A tennis coach who claimed he couldn’t feel his body already had the skill — he used it every time he played tennis. In flow state on the court, he was fully in his body, not overthinking, reacting instinctively. When he got in his head during a match, his game collapsed. He already knew how to recover: deep breath, refocus on the ball, get “ready to react and go.”
Joe’s insight: that’s the same thing as “feeling your body” in daily life. The client just needed to take the intelligence he brought to sport and apply it to everything else.
“You’re playing tennis in life.”
The client even demonstrated it mid-session without realizing — dropping into embodied, flow-state speech while trying to describe the concept. When he questioned whether he was “really” doing it, Joe pointed out that questioning during tennis makes his game worse too. The same applies to life: don’t think about being in your body — just be in it.
“Don’t guess, just do it.”
Related Concepts
- Body awareness is simply directing attention to sensation
- Presence is pleasure
- Apply your embodied skill from one domain to all of life
- Questioning whether you’re feeling destroys the feeling