STEVE SISGOLD: An amazing and unpredictable adventure began when you were conceived. From that very moment, your innate intelligence has steered you through a non-stop stream of sensations, feelings, thoughts and impressions that make up the 5-star thrill ride called life.

Your body has its own intelligence, a natural brilliance that simply knows the deeper truths your mind alone cannot grasp. The best move you can make in many situations is to get out of your head and into your body.

Your conscious mind may not tell you what you need to know. It is living in the past, projecting into the future, and creating stories around the truth. Your body will never lie and is with you 24/7. Regardless of where your mind takes you, your body knows all it needs to know.

BQ (Body Awareness Intelligence) in women is unquestionably more acute, hence the term 'women's intuition'. Unfortunately, women are discouraged, sometimes even shamed, for letting their 'emotions' rule their 'intellect.' In our culture, many girls have been weaned from a very young age to stifle their natural gift of knowing. In this male-dominated, intelligence-driven culture, we have replaced our innate BQ with statistics, facts, and figures.

CASE STUDY: I had a client in one of my group sessions named Gabrielle. She had come to the group to learn to unlock her creative potential. During the session, Gabrielle told us her greatest desire - to become a successful clothing designer and seamstress. I performed an exercise to get her to see where her creativity was being blocked, that I will share with you.

When she tuned in to her feelings about this, she felt small and disempowered, like a child. It turns out that Gabrielle had been discouraged as a child from choosing this as a career. Eager for the love and support of her parents, Gabrielle suppressed her desires. These emotions had locked themselves in her body and were unconsciously blocking her from living her dreams. As a grown adult she no longer needed the approval of her parents. Instead of trying to change their minds about her desire to be a successful clothing designer, she changed her own idea about it!

For over twenty years, I've enjoyed teaching my (predominantly female) clients and seminar participants how to reverse these messages and get out of their heads to access their internal guidance system. People are consistently amazed to discover that they can truly rely on the body's deep authority as a navigator.

CASE STUDY: Nancy was a successful businesswoman in a politically inspired career, and then set her sights on becoming the first woman to win the Poker World Series. Her talents were unparalleled and she soon gained status within the male-dominated sport of poker. Everything was going along fine until one day she began to negate her female essence in the face of a challenge. Somewhere along the lines, some early advice she was given loose the jewellery, don't be so 'female' came racing back and plagued her with self-doubt. So she toned it down, denied her own essence, and lost her mojo. She came to me to try to find it. Together we uncovered the fearful beliefs that fed her negative thoughts and caused her to deny her full expression. I led her through an exercise to discover her knowledge and embody her goals. With renewed clarity, Nancy reached her goals.

Many women have been told to 'tone down' or suppress those very vital qualities that allow them to completely express their individuality and their innate knowledge. Primary feelings are a crucial part of this language. Unfortunately, primary feelings are often times lost to a wash of secondary emotion that are triggered by an unresolved past - both your individual past and humanity's collective past. Your body is a living handbook, inscribed with living truth. Every cell is rich in coded information. All your experience and knowledge, your pain and joy, your forgotten secrets and your deepest truths, are recorded in the cellular library of your flesh. Your body has its own intelligence, a natural brilliance that simply knows the deeper truths your mind alone cannot grasp. The best move you can make in many situations is to get out of your head and into your body.

Ready - Get SET - Go!
Constantly scanning both within and without, your body sorts and prioritizes all that information to allow you to function effectively. Regardless of where your attention might wander, your body knows all it needs to know.

You can experience the power of fully entering the moment with a simple body-awareness exercise I developed during my career as a body-centred therapist. The technique, called 'SET' (for self-evident truth) allows you to land smack dab in the here and now by focusing your full attention on your physical and emotional body.

Get SET!
1) Commit - Commit to place all of your attention on yourself for the next two minutes. Point to or imagine pointing to your chest and say to yourself, "I am willing and ready to focus my attention on my body and feel what it is feeling right now."

2) Breathe - Take three slow, deep breaths in through your nose and out through your mouth. Breathe in and out rhythmically, and let whatever wants to happen, happen. If your head wants to lean forward, let it. If your hand tightens, let it.

3) Scan - Notice what is happening in your body. Are your shoulders tense, hands balled in fists? Notice, don't analyze. Reopen your eyes when you are ready.

4) Declare - State aloud what you notice; declare the truth of your body.

5) Witness - Once you acknowledge your body's message, you may notice that your body sensations begin to change. It may completely subside, or once acknowledged, a deeper truth may express itself in another sensation in your body.

6) Act - Take an action that benefits you right now. For example, if your BQ tells you that you are not breathing, take that deep breath and see your body - and your mind - become more centred, clam and clear.

SET is the ideal 'pre-game warm-up for personal and professional conversation, or before making a decision, big or small. Try doing this a few times a day. See what you notice. The more you tap into your body's innate knowledge, the easier it becomes to create greater clarity and focus. Remember, your body is with you 24/7. It is your greatest ally.

Here's an example: Supposed it's a day when you are slightly sad and tense, and a friend asks, "How are you?" Nine times out of ten, you will probably answer, "Fine". However, if you are aware of your actual experience, you might consider, "I feel sad, and my chest is tight." Now, you may not want to share this information with your friend, but you take advantage of the moment to access your thoughts, feelings and physical condition to see your truth. SET gets you out of your head and puts you in direct contact with your whole body, increasing awareness and building your BQ each time you use it.

CASE STUDY: I had a client a number of years ago who came to see me after going through a very painful period in her life. Barbara had been married to Ken for decades. They had a relatively happy marriage, until the last few years. Barbara could not put her finger on the issue, but there was something telling her that something was not right. Her easy-going nature and desire to keep the marriage together prevented Barbara from confronting the issue. However, when her husband died suddenly, Barbara found out the truth - that Ken had been cheating on her for years and had left her in a very bad financial situation. Had Barbara listened to her intuition (what I call our BQ) she could have saved herself from years of heartache, denial and financial ruin.

Certainly, that is a dramatic story and one that none of us would wish on our worst enemy. But it illuminates the fact that we hold the key to unlock our own mysteries. These mysteries manifest themselves in our bodies, until we release them and heal.

CASE STUDY: Carol was a woman who had been overweight for most of her life. She strictly followed many diet plans, exercised regularly and yet for some reason, Carol could not lose weight. Like many girls, Carol was discouraged from expressing anger growing up, so whenever she got angry at something her dad did to her, she held her breath and tensed her body instead of yelling it out. Listening to her body helped Carol become aware of how often she tensed her stomach, thighs and buttocks, as a way to hold in the anger. When she started expressing those feelings instead of holding them in, she felt lighter. This lightness was immediately reflected on the scale, and she proudly announced her decreasing weight in our weekly sessions. Tapping into her BQ/intuition helped her lose 35 pounds in 7 weeks, and she kept the weight off!

Consider what parts of your body you may be using as a storage tank for your unexpressed emotions. Ask yourself if you 'feel' extra weight on your body that may be trapped energy and not what you had for dinner last night.

What Did You Say?
This brings up another topic that needs to be addressed. There is something that is just as important, if not more so, in the topic of your body. And that is your relationship with this ally of yours. What do you tell your body? When you look in the mirror, are you kind to yourself - do you admire yourself for what makes you unique or do you berate yourself with negative comments for the one flaw that keeps you from supposed happiness? When you wake up in the morning, are you thankful for having a body capable of sight, smell, touch and taste or do you focus on your achy muscles and wrinkles? Imagine if you had a partner who treated you the way you treat yourself. I bet you wouldn't be partners for very long!

Honour that your body goes through very natural cycles of life and that menstruation, child birth and menopause are opportunities for you to become more conscious of who you are and offers wisdom with each passing phase.

Review - Tapping into your BQ
Check in with your whole self on a daily basis
Where am I holding stress?
Why is it manifesting there?
What are the changes I can make in my physical body to release it?
Don't create a story with your answers, just be present with them
Silence is not always golden, so listen to your body's answers
Reclaim your intuition and tune into your BQ™.
Listen to what your body is telling you - it's your best ally!
Go to [link whatsyourbodytellingyou.com;http://www.whatsyourbodytellingyou.com to take a FREE BQ TEST.]