I’m Scared Of My Own Body & Feel Anxious All The Time - Inner Work Library [81/500]

Body Image Issues & Chronic Anxiety are painful. Somatic Therapy works, and the latest findings in Psychosomatic Healing help us to unlock the healing power of embodiment as we resolve Childhood Trauma and Mental Health Issues relating to body anxiety and body image.

I've done my best to speak into this issue from several perspectives, but trauma and dissociation are complex issues with many areas of unresolved discussion.

Feel free to get involved in the comments section if you think I've missed something.

WATCH MORE Q&A EPISODES BELOW (FULL SERIES)

WATCH INNER WORK ESSENTIALS: COMPLETE COURSE | 100+ Book Recommendations:

⏱️ TIMESTAMPS ⏱️

00:00 Body Anxiety = Normal
01:12 Psychology Of Anxiety
02:42 4 x Book Recommendations
03:20 Why You Abandoned Your Body
07:20 The Denial of Death (Ernest Becker)
09:55 The God Who Poops
13:26 Do You Actually Want To Exist?
16:08 You Can't Control Everything
20:40 How To Heal Your Body Anxiety

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Topics explored: inner work; jordan thornton; how to heal yourself; trauma healing; trauma healing; somatic therapy; trauma therapy; healing dissociation; traumatic dissociation; childhood trauma; embodiment; dissociation; how to get embodied; body anxiety; body image issues; scared of my own body; im sacred of my own body; scared of embodiment; bioenergetics; always anxious; I always feel anxious; anxiety disorder; anxiety relief; somatic healing; body therapy; body based therapy; body based trauma therapy; chronic anxiety; anxiety issues; anxious body;

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DM me for 1:1 consultations & private mentoring.

#anxiety #selfhealing #anxietyrelief

[jordanthornton]

*1-1 Mentorship Information: Price & Structure (Maximum Capacity = 20 Clients Per Year)*

It's an absolute pleasure to film these YouTube videos, and I feel fortunate to receive an abundance of meaningful messages every week, but I am unfortunately faced with the disappointing reality of turning away the vast majority of people who want to work together.

I have significantly limited availability and can only support twenty people per year because I do not offer one-off calls or drop-in consulting sessions.

Twenty individuals might not sound like maximum capacity, but the last few years of teaching have taught me the importance of maintaining tight energetic boundaries if I want to keep uploading these free videos in addition to serving my current clients to the best of my ability in 2024.

To minimise confusion and enhance transparency, I've spent several hours writing this ridiculously long comment to help you decide if my Inner Work Mentorship is the right choice for your development & what you could reasonably expect from working closely together.

Please take the time to read this service description before contacting me on Instagram… or feel free to stop reading right now if you’re not interested in my fees, session structure, client expectations, etc.

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*READ BEFORE SCROLLING FURTHER:*

I'm interested in long-term change and structural transformation, which is why I've never offered one-off sessions.

Complex issues cannot be resolved in a few hours, but we likewise need to define an upper limit for containment and collaboration.

I've learned that deep and enduring self-integration requires at least four months of immersive effort. Why four months? It's enough weekly contact for us to work through multiple complex issues and developmental possibilities, but short enough to mitigate against unconscious co-dependency and motivational stagnation.

I'm currently accepting a maximum of two new clients per month - message me after reading the following section to check my availability.

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*HOW I WORK & WHO I WORK WITH*

Unlike other coaches and teachers who take an understandably more relaxed approach to healing and integration, my mentorships are characteristically intense.

This is a highly-demanding, high-investment process which requires our consistent combined effort over a period of four months.

If we were to start working together, I would reasonably expect you to be excited to show up for a minimum of 10+ hours of self-motivated transformative practice per week (daily reading, fitness routine, creative exercises, spiritual reflection, etc.) while also maintaining full-sobriety (no drink, no drugs, no cigarettes, no vapes).

These strict standards of discipline and sobriety are plainly unsuitable for most people in most situations - even genuinely motivated individuals who resonate with my YouTube videos may not be the right match for four months of structured mentorship.

If you want to get deeper, I've noticed that there's a certain type of ‘temperament' & 'timing’ to get the most out of me.

I'm interested in alert, creative and purpose-driven individuals who aspire to exceptional standards of self-maturation and would enjoy the feeling of going through week-on-week of progressively stacked transformative experiences for a third of a year: my ideal client is somebody who is willing to bring forward their internal complexity with a sense of courage and transparency with the intention of nothing less than full-spectrum transformation & rapid acceleration on their personal path.

I am yet to discover another supportive figure who offers something comparable to this mentorship: a four-month, structured yet flexible 1-1 container which is simultaneously therapeutic, academic and action-oriented; with primary focus placed on tangible improvements in your felt sense of self-knowledge and self-integration; in addition to making consistent and meaningful progress towards your unique goals and mentorship aspirations.

I prioritise contact, compassion and accountability, which means that your work never really 'ends' at the end of your session. You can reasonably expect to be fed dozens of customised reading suggestions and follow-on perspectives outside of the formal sessions via friendly and informal messenger contact, where I am active and available four days per week to cultivate an intimate personal connection while likewise enhancing your positive momentum via accountability check-ins and additional support as required.

By way of conclusion for what feels like an extraordinarily long comment and service description, I feel compelled to once more emphasise that working directly with me is unrealistic for most people in most situations.

I often support people who are accustomed to wrestling with the emotional challenges associated with working through complex wounds in previous therapeutic relationships before we begin our coaching work together. Even individuals without 'hard trauma' can expect moments of pressurised darkness and heaviness during periods of shadow contact as you begin to restructure your personal unconscious. We will be exploring your psyche and soma at scale and depth, and it will be your responsibility to keep me informed about the emotional texture of your internal reality, especially if you encounter negatively charged experiences, and I will of course do everything in my power to support you through the hard times as we integrate the darkness and move forwards together.

YouTube is a wonderful place for me to share free research resources and offer accessible inner work invitations; my private mentorships, however, are the place for collaborative partnership and emotional security as we identify, navigate and restructure oftentimes confronting and challenging conscious and unconscious physical, emotional and mental material.

Ultimately, this is a highly-demanding but highly-rewarding process which requires the best of our shared intentions.

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*SESSION STRUCTURE & FEES:*

The total fee for an Inner Work Mentorship (including 12 x 2 hr sessions) is £7, 400 GBP or approximately $9, 400 USD. This is my only coaching programme, and my mentorship pricing is liable to adjustment over time.

Each private session lasts two hours, and is facilitated via Telegram video call at an ideal time for both of us. Your mentorship extends over a linear four-month period, with a total of twenty-four hours of structured session time, in addition to four days per week of unlimited messenger availability for accountability updates, voice note exchanges and informal calls upon occasion. I do not work on Mondays, Tuesdays or Wednesdays, but I am fully-available across all timezones for regular calls and messenger contact on Thursday - Sunday.

If you’ve scrolled this far, and resonate with what I’m offering, I invite you to message me on Instagram. It would be my pleasure to start exploring your goals and intentions in real-time.

IMPORTANT: I am an intentionally independent coach, and not a licensed therapist or associated with any professional bodies or coaching institutions, and therefore enjoy the freedom to collaborate with my clients across all areas of life in an intimate, direct and highly involved coaching style. I work with no more than twenty people per year, and am currently accepting a maximum of two new clients per month. I also manage my own inbox and do not use automated systems or employ people to pretend to be me on Instagram, which means that it usually takes four to six weeks for me to respond to new messages and begin the interview process. Although my approach takes time, I hope you ultimately appreciate my personal emphasis on authentic and confidential communication from the very beginning of our relationship. I once again encourage you to message me immediately if you want to start working together within the next two months - bump yourself to the top of my inbox, and I’ll send you some voice notes to get our conversation started.

[alchimiaspiritului]

Thank you, Jordan! I'll keep this phrase in mind: we are both God and worms. The menstrual cycle shaming came from my mother because it was associated with the loss of innocence and security. I remember she told me- From now on, you won't be playing with the boys. Suddenly my friends were portrayed as predators and nothing but my menstrual cycle was to be blamed for it. I hated it and suffered tremendously, but as soon as I changed my perspective that my cycle is what makes me feminine and fertile, all pain has gone away. Still stuck with being constipated during travels away from home, but thanks to you I realized it might be tied to the reaction of my parents towards cleaning me up when we weren't at home.☺

[incanthatus]

We have a bunch of sexual trauma and that makes it really hard to be in the body...
Then all the other layers of disgust and fear of physical responses, fear of death.
It definitely feels very overwhelming, like a way too big problem to tackle.
Going slow sometimes feels like it will never get us there, but Going slow is the only way that works.

[Pia]

"Don't dissociate into another video" I guess you caught so many of us 🤣I will go for a barefoot walk now, and do what you said, it just rained and it smells nice through my window (but still writing a comment because somehow there's still the laziness and writing will allow me to sit on my couch for a moment longer :D)

[A.Bernadette.]

Genuinely love you for being so vulnerable in such a public way. That takes a lot of courage.

[riniraw]

"feeling dangers within and fearing dangers without". Relatable. Packs a punch. searching for this book. I wanna read it 👀.
I wonder if I find anything that has to do with bodily fluids and poop super funny because this is my way of dealing with disgust and stress about having a body.
I laughed every time you said poop. I don't even need a punchline.🤣

Things are getting so much better for me. after lots of hard work, it became very hard to ignore my physical needs. there's so much suppressed hunger for fleshy things, it scares me sometimes. Thanks for sharing your vomiting anxiety. I've always struggled with it. but now, every nausea became a chance to grow. 🌱

[J.RFermin]

I remember that I was always the fat boy in the class, and living in a hostile environment, both because of the bullying I received at school and in my own home, from my own family. It was normal that I wanted to shelter myself in my own body, and create a barrier between myself and my direct environment. Over time I understood that it was fear, anxiety and claiming my own space that led me to have an overweight body, and it wasn't until I started working on my body that I could begin to recognize the mental and spiritual benefits that this brings.

Thank you for sharing this message with such sensitivity and empathy, greetings from South America

[jengriffy]

Love this SO much. I’ve been on a journey of embodiment practice this year with a group of women. It’s been a flow of learning, listening and liberation. The quote on the normality in the humanness made me smile and how health on the inside & daily practices ripples out. A simple question I’ve been asking myself is “when I listen to my body she says…” - could be more sleep, movement, time in nature, compassionate loving words… but brings me back to the body. Adored this video!

[beckymagnolia]

Oh Jordan! So many good books out there. I can't keep up! 😊. This topic is very new to my healing practice - most of us airy spiritual folk are told to aim for the higher chakra and avoid that deep messy, lower chakras business, but I will tell you this self work of returning to the body and these "forbidden" parts of ourselves is changing everything for me. My healing process is speeding up as I do this work. Thank you as always!!! 🌟🙏🧚‍♂️🌱. Your vulnerable videos are some of my favorite.

[sunnymoon]

This is something I've been struggling with all my life, but especially the last 6 months. This video is just what I needed. Thank you!

[paulmohill]

That was beautiful jordon, I am so greatful for your work. I'm just back from an Ayahuasca retreat. Fantastic experence but for all the reasons I wasn't expecting. I'm currently trying to integrate the experience and your words resonated so much for me. Your a special soul and you are helping so many and will continue to help our world long into the future. Thank you for all the seeds you plant from the wide variety of knowledge you have sought out, synthesised and shared. You are a gift to humanity❤️

[SimeonKirilovX]

Somatic therapy plus medication is a solid choice if one can't handle it and has a diagnosis.

[gitu_tg]

When I look at the mirror, I wonder who is looking at me.. It's really sad..