The Power of Active Embodiment
When the fire has burned through everything you thought was solid, what’s left is a strange silence. The ground is blackened, the air still smoky, and you don’t quite recognize yourself in the wreckage.
Some days all you can do is lie there, breathing through the discomfort. That’s okay. Rest is part of healing. No one needs to rise before they’re ready.
But the ashes aren’t just a sign of what’s gone. They’re also the proof of what your body, your heart, and your spirit have survived. Survival carries its own wisdom, if you’re willing to hold it gently.
The Ashes as Teachers
Moments of great discomfort are often the greatest classrooms. The burnt place inside us, where our hopes collapsed and illusions caught fire, can feel unbearable. But when we learn to sit with ourself in compassion, something begins to shift.
This isn’t just poetic language. Stress biology actually backs it up. When we enter adversity, our bodies release cortisol, the stress hormone most people fear. But cortisol doesn’t only mobilize us for fight-or-flight, it also opens a window of neuroplasticity. This is the brain’s ability to rewire and learn new patterns. That’s why intense experiences, even painful ones, often leave the deepest imprint. The nervous system is paying attention.
When we meet those moments consciously, (not running from them, not numbing them, but breathing through them) we lay down entirely new tracks in the brain and body. Instead of reinforcing collapse, we reinforce resilience. We prove to ourselves that we can hold more than we once believed.
And in that steady breath with the ashes at our feet, a seed of becoming begins to stir.
Active Embodiment
Rising from the ashes doesn’t mean pretending everything is fine. It means taking the raw material of stress and using it as fuel for growth. Each time you stand, breathe, or speak with presence in the middle of discomfort, you are carving a new neurological pathway. Your window of tolerance will open wider each time you practice holding it all.
This is the power of active embodiment: your nervous system learns not through theories, but through lived experience. The body remembers safety and strength when you practice them in real time. What feels like chaos becomes a portal for integration.
This isn’t performance. It isn’t pressure. It’s simply the slow art of training your system to follow your soul’s lead, even before the smoke clears.
The Collective Fire
This eclipse season has left many of us standing in our own ash fields. The old scaffolding has burned, and the ground feels unstable. But these are not wasted moments. These are biologically fertile seasons of growth. Stress itself primes us for change, and when we meet that stress with compassion and embodiment, we turn the aftermath of fire into the ground of growth.
This is why we’re building Frequency. Because none of us are meant to rise alone. When we practice active embodiment in safe community, our nervous systems remember what it feels like to heal together.
The ashes may still be warm, but they are also fertile. Whether you’re lying down or beginning to stand, trust that this ground will hold you.
❤️ Daniel Tyack
What’s one small way you choose to rise? 💭
Personal Practice in the Ashes
Breathe Into the Burn
Don’t dodge it. Put your hand directly on the part of your body that feels most raw. The knot in your gut, the pressure in your chest, the ache in your throat. Inhale slowly, exhale longer.
Say out loud: I can hold this.
When you breathe through pain instead of running from it, you teach your nervous system that intensity doesn’t equal danger. The vagus nerve calms, cortisol levels begin to drop, and resilience starts wiring itself into your body.
Choose one Word
In the middle of the chaos, claim one quality you want to rise with. Courage, steadiness, belonging, compassion, bravery. Don’t whisper it like an affirmation; speak it like a vow. Say it while your body is still buzzing with adrenaline. That heightened state is when your brain is most plastic, most open to new wiring. You’re not just talking yourself up, you’re literally carving new tracks in your nervous system for who you are becoming.
Move an Inch
If you’ve been lying in the metaphorical ashes, rise just enough to feel your feet under you. Take one deliberate action, stand, stretch, step outside, text someone honest. Your body learns safety by experience, not theory.
Each micro-movement in the face of rawness sends a signal: I won’t collapse here. Those inches, repeated, create entirely new feedback loops of stability and self-trust.