive with bodies and the body might be the sea contesting with the winds, which is it.

[00:44:38] But it comes to life because it is embodied writing and there are contemporary authors that do the same thing.

[00:44:49] The author, Claire North, who has a trilogy, an alpeasome and I was blown away by writing it and I realized at a certain point that the writer part of me really wanted to understand what the action was doing.

[00:45:07] And she almost never describes or attributes an emotion to a character. She talks about the characters' physicality, how the eyes narrow how that bit of saliva swirls on the mouth is engaging at this.

[00:45:25] And that power is one that we tend to lose because we live in such a disembodied culture and to trust the body in that way.

[00:45:37] And to trust what it knows and how it feels and what comes up through it as you're writing, I think enables the writing to come to life in a very special way.

[00:45:49] I love that. I think trust has shown up a couple of times in our conversation and trusting the words as they are showing up. They may not be the final words and they're showing up for reason at this time.

[00:46:02] So, I love that. I love all of those reminders and thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much, Phillip, for joining me today. It was a great pleasure. Thank you all for tuning in and we'll see you next time.

[00:46:15] Thank you so much for listening to this episode of The Written Compass. If you are enjoying this content, do me a favor and go and review the podcast. This allows me to share and get these messages out to the people who really need them, who we want to read in their books in the picture.

[00:46:34] You can also go and share your thoughts and tag me at Shena Hartman Under Score of the Instagram. Again, this is just a way for us to get connected and share the writing.

[00:46:45] And if you know that you are ready to write, we work book. That message that's been burning inside of you for a long time, then I want to talk to you, my team and I want to talk to you.

[00:46:56] Head on over to ShenaHartman.com and click work with us. From there, you'll see an application to explore and see if writing your book is your next best step.

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