Embodied Deconditioning: The Cornerstone of My Work

Dear wild-hearted wanderer,

As I waited for my fresh decaf coffee to brew, I couldn’t help but smile. I’ve been feeling more of that lately. It might be something to do with seeds I sowed under this Cancer New Moon that’s allowed me to focus on the questions I actually want to try to find answers to. Or maybe because I’ve had a good 2 weeks off my day job that’s allowed me more spaciousness in my day-to-day. Either way…

I was standing by the stove, watching the mokapot slowly come to life. That familiar, comforting gurgle in the background with the smell of coffee curling into the air. It truly is one of the most grounding smells for me.

a thought floated into my mind:
If a genie appeared and granted me one wish for humanity, I know exactly what I’d ask for.

I couldn’t wait to pour my cup and sit down to write this to you.

That’s my wish.

Because that’s it. That’s the key. That’s the map. Call off the search party. We’ve found our solution. It’s that simple.

But of course it isn’t. Otherwise we’d live in a completely different world.

A pattern I’m noticing time and time again is that I see so many people get stuck in their mental space when trying to live a life that’s more aligned with their energy. They find a system like Human Design, they “follow” their Strategy and Authority but nothing happens. They’re still unfulfilled, stuck and stagnant. Yet they cling to that false promise of Strategy.

If only there was this one article that would answer all the questions. If only there was one modality that would reveal their life’s purpose. If only there was a system to tell them exactly what to do to have a fulfilling life.

Here’s the thing though. We don’t need more rules or strategies. We don’t need more “How-To” blog posts. We don’t need to go “against” our Strategy. We also don’t need to learn a whole new system…again. (Been there, done that.) We also don’t need to necessarily give up on a modality.

What we need is presence. What we need is connection, with ourselves and others. What we need is safety. We need to feel safe within these connections. We need to expand our window of presence and explore what’s underneath the mental stories keeping us stuck. We need to allow ourselves to feel self-belonging. And for that, we need a nervous system that knows how to pause, discern, and trust.

This is what I mean by Embodied Deconditioning.
And honestly, it’s becoming the pulse of everything I offer. It’s becoming fundamental to the work I am so fired up to do.

So, as I sat with that wish and sipped on my fresh brew, I realised something else:

I’m not here to help you live your Human Design “by the book.”
I’m here to help you reclaim the self-trust that got buried beneath conditioning.
To help you live your truth through your body, not through mental effort.

That gets me so freaking turned on!

Earlier this week, I shared on Instagram the 9 things I’ve come to know about embodied deconditioning. I want to flesh them out a bit and give them more of a permanent home here, in this letter.

Here are the 9 guiding principles that shape the work of Embodied Deconditioning:

1. Uncoupling the mind from the stories that it must lead.
   This isn’t just mindset work. This is cellular, somatic. Our thoughts shape our tissue. Our stories live in our bodies.
   Embodied deconditioning begins by noticing where the mind is gripping the wheel, and gently loosening its hold. This is the practice of unraveling the scripts we inherited and gathering data from our lived experience.

2. Cultivating a flexible nervous system so that we can stay with whatever emerges.
   If our body doesn’t feel safe, it won’t let us be. It won’t let us listen.
   It will keep us hustling, people-pleasing, overachieving, even when we know better. This work is about expanding our capacity to stay with what arises, to make space for the sensations. It’s about being with what is, without immediately fixing, fleeing or fawning.

3. Trusting our body as our deepest authority.
   This is what the first two cornerstones allow us to reclaim. When our nervous system is flexible and our mind no longer dominates, we begin to trust our body’s cues. We learn to respond instead of react. We let the body lead.

4. Being before fixing and feeling the sensation before finding a solution.
   So often, we rush to the solution. We meet discomfort with urgency, not presence.
   But healing isn’t about never getting triggered — it’s about knowing how to be with what’s here. This is a practice of slowing down enough to feel and let sensation be sensation. It’s about trusting that you don’t need to fix everything right away, or at all.

5. Breathing into choice, not urgency.
   So many of us have been taught to collapse in the face of someone else’s urgency. But when we can attune to our own energy in real time, we begin to see where we abandon ourselves — and where we don’t have to.
   Self-trust lives here: in our ability to pause, breathe, and choose from a place of inner alignment, not external pressure.

6. Meeting our shadows with openness and curiosity, not judgement.
   This path will stir things up: old wounds, childhood patterns, conditioning that hides in the body. But this work isn’t about perfection. It’s about intimacy.
   Can we meet the raw edges of ourselves with tenderness, honesty and compassion? This is the inner alchemy that changes everything.

7. Shedding the masks we didn’t know we wore.
   So many of us arrive to self-development hoping for clarity, only to find layers of identity we never questioned. This work helps us see the masks we put on to be safe, to be liked, to belong. And then gently, lovingly, shed them.
   Not because we’re broken, but because we’re remembering who we were before we were told who to be.

8. Honouring our sacred pace, not someone else’s timeline.
   A lot of us have been conditioned to follow a linear path. It’s all about hitting certain milestones. We’re constantly being asked to match the rhythms of capitalism and comparison. But your body has its own sacred pace.
   It has its own seasons and cycles. This is the quiet revolution of saying yes to your pace and no to the timeline that was never yours to follow.

9. Coming into coherence with our body, mind and soul.

   This is where the integration happens. This is the homecoming. Being so present with yourself that your mind no longer overrides your body. That your body no longer feels trapped in survival. When your soul is no longer silenced by shame.
   This is what we’re here for: a life lived in alignment — honest, grounded, alive.

I want to finish this letter with what I wrote in that same Instagram post because, honestly, there is no other way to conclude this letter.

Walking an embodied path is not a linear journey with a neat destination. It’s a slow, spiralic, often messy and chaotic practice of coming home to ourselves—again and again.

But this path doesn’t simply unfold because we want it to. It asks something of us. It asks us to show up. To listen more deeply. To be with what we’ve spent years turning away from. This is what I mean when I speak of embodied deconditioning. It’s not a concept, but a devotion. A willingness to meet ourselves fully—even the parts shaped by fear, adaptation, or grief. It’s about making space for truth to return, not through force, but through presence.

I’m curious: which part speaks to you the loudest? Which part feels the most timely to you?

If this resonates and you’re looking for a body-led path to reclaim your power, and you're ready to sit with what's real and honest rather than comfortable and safe, the application form is now open for Your Living Body Map. If you’re missed my last letter where I talked more about what it is, you can read that here.

Current price is still £55. It will change to £122 under the Leo New Moon on 24 July.

Thank you for reading today’s letter. If you know anyone who would benefit from hearing these words, please forward this letter to them. And if you want to explore more of my work, feel free to visit the links below.