Embodiment in Midlife: How to Return to Yourself When Life Pulls You Out - Episode 314

Most people think they need more confidence, but what they’re actually missing is embodiment.  

In this episode, we break down what embodiment really is, why it fades in midlife, and how to return to yourself when modern life constantly pulls your attention outward.

You’ll learn the science in clear, grounded language:

• the insula as your internal dashboard
• interoception (your ability to sense hunger, emotion, intuition)
• proprioception (your body map in space)
• vagal tone and nervous system regulation
• why fight‑or‑flight, numbness, and self‑monitoring become chronic

We also explore how noise, multitasking, scrolling, comparison, and stress disconnect you from your body and what actually restores parasympathetic safety.

You’ll get practical tools you can use today:

• micro‑movements to rebuild your body map
• simple breathwork like 4‑7‑8
• sensory reduction and nature exposure
• blood sugar basics for emotional steadiness
• somatic grounding when emotions feel too big

Embodiment isn’t a performance or a perfect state; it’s a capacity you return to again and again. This episode shows you how.  To work with my friend Brenda Farrugia, go to https://www.sobrilliant.ca/.  I promise you she's the real deal.

If this resonates, subscribe so you don’t miss next week’s episode, and share it with a friend who might appreciate it.

Transcript

Welcome And Why This Matters

Sandy Kruse 0:02

Hi everyone, it's me, Sandy Kruse. Welcome to Sandy K Nutrition Health and Lifestyle Queen. For many years now, I've been a trusted voice for people in midlife and beyond who want a deeper, more honest conversation about wellness. One that includes the physical, the emotional, the mental, and the esoteric. Most episodes are solo now because I want to bring you thoughtful research, lived experience, and grounded insight without noise or bias. And when I do bring on a guest, it's because their work genuinely adds something meaningful to the conversation. Here we explore the full spectrum of what it means to be well, how the body functions, how the mind heals, how the spirit expands, and how all of these layers shape life lived with clarity and joy. Thanks for being here. And if this show resonates with you, please follow, rate, review, and share it. It truly helps the message reach more people. Hi everyone, welcome to Sandy K Nutrition Health and Lifestyle Queen. Oops, I better bring my mic a little closer. This week I am going to talk to you all about embodiment. What it is, why we lose it, how we get it back. So I'm going to first define what it is. It's really a feeling. And as most of you know, everyone who listens to my podcast, I believe that you all have it within you to learn more about how your body works. I'm not giving you any advice here. I do rely on some research, but then it's your job to take what I say and go that resonates, or that doesn't, because I believe that every human being is really intelligent when they tap into what feels right for them. And what's happened in this space of health and wellness, body, mind, spirit, soul, it feels almost as though, you know, information is coming at you like you don't have the intelligence to decipher what makes sense because they're saying, uh, the research says this. So if you say opposite, you must be wrong. And we have seen very clearly that often research is wrong. And research, while it may be right for one person, it's not right for another person because our physiology and our internal landscape is so different and unique. And that's why I believe that everybody has that innate intelligence if they tap into it. A lot of the topics that I cover can be pretty heavy. And a lot of us want to skip to the good part. You know, it's on, let's skip to the good part. And the fact of the matter is, it's not easy to do, and you can't really just skip to the good part without doing the work. So I pretty intuitively just had a lot of topics lately where it talks about doing the work. And now I'm skipping to the, I'm not skipping to the good part, I'm getting to the good part, which is that feeling of embodiment. It's when you do do all the work and you're like, when does the work end? And it never ends. So I will say that it never ends. We never ever reach that peak and that summit and go, okay, our humanity is done now. We don't have to do any more work. Because the fact is, the human condition is really complex. And a lot of times, most of us sit there and go, why'd this happen to me? I don't get it, but we don't pause long enough or work hard enough on why things happen. I've had so many conversations, mostly with people who follow me on Instagram. By the way, I have been in this space for many, many years, nine years on Instagram. My podcast hit six in February, one point over 1.4 million downloads of my podcast. Please hit subscribe wherever it is that you are listening to this or watching this, because it just helps me to keep going. And it's almost like that feedback without giving me feedback, because often I feel like it's a one-sided conversation. And most of you know I come every week with passion over profit without heavy sponsorships and biases because I want to give you truth. But again, this is my truth. It doesn't necessarily mean it's your truth. So that's why I come every week with a bunch of different options. And really, it's more or less just topics to help you think about things in a different light from an unbiased perspective. So if you could follow me wherever you are listening, go to Instagram. I'm most active there, Sandy Knutrition, everywhere. Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Threads, uh, Lemonade, YouTube, you're probably watching this on YouTube. Just hit subscribe. Also, wherever you are listening to my podcast, if it is on Apple or Spotify, if you can provide me with some kind words and a rating and a review, it really helps my podcast to just keep getting found by more and more people. So I appreciate you listening to that. Now, I have had many conversations with people privately on DM, on Instagram mostly, just about how hard 2025 has been for many and many of you out there. And I'm not sure if it's just me or if it's everybody, but I feel like life, and when I say hard, it's more like the rhythms of life. You know, you go through life and you're like, things are great. I remember 2018, 2019, there were fabulous years. And then the pandemic hit, and I almost feel like people have lost their footing since then. 2025 was a tough year for many of you. 2026, they say, is the year of disclosure. I don't get into politics, I don't get into all of that here, but many of you have seen this on a macro level, on a worldwide level, and then also in your own lives where things and structures that worked before no longer work. So the reason I'm recording this podcast is to give you hope that there is hope, and there is that light at the end of the tunnel, but you have to keep working to keep that light on because feelings that are really good, like embodiment, are not uh they're not permanent, meaning you dip in and out of embodiment. I'm gonna get into that. So it really starts off, it's this feeling of being able to feel yourself from the inside out, and this goes with everything, my friends. Beauty, health, um, your aura, everything goes from the inside out, so it starts internally with you, and embodiment is not fake. You know how sometimes, listen, I go back to times where you drink and get drunk and have a great time, and you feel like you're embodied, but you're not, you're actually not, it's a false sense of embodiment. Embodiment is when you are really in that sound mind body. You feel your body, you feel this feeling from deep within you, and it's a neurophysiological state. So it's this internal awareness, and I'm gonna, and and it's not aesthetics, you know how you see a lot of these aesthetics online. That's not what this is about. It's when you know how that that saying, dance like nobody's watching. That's an example of embodiment. Nobody's watching you, you're not performing for anybody, it's it's inside of you, and it's almost like this private feeling that comes from within you. But many of us have lost that feeling, especially around midlife menopause, when you have a lot of I'm gonna say, rockiness in you know, your hormones and maybe health challenges and maybe stress challenges, which I'm gonna get into. So I'm gonna talk about the insula, it's in the brain, that's your internal awareness, the vagus nerve regulation. You hear a lot about these vagus nerve stimulators. Just remember, my friends, every little thing like meditation, uh, vagus nerve stimulations, uh, walks in nature, these are all pieces of the puzzle. It resolves one issue, okay, and relieves one tension that may be a factor in why you're not feeling embodied. So it's it's really all about the holistic body, whole, W-H-O-L-E, whole. I'm also going to talk about interoception, which is an internal sensing, kind of like intuition. And then there's proprioception, and that is body in space awareness, parasympathetic access, which is your safety. I talk a lot about sympathetic versus parasympathetic nervous system. Remember, sympathetic, the best way to know the difference, sympathetic. Think of it as if you were sympathizing with absolutely everything and everyone all around you, you'd be a stressed-out mess. You do not want to be in that parasympathetic nervous system state all the time. You want, did I say that backwards? In that sympathetic nervous state all the time. You want to be in the parasympathetic nervous state, and you can dip in that sympathetic nervous state when you need to, not living there. Okay. Then there's emotional literacy. That's just feeling life without overwhelm. Often we feel overwhelmed, and the fact of the matter is, most people today don't feel embodied, not because they're shallow, but because modern life makes embodiment biologically difficult to feel. It's the way we live, my friends. So this episode is going to talk about what embodiment is, the science behind it, why humans used to be more embodied, why we lost it, how we can get it back, why we dip in and out of embodiment, and what actions actually can rebuild embodiment within us, what work actually touches. And I'm going to talk about a little example, and maybe I'm going to talk about it right now. One day I was, I don't know, I was driving and then I stopped at a store, and this man had this, I don't know, 1985 Camaro, 1980, I don't know what year. He had the music blaring, totally like probably like white snake or something from the 80s, like hair rock. He steps out, he is literally wearing like a 1980 outfit. Okay. His hair, his body, his clothing, whatever. He was sober, he was driving, he didn't look like he was impaired in any way, shape, or form, but he was feeling himself. And I stopped and just watched him almost in amazement, because I'm like, wow, that guy's really feeling himself. He didn't care what anybody was thinking about his car, his hair, his clothes, what he might have looked like, the song he was playing. He was in his light, and he was feeling himself. This is an example of embodiment. And remember, this comes from uh nothing else outside of you, nothing making you feel that way, except you from the inside out. I wanted to give you that example because it was just like it was it was really nice to see. Okay, so let's go into a little bit of the science. You know, I always like to dip into that. So the insula is the brain's internal dashboard. Okay, it tells you what's happening inside of your body in real time, so it gives you that emotional awareness, intuition, body mapping, self-awareness, integrating body signals into decisions. And it's only active when you are grounded, clear, and present. When it is suppressed, it is numbed, disconnected, and it's reactive. Okay. So interoception, I mentioned that at the beginning, it's feeling yourself from the inside. So these are feelings like hunger, fullness, emotion, intuition, tension, truth. It is governed by the insula. So high interoception is embodiment, and low interoception is that numbness. So proprioception, just bear with me as I get through this because I'm gonna tie it all together. You're gonna love it in a nice neat little bow. So it's knowing where your body is in space, it's like an internal GPS and it's strengthened by movement. Guess what? It's destroyed by my friends. It's destroyed by sitting too much. I know, right? So then there's the vagal tone, your body's ability to regulate itself. So high vagal tone. So this is the um, this is what I was mentioning at the beginning. It it's emotional stability and groundedness. All of these things keep you in your body. Okay. Low vagal tone is reactivity and overwhelm. And then the parasympathetic access, which I talked about, your ability to shift out of survival mode. Embodiment requires parasympathetic dominance. That means if you're in that sympathetic state, you can't possibly feel embodied. You can't be in your body. And then that uh fight flight shuts down the insula, that that part in your brain. Okay. So emotional litter literacy, it's the last piece. It's feeling without being hijacked. So staying with the sensation. A lot of people have a hard time with this instead of escaping it. This is I've I've recorded podcasts about this, about why so many people drink at midlife. They are trying to escape that emotional toughness that sometimes we go through. And that will only block that embodiment even more. So I'm gonna give you some you know, talks about the 80s and the 90s and why we used to be more embodied. And I have been watching, it's done now, and I'm so sad because it's done. There ain't gonna be a season two in the in the series love story, unfortunately. The JFK uh story with uh Carolyn Bissett Kennedy, and everybody's been watching that, and you know, that's a real life depiction, okay, sort of real life, of how Carolyn Kennedy had a really hard time dealing in the public eye. And I'm sure it was a really big deal for her because nobody lived this way during that time unless you were a celebrity, which I've touched on. So we used to be more embodied in the 80s and 90s because A, we weren't being filmed. There were no cameras, no phones, no performance, no identity curation. We weren't curating our Instagram feed so that it looks a certain way. And the result was you were in your body and not so much in your head. I have poetry books that I've written. Most of you know I am an English literature graduate. I've written a lot of poetry, a lot of diary writing, and I and you know, sometimes it's kind of cool to go back to that and read how it was in those times and even the mindset. Like I really felt things, but I've always been that person. So, an example was, you know, dancing at a club in 1988. You were sweating, you were laughing, you were moving, you didn't care. You weren't worried, you weren't worried how you were going to appear to somebody else or if somebody else was filming you. So back in the 80s and 90s, there was also more movement. We walked everywhere, we danced for hours. I don't know. Do young people dance a lot now? I don't know. We we went to clubs, and when we were really little, all we did was play outside. So movement that equates to proprioception, which equates to embodiment. So there was a lot less dopamine hijacking as well. No notifications, endless scrolling, no algorithm. Your presence was very natural. And then there was more real life connection, eye contact. This drives me crazy. I'm sure a lot of you who are Gen Xers who watch this or listen to this, it drives you crazy when your 20-year-old is answering you and looking at their phone. It's not even your 20-year-old, sometimes it's your spouse. It's like, look me in the eyes while you're talking to me. You know, I was taught that even when I was a little kid. Connection, eye contact means that connection, the physical proximity, social nervous system activation. And then there's the fact that there's way less comparison. You compared yourself to maybe the 20 people that you surrounded yourself with versus 20 million on social media. That's that's tough to compare yourself to that, right? So now let's get into why, you know, more the whys, why modern humans can't feel embodied now. A the chronic sympathetic dominance, constant low grade fight flight. We're constantly in that. I recorded a podcast about nutrition and weight loss, and really how we're not even doing the basics, but we're getting into all the biohacks. It's like, okay, you're so worried about digestion and nutrition and you know, gas and gut issues. How about you just stop eating in front of a screen? Start there. No phones, no laptops, no working while you're eating. So this chronic sympathetic dominance. High cortisol suppresses the insula, that part in your brain. So insula suppression is stress plus multitasking equals shutdown of that embodiment center. And then there's that dopamine hijacking I mentioned. Social media pulls attention outward. Embodiment requires inward attention. Sensory overload, too much noise. The brain gates out internal signals. When there's so much noise around you, like I don't know about you guys, but I even watch, you know, my kids and students now they they study with headphones in their ears and music blaring, or and then the TV's also on. Like, I don't get it. Like to me, that's sensory overload. Then there's the sedentary lifestyle. Sitting down destroys proprioception, fragmented attention, multitasking, fragments self-awareness, emotional bypassing, avoidance increases sympathetic tone, metabolic dysregulation, blood sugar swings, emotional chaos, inflammation, reduced introsception, trauma physiology as a baseline, freeze, fawn, fight, flight, they become the default. So I'm just kind of naming all that for you. I think you guys get the point. But with all of that noise and interruption of your own circuitry, how are you ever gonna feel embodied true to yourself? It's virtually impossible. Embodiment is not the ego, okay? And I want to make that clear. You know, sometimes you see somebody who looks like they're embodied, they're driving their brand new Porsche, you know, a $300,000 car, they got their expensive shades on, they got their, you know, Louis Vuitton bag, and they step out decked out in designer. That is an embodiment, my friends. That's ego. Because when you're embodied, you don't need any of that, just like my Camaro man that I mentioned. You don't need that, and you also don't need that for people to notice your light and to feel that embodiment from you. So ego-driven living. I want to define this. There's that external validation where your worth depends on other people's reactions, identity curation, constructing a persona instead of inhabiting self. On social media, it's pretty tough. You're not going to go and air all your dirty laundry on social media. However, people will often curate a version of themselves that they want everyone else to see. And then you see it and you're like, damn, I'm not like that. And it ends up making you feel worse because you're comparing yourself to a persona, not true embodiment. And if you're embodied, you're not comparing yourself to anybody, right? So then there's performance, behaving to influence perception. That's social media, right? Status-based confidence, confidence tied to external markers. My confidence is tied to the clothes I wear, to the house I live in, to the car I drive, to the bag I carry. So something to think about. And I think the world is changing, by the way. I was very different in my 40s, just saying, where stuff like that really mattered to me a lot more than it does today. Dopamine-driven self-worth, chasing hits, novelty, and praise. Then there's that hypervigilance, scanning for threat or judgment. Then there's the sympathetic activation. Nervous system is stuck in that survival mode. I'm going to give you an example specifically of embodied living, what that means for all of those things that I talked about. So inoception is feeling internal cues very clearly. This is your intuition, my friends. If your intuition is blocked, so is that interoception that I talked about. The vagal tone, regulated, grounded, and emotionally stable. Nervous system safety. The body perceives the environment as safe. Like my Camaro man. He didn't care what was around him. He was feeling himself. He felt good and safe in his body. Internal clarity, decisions guided by internal cues. Again, it's kind of repetitive. Presence. Attention is anchored in the moment. Everyone talks about being more present. That's a part of being embodied is being anchored in the moment. Self-respect, boundaries rooted in internal truth. Oh God. I could talk about boundaries in and of itself because I think people get a false sense of what boundaries mean. But really, those boundaries come from the inside of you and you feel them. And often we we ignore them. That's the truth. We ignore them. And then we end up not feeling so great when we ignore our internal boundaries. So it's not from the outside in, it's from the inside out. That's how you determine boundaries. Not he got mad at me and he told me I need to do this and this and this. I'm going to put boundaries around him. He's not allowed to talk to me like that. No, it comes from inside of you. I'm feeling a certain way. And you have to do the work in order to have those very clear boundaries. You can't just cut everybody off, which sometimes social media gives you that perception. Like if anybody says anything to you, you got to cut them off and strengthen those boundaries. Anyway, that's a whole other topic. Yeah. Parasympathetic access, rest and digest, embodiment becomes possible. If you're constantly go, go, go, you're never going to be able to feel embodied if you're never quiet in your life. I want to just explain embodiment is not a state that you can live in all the time. And often we dip in and out of that feeling of embodiment. And my big thing is doing the work to clear anything that may cloud that feeling from inside of me so that I can feel it more. So it is more of a capacity versus a permanent state. And when you're under stress, when you allow all of those triggers to bother you, then you're gonna dip out of embodiment and you dip back in when you feel safe. So the goal is not to stay embodied, the goal is just to return to embodiment because the facts are like we can't change life around us, we can't control all the uncontrollables around us. So this is why I'm gonna talk about some ways that you can okay, you're gonna dip out, you're gonna dip back in a little easier. So one is movement. You're going to restore the proprioception, that feeling, you're gonna regulate your vagus nerve, and um, you rebuild the body map when you move. So even if you have a sit-down job, go outside for a walk as often as you can. And it's more about those micro movements versus going out and walking for 45 minutes of your lunch. No, you want to get up and move, go outside, get some fresh air, take a few deep breaths. I'll get to that too. Breath work. So when you do some sort of breath work, there's so many different ways. When my kids were little, this is a long time ago, my friends, because they're now in their 20s. But when they were little, I taught them they played a lot of sports that were competitive. So I taught them four, seven, eight. And it's a very basic breath work. And it was Dr. Andrew Wheel who coined this four, seven, eight. In for four seconds, hold for seven seconds, out for eight, in through the nose, out through the mouth. There you go. That's your breath work. Do that as often as you can to make sure that you're not breathing from you know your chest only. You want to reduce the sensory input. So less noise, less multitasking, less stimulation. So that's on you to decide what is your what is your tolerance level. Then, of course, blood sugar stability, it prevents that emotional reactivity. It always goes down to health. Like, what are you putting in your body? What are you doing to ensure that your blood sugar is stable? This becomes more and more of an issue as you age. Emotional tolerance, feeling instead of bypassing. If you're that person who comes home from a hard day at work and has to have alcohol in order to regulate, well, that's a form of bypassing. And I'm not judging you for drinking, I'm just telling you fact. If, you know, for me, I'll give you an example. If I have a hard day, I get outside, I go for a walk, I clear my head, I don't have my headphones on, I don't put music on, I don't do anything, although music can sometimes be helpful, but that's how I clear my head, and it is through feeling. Reduce the self-monitoring, less adjusting, less performing. A lot of people do this in my industry, they perform, and sometimes I do too. I mean, when you're in social media, it's kind of hard not to. But I think if you take that out of your work life and put it that that rule into your personal, you're gonna be a lot happier. Get out in nature. I mean, I recorded one of my first podcasts ever about how nature heals that regulates the nervous system in and of itself. This morning I sat there. I I this is my office where I record, but then I also work at my kitchen table where I look straight outside in the trees and I watch birds. I take a break. It's great for your nervous system to do that. Somatic awareness, body scans, grounding, hand on chest. If you're having a nice, uh hard day, put both feet on the ground and feel what your body's feeling and where the tension is, and then let it go. I've been a massive fan of qigong. I've been doing this now since January, and I try and do it every morning, and I love it because it starts my day off right to ensure I'm not carrying any tension or stress through my day. At least I'm starting my day off on a clean slate. Nervous system repair, sleep, minerals, hydration, reducing stimulants. I mean, these are these are basics. So some of the work that I have been doing goes a lot deeper. And not everybody's called to do that. And sometimes you may not be called to do that today, but you might want to do it tomorrow. I'm just, I just happen to be a big fan of really doing the work. So Brenda Farrugia of so brilliant.ca, I actually have no affiliation with her, I don't get paid anything, I don't, but she has changed my life uh in a way that is measurable by me, which is all that matters. And she teaches so many different ways in which you can kind of regulate all of this and feel more embodied because the goal is you want to feel better. A lot of times the work makes you feel awful, it's true, but this is the human condition to get through the hard, feel embodied, dip in and out. Then unfortunately, some of the harder stuff might come back. This is life, my friends. We just need to learn how to cope better. And Brenda is one of those people that helps with that, so you start with nervous system safety. So her work emphasizes safety first, slowness, uh, microdoses of sensation, building capacity, not forcing things. I've actually done shows about microdosing, and I have heard some pretty, you know, eye-opening stories about microdosing. Sometimes people feel like that's their route to healing, and sometimes because it's almost forced upon you by the plant medicines, you feel dysregulated for a very long time. And you might feel dysregulated when you do the work as well, but not in such an extreme. Because when you do the work with Brenda, the only person that's in charge is your higher self. Nobody else, not Brenda, not the plant medicine, because there isn't any, nothing else. Your higher self is in charge, and that's what I love because not many people teach you this. A lot of people want to teach you to be dependent on them for your betterment, body, mind, spirit, soul. You see that a lot. And there are very few people out there who teach and give you the tools so that you can be on your way and you're no longer dependent on them for anything. Your higher self is always going to be in charge once you learn that. Brenda's approach also builds tolerance for sensation, it helps to reduce the emotional overfunctioning, it helps you to reconnect with the insula, that part in your brain, through micro awareness, noticing your breath, noticing your feet, noticing your jaw, the tightness in your jaw. She does a lot of cool meditations too. And beam therapy, nobody I know does beam therapy sessions. This is unique to Brenda, and very few people in the world do this. Beam therapy was developed by a medical doctor. She also encourages to repair the relationship with your body, repattern your stress responses, which is often a result of a lot of built-up trauma and a lot of negative beliefs. She helps you to clear that, build capacity, not intensity, integrate movement as medicine, and create an environment that supports embodiment. I think I've given you a lot. I'm gonna close off now because now it's up to you to take this and see what makes sense for you. How do you feel like the Camaro man who I loved? This guy was the coolest. How do you get to that point? But it's, you know, it's your feeling, not his. I'm just using his him as an example. So physically, embodiment feels like your breath drops, your shoulders soften, your jaw releases, there's a warmth in your chest, and you feel grounded. Emotionally, there is a clarity, a steadiness, and a truth that comes from inside of you that you no longer overexplain, argue, you just feel it, and feel so right. And energetically, there's coherence and there's a presence, and there's an internal safety. Things, I mean it's hard, but things could be falling apart around you, but you still come back to yourself and feel all of that. So embodiment is rare because modern life makes it difficult, but this is your choice to make it what you want and to get there how you want. It's available on the other side of some of the work that I mentioned, and the work's not that hard, it becomes second nature if it resonates with you. So it's not about the ego, it's not about aesthetics, it's not about performance, it's the feeling of being in your own life and not watching it from the outside. So if this podcast inspired you in any way, please share it with a friend. I greatly appreciate all of you for coming back each and every week. Feel free to send me an email with any comments if you have ideas for shows. I am at sandy at sandyknutrition.ca. And I thank you so much, and we will see you next week. Have a great week. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Be sure to share it with someone you know might benefit. And always remember when you rate, review, subscribe, you help to support my content and help me keep going and bring these conversations to you each and every week. Join me next week for a new topic, new guest, new excited conversation to help you live your best life.