Episode 43
Hi, I’m Joanne Cary. Welcome back to Embodied Soul podcast.
Today, I want to explore what it looks like to live within the atmosphere of presence — where guidance is happening in every moment, where the next step isn’t something we figure out, but something we feel and respond to.
We’ll talk about why linear movement no longer works the way it used to, how what looks like distraction or delay is often part of a spiral of integration, and how learning to trust the subtle pulls of the moment can change the way we live, work, and navigate uncertainty.
This isn’t about doing presence “right.”
It’s about allowing presence to become the way you live.
If you’re ready to join me, pull up a comfy chair, invite in your soul, and allow yourself to receive exactly what you need, in this moment, to live, be, and thrive as the embodied soul you are.
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This is a time where we are being called, more and more, to be in the present moment — to live with what is presenting for us, in the moments that face us, in every moment of our day.
That is the work right now.
Everything else is unfolding and blooming within us. And it’s not about going outside of us, in many ways. It’s about allowing ourselves to be present with what’s calling to us in the moment — what’s revealing itself to us in the moment — so that we can experience what we need to experience, feel what we need to feel, and take action on what we need to take action on, from the moment it presents itself in our lived experience.
It’s really as easy as that.
And as challenging as that.
Because we are so used to doing the work.
We’re so used to the effort.
We’re so used to planning it out, figuring it out, knowing the plan.
And what we’re being called to is this:
There is one eternal now moment.
And that’s the moment we’re standing in right now.
The moment you hear these words.
The moment you’re eating your breakfast.
The moment you’re writing that email.
The moment something is happening.
Every moment is one eternal moment.
And we’re being asked to live in that moment — to stay focused. Because every single thing — every possible thing, and I can’t emphasize this enough — is happening for us in this moment. Not some other moment.
We are prepared in the moment.
We have all the tools we need to move forward in the moment that we’re in to our next highest step.
And even when we think we’re not being shown the next step, I would invite you to reframe it and ask:
What is the step I can take now?
What is the step I have now?
Because it might not be the step you think it is.
You might think the next step is creating the thing, or doing the post, or having the conversation. And your soul might be saying,
“No — it’s actually time to take a pause.”
“No — it’s actually time to go have a shake.”
“Oh — it’s actually time to do this random other thing.”
Or, “Listen to this audio that just called to you when it entered your feed.”
You are always being guided.
You are always being shown, in every moment, what your next step is.
And the more present you are, the more aware you become of how your guides are speaking to you, how you’re being shown, how the energetics of your body are pulling you forward.
That becomes the practice.
It’s not about finding the answers outside of us.
It’s about bringing it in — being so present, so aware.
And I can hear some of you already saying,
“But I do that, and nothing comes up.”
And then you feel bad.
And then you start blaming yourself for doing it wrong.
And then you end up back in self-surveillance — which I was talking about before — and that is actually counterproductive.
So this is listening without expectation.
This is listening to what is most present for you.
What has the most energy behind it.
What feels the most alive, or even just a little bit more exciting than everything else — in the moment that you’re in.
And this changes moment to moment to moment to moment
Every moment will have a new pull, a new energetic behind it that’s calling you forward. And that’s what we’re being called to.
And I’ll tell you — sometimes I’ll start doing one thing, get sidetracked by another thing, realize I want to do something else, get pulled into that… and then I spiral all the way back around and go,
“Oh yeah — I remember. I was starting this thing.”
And in the meantime, I’ve done five other things.
And when I come back to that original thing, it can finally move — because there was something in those five steps that freed up the energy for the next step that I was wanting to take.
What we think of as diversion,
what we think is a stall tactic,
what we think is not moving us forward…
actually is.
It’s just not doing it, the way we’re used to.
We want to move linearly:
A to B to C to D.
But our movement right now is spiral.
It’s always been spiral.
We just thought it of it as linear.
And now we’re being asked to trust the spiral nature of our experience.
To trust when we’re called somewhere — when something excites us, or even lightly inclines us — we don’t let the mind jump in and say,
“No, no, no. I’m working on this right now.”
“I said I would do this.”
“It’s in my calendar.”
Because we can constrict ourselves that way.
We can limit ourselves.
We can block ourselves — if we don’t listen to what we’re actually being guided toward.
And this is the practice.
I’ll share a really simple, real example from my own experience.
I was actually working on a different episode for this week — that ’s what I had plan. I had the framework, I was shaping it, and I thought that’s what I was meant to be doing.
But then I felt the impulse to go for a walk and bring through the Monday Message.
And then on that walk, the Monday Message came through easily. And then I felt guided to keep walking — to walk the path again.
And it was there, while I was recording the intro to the Monday Message, that something else arrived. A different thread interrupted my introduction.
And it was this episode.
Not something I had planned.
Not an idea I had worked out.
But something that arrived fully formed.
I remember feeling pleasantly surprised. It was clean. It was easy.
It had energy.
This is
This was what wanted to come through, now for you to listen to now.
And so I followed it.
And only afterward did I realized that this transmission was intended to come before the one I was working on.
What I thought was a detour wasn’t a detour at all.
It was sequence.
This episode needed to come first.
And that’s often how guidance works.
We don’t always understand the order while we’re in it.
We recognize it once we’ve listened.
We don’t always understand the order while we’re in it.
We recognize it once we’ve listened.
And if you’re listening to this thinking, “I try to listen and nothing comes up,” I want to say this clearly:
That doesn’t mean you’re doing anything wrong.
It may simply mean that nothing is being asked of you in that moment.
And I know — people say to me,
“But yeah… I know we’re supposed to be present.”
“I have embodiment practices; mindfulness practices.”
“I pause.”
“I feel my body.”
And I understand , that the real question underneath that is:
So what’s the different here?
What are you actually pointing to, Joanne?
And yes — I’ve talked about embodiment practices in other episodes. About bringing yourself back into your body when you’re anxious, when you’re spiraling in your mind.
But this is different.
This is not presence as a stop — or a place to get to.
This is presence as a state of being.
Living within the atmosphere of presence.
Does that make sense?
It can be lingering.
It can also be fast.
And this is not a mental activity.
So maybe we need to reframe it that way.
When you give yourself permission to not follow the old ways of meeting your day — scheduling your day, walking through your day, living your day — and instead allow yourself to tangibly tune into:
a feeling
a flash of an image in your mind
a knowing in your belly
a pull forward of energy
a sense that says, “Go here,” or “Do this,” or “Check this out.”
Or even,
“Oh — I know I was going to do that, but I actually need to do this first.”
When we begin to work with those broader awarenesses as a practice, living this way becomes easier and easier.
Until one day, you’re not even conscious of the practice anymore.
It just becomes how you live.
How you move.
How you navigate the world.
And this matters — because we are living inside a great shift of uncertainty.
Times are not predictable.
There is release happening.
Fear is coming up.
Upheaval comes with it.
This is us learning how to live as soul in a body.
And I’ll keep saying this, in different ways, across different episodes:
This is not a one-and-done.
This is not, “I’ve arrived.”
Because it isn’t a destination.
It’s a journey.
It’s the living and being of embodied presence.
That’s the change.
That’s what’s new.
That’s why we’re here.
It’s not theoretical.
It’s not book learning.
It’s experiential.
And you only get the experience by living it — by taking the actions, the non-action actions as my Guides would say, and allowing yourself to live as embodied presence…
as your most authentic, fulfilled self.
So take a breath here.
Let whatever landed settle in your body.
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I look forward to being with you again next week on Embodied Soul.
