Hi, I’m Joanne Cary. Welcome back to the Embodied Soul podcast, a multidimensional space intended to support you in mastering, living, being, and thriving as the embodied soul you are.
This week, I want to explore something I’m asked about fairly often. What people commonly call essential symptoms, which are sensations in the body, emotional waves, shifts in perception, moments where things feel different, unfamiliar, or even a bit disorienting.
Rather than giving you a list of symptoms, I want to offer a way to understand what may be happening without immediately turning it into a story or placing meaning upon it.
So, if you are ready to join me, pull up a comfy chair, invite in your soul, and be open to receive exactly what you need, to live, be, and thrive as the embodied soul you are.
⸻
Why This Isn’t a Symptoms List Episode
Now, I was asked recently by some community members to create an episode on Ascension symptoms. And it took me a few minutes to reflect on it, to feel into what it was that I wanted to share on this topic.
And what I knew off the bat is that it just wasn’t gonna be a list of symptoms. Because when I reflected on my own journey, what I know is the reason I was asking about the symptoms is because I wanted to know, am I okay? Is this normal? Is this happening to others? Am I alone in this? Because I certainly felt it. And how do I understand what I’m feeling?
And so, although there’s nothing wrong with meaning making, the challenge is when meaning comes before regulation and presence.
And let me give you a bit of an example on this.
So when I was first opening up and I started seeing scenes and different liminal space visions, I could see them, feel them, and immediately I put interpretation to them. What did they mean?
I formed a story around what I saw, what it meant, the implications of it.
But then, as time passed, what I realized is that my interpretations weren’t fully accurate. It’s not that they were wrong. They were just incomplete.
And what I realized is that each interpretation, each viewpoint, was filtered through my own current understandings, my own learning, my frame that I see my world within.
And so interpretation, for me, closes the experience, where curiosity keeps it open.
So, what many people call ascension symptoms are often signs of increased sensitivity and capacity. Not that something’s wrong, and not proof that something extraordinary has to be happening.
Does that make sense?
So sensation does not mean meaning. Activations do not mean advancement. Intensity doesn’t mean alignment.
But don’t get me wrong. I love, like, there are absolutely some positive sides to ascension symptoms, but often we talk about all of the negative things, the things that are a little bit scarier, disorienting, or discomforting.
And yet, when we look at the other side of it, you might be feeling ecstatic. Bliss. Beautiful energy swirling up your body that you just want to hold onto and keep in your system.
And so that’s okay. It’s absolutely okay and perfect to enjoy them.
But the key is not to turn them into evidence of specialness, or hierarchy, or someone’s better than somebody else.
This is our natural capacity returning.
And everyone opens in their own timing. We’ve covered this on another episode. We never know what someone else is doing.
Just remember that this is a natural capacity returning to us that everybody has, that everyone will unfold into in their perfect time, and we get to move with that.
⸻
Three Common Patterns of Experience
So how do I want to sort of frame this?
I want to look at three common patterns of experience. So rather than symptoms, I want to talk about the patterns, ways the system reorganizes as our capacity returns to us.
1. Nervous System Recalibration
And the first one I want to cover is nervous system recalibration.
So what might this look like?
Some possible experiences you might be having that could fall under this category is fatigue, or needing more rest.
You might feel emotional waves without any clear impetus or reason. There is no clear story that you have behind it. Just waves up, ups, down, sadness, anger, overjoy, beautiful bliss.
And you might also feel heightened sensitivity to sound, to crowds, to stimulation. You might be wanting to go into hermit mode and just isolate yourself.
For me, some of the common symptoms and sensations that you will feel around this is like this effervescent, bubbly, fizzy feeling in your body.
You might feel it as energy flowing upwards or downwards. Like sometimes it feels like it’s a waterfall pouring down over my head, literally pressing my body downwards.
And other times, I feel it shooting up through my spine, almost pulling me taller and higher and straighter.
You might get sharp, electric, pulsing sensations. Ones that maybe aren’t as positive or pleasant feeling. Positive really isn’t the right word. They may be a bit discomforting or a little bit uncomfortable in the body.
You might also feel warmth. Your body might start to, what I would term, overheat. Like I would initially break out and sweat.
You could also feel really cold chills. Sometimes I would say almost a freezing feeling, like I needed to pile on blankets when it was otherwise very warm in the room.
Or you might feel just waves, feeling like waves or wind blowing through you.
These are usually transient. They don’t stick around for a long time. They come and go. They’re not meant to be permanent states, even those really blissful ones, because this is your system recalibrating.
2. Perceptual Shifts
The second category I’ll cover is perceptual shifts.
In this category, you might feel like time starts feeling different. You might feel outside of time. You might feel like time is going really fast. You might feel like time is moving very slowly.
You might actually sense that you are between worlds, that you’re actually not quite here, not quite there, and you’re straddling two different realities.
You might very well have increased awareness without clear language to put for it. You know that something’s happening, but you can’t quite put your finger on it. Someone asks you to explain it, and you just can’t quite do it.
That’s all shifts in your perceptual apparatus.
And this might feel like pressure around the head or the chest. It might feel like a spaciousness behind the eyes.
It might almost feel like a wobble in your whole system, a little bit of that disorientation.
Sounds or light might have a bit of a different texture. They might be more vivid, brighter than you’ve seen, a different texture.
So perception often widens before it stabilizes. Perception often widens before it stabilizes.
3. Identity Shedding
And the third and last category I’ll cover here is identity shedding.
And so what this looks like in your experience is losing interest in old structures. Grief without a clear cause. You’ll just feel sad. You’ll feel like you’re grieving something.
Really, you’re grieving aspects of yourself as your identity falls away. Those parts of you that have been keeping you safe, that you’ve had a long, long time. Even those really positive parts of yourself, some of them aren’t going forward with you.
You might be feeling periods of neutrality or even an emptiness. That’s partially the sacred pause.
You might be feeling this neutrality where things that used to trigger, provoke, cause strong emotions just don’t land in the same way.
I certainly know I’ve had that in many cases, and I actually surprise myself at times. I’ll actually make a notice like, wow, what happened to Joanne? Where’s my old Joanne? Because that is not how I respond to these situations.
And that’s just a hallmark sign that you’re shifting. You are changing identities.
So there isn’t something missing. It’s something completing.
And this year has been huge for this. You probably have, as I’ve been talking, coming up with many of your own examples, because this year of completion, this nine year, has been huge for closing off cycles within your life, within karmic cycles, within ancestral lines, within lifetimes, between lifetimes.
So this has been really prevalent.
⸻
Discernment in Practice
So I want to cover and provide an example of discernment in practice from the life of Joanne Cary. :)
And some of you have heard this story, but I think it’s worth providing it here again.
When I was first experiencing energy in my body, and it was starting to move from my feet up into my legs, they felt a bit tired. They felt like I had just been on a long walk or run.
And then that energy continued, and it started to move up my body. It started to move into different areas, up around my face.
It would start to respond and be a little bit differently when I ate certain foods.
So where I had initial excitement and thinking, oh, this is really cool, there came a point where I got a little nervous about it.
I wondered, is this normal? Is this actually something spiritual, or is this something physically wrong with my body, with my system? Do I have allergies? What was up?
And it was at that point that I chose to go to see a doctor. Not something that I actually preferred to want to do, but I did it because I needed that clarity.
I needed some confidence that what I was feeling could be relaxed into, could be enjoyed, without that little voice in the back of my head, that little part of me that was trying to keep me safe.
And here’s the thing. I went to the doctor. They ran umpteen tests. Everyone came back and said nothing’s wrong.
And that was when relief allowed my curiosity and joy to return.
We can feel like we don’t want to get doctors involved. There’s lots of stories around our medical systems. I’m not here to say yea or nay to any of it.
What I’m saying is, checking in with your physical and mental health isn’t a lack of trust. It’s care.
And it can actually allow your ability for your nervous system to regulate, for your body to relax into this process that it’s undergoing, in a way that you can find expansive, joyful, and light, which I certainly know I enjoy.
Not everything uncomfortable is spiritual, and not everything spiritual needs a diagnosis.
⸻
The Spaceship Analogy
So I want to share an analogy that the Guides brought through. I think it was in last week’s Monday message.
And it was, we often treat our body like a Ford Model T, when, in fact, it’s more like a spaceship.
And I had to chuckle when they brought that through.
And what this means is that our body is remembering how to function more like a sophisticated instrument than how the fear frequencies that have been on the planet, and all of the beliefs we’ve packed around that, have allowed it to operate.
So in a lot of ways, it was taken offline until we were able to hold the capacity that it actually has innately within it.
The energetics that we’re experiencing right now bring our system back on gradually.
And I think this is really important, because I certainly know when I was starting to feel energies, and it was exciting, and I wanted it fast. I wanted it accelerated. I wanted to make it to the finish line of spirituality.
And I ended up being toppled on my butt a number of times.
And that’s one of the reasons, and I’ve said this in another episode, that’s the reason there’s that part that says, in the intention I say at the beginning of our activations, in the perfect amounts needed.
What I realized is that our bodies know what they’re doing, but if it takes on too much energy, it’ll throw us off balance.
It’ll actually disrupt our system rather than stabilize it. It’ll throw us out of balance rather than keeping us in a state of joy and peace and calm, which is exactly what we need in order to bring on more and more of what our body is capable of doing and being.
So stabilization and reorientation matter.
And that is why I think we get to take it one step at a time, as our body can handle it, as we continue to be open, knowing that we can’t miss out on anything for us.
Our guides, and I always say to my guides, push me a little bit, just not too much to push me off balance.
Because that is what can happen when we go into some of these experiences, whether it’s with medicine or plants or otherwise. If we’re not careful of our boundaries, it can destabilize our system if we don’t have the proper integration protocols.
So the key takeaway? This is about capacity, not speed.
But don’t let me tell you. You don’t need me to give you permission. You do you. You do what feels great and aligned for you.
⸻
Curiosity Over Comparison
The real invitation for this week is, how are you relating to the experiences?
So when something arises, instead of asking, what does this mean? try asking:
• Am I tightening or softening around this?
• Am I trying to figure it out, or can I stay present?
• What meaning am I assigning?
• Can I let it move without needing it to stay?
Can I hold the experience gently and not need to claim it, either as my own or as something that I want to keep?
The work isn’t to interpret the sensations. It’s to notice how I’m meeting it.
And so this really comes down to curiosity over comparison.
And I want to bring this back to the car analogy. It’s like learning a new vehicle. You don’t assume you know how it drives because you’ve driven another car.
You test the buttons. You feel how it responds. You track the emotions.
Because lists encourage us into comparison, where tracking builds relationship.
And I just want to expand on that a little bit.
What I have learned to do when I feel the energies is that I allow myself to be present with them, to feel them, and to feel them actually move.
So it might come down as a flow through my crown. But then I might feel a tweak in my back. Then I might feel my kidneys vibrating. And then it might move up to my heart centre. And then it moves to a different spot, and a different spot.
And I can sit there and just be with the energies, understanding that they’re working with the various components.
And what you might find helpful, or fun, or curious, if this is something for you, is to actually make notes.
What was I feeling when I felt my kidney area vibrate? What was I experiencing when I felt the energy flow down through my crown? Where was my attention when my heart centre started to vibrate?
And you will begin to track within your own system what these ascension symptoms, what these sensations, what these experiences are actually saying to you.
Because not everybody has the same symbology. Not everybody has the same meaning, because it’s based on your background, your experience, your life, your metaphors, your symbology.
And that’s one of the reasons I didn’t want to have the list.
I wanted it to speak to, here are some larger categories, whether it’s your nervous system recalibrating, your perception opening wider. You get to learn how your system speaks to you.
And this is so incredibly important. I’ve talked about it in last week’s episode around energetic discernment. I’ve spoken to it in other episodes, and we’ll probably continue to talk to it, because it is so important that we don’t give our power away to things outside of us.
Every answer we seek will be given to us from within us.
And that doesn’t mean that we won’t seek confirmation or validation. We might want to be sharing.
But you will know inside of your body. You will learn to track your own system, know your own vehicle like nobody else, because you are unique, you’re beautiful, you’re powerful.
And although we have similarities and very large categorical ways our systems are coming back online, our bodies are remembering, our light systems are activating, we’re each going to have our own way.
Discernment comes from staying present long enough to learn how my system speaks.
Discernment comes from staying present long enough to learn how my system speaks to me.
So ascension isn’t something happening to you. It’s something your system is learning to hold.
Ascension isn’t something happening to you. It’s something your system is learning to hold, to remember. It’s your natural state.
⸻
Closing
If you’ve loved this episode of Embodied Soul, please follow, share, and leave me a five-star review. It really does support getting the energies and messages out to those who need it.
I look forward to seeing you on next week’s episode of Embodied Soul.
