We have one journey and one body with which to experience this life. We start out pure and whole – and along the journey we experience life. Our experiences are interpreted through the lens of our bodies. We are, often unconsciously, shaped by both this lens, our life experiences, and the people who hold sway over us along the journey. The journey is what makes you uniquely you.
We come into this world, residing inside what I will call our earth-suit, equipped and unconsciously activated in one of nine possible ways (at Body of 9 we call this your Natural Number). We are pure and whole at the level of our soul when we arrive – and over the course of our life, things happen to us, by us, and for us. Our earth-suit develops both from its nature, and by its nurture. Over time we learn to disregard our natural ways of being and override them with belief systems that develop from our nurture – what we are taught, the experiences we have, and the belief systems of those who love or influence us – all begin to layer over who we are. And unless we are really lucky in who is nurturing us and what happens to us, we move further and further away from our core nature and forget how our earth-suit works.
One of the most common questions we often get asked when we are kids is “What do you want to be when you grow up?” While some kids have a calling that they feel very young – the question is an example of how we can inadvertently create an expectation that a child internalizes as something they need to be able to meet. This is an example of how expectations that come from outside of us, from our nurture, can begin to create unconscious anxiety, expectations, and a sense that there is something wrong with us for not knowing the answer to the question.
For me, I developed a powerful unconscious belief that unless I figured out what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would somehow become a failure. The result was that I followed the societal prescriptions for what was then defined as success – go to college, get a high-paying job, get married, have children, buy a house, progress up the corporate ladder, retire wealthy, and live happily ever after. So, I did this.
In my late thirties, I looked around me to discover the wasteland of my life. I was married to a drug addict alcoholic abuser, hated my job, and never got to be with my three daughters who were being raised by a string of other women getting to be the love of my children’s life. I was moving unconsciously through life at a pace so hectic that I couldn’t feel anything. How had I gotten here – what had happened to me – where had I gone?
Looking at my life from the point of view of the prescription I was following, I should have been at the peak of my career and happiness. I had achieved everything that was on the list – I had a high-paying job, a husband, a house, and kids. No one had told me that it was possible to not know that you were raised in a family system of co-dependence, abuse, and alcoholism. That was me, and without knowing it, I had recreated a multi-generational model that was part of our family system that was held in secrecy and denial. I was in my late thirties and had no idea of what or how this had happened.
What was fortunate for me was that I had been raised in Europe and been exposed to multi-cultures, perspectives, and possibilities. I had experiences in my youth of my spiritual nature, and the magic available in the world around us. I was educated at America’s finest institutions, Brown University, where I studied Mathematical Economics and computer science, and The Wharton School and School of Arts and Sciences where I got my MBA/MA – so intellectually I believed I should be able to “succeed”. I knew my situation was not what it should be. So, I started searching for a new path, for the “more” I knew was possible. I knew I had to find myself again.
One of the conditions of being a co-dependent in a relationship with a manipulative, narcissistic, abuser is that they systematically knock you off your center, undermining your natural sense of right, wrong, and truth. I had completely lost my sense of self and was utterly confused. Whom I had known myself to be, and knew was still inside, was no longer available to me.
I started my path to wholeness with Al-Anon. It is an excellent community and system to begin to understand what had happened. I got some basic tools to know my co-dependence and to begin to develop some new habits and make different choices. Al-Anon allowed me to feel. To know that I was not alone, not broken and that I could extract myself from the abusive relationship that I was in. It took three years to get to what I called baseline and this was a great starting point in my journey to recovering myself. And it wasn’t enough. I could see in others around me that there was more that was possible.
Once in a safe place emotionally, I decided to become a life coach. I felt perhaps the secrets to the next part of the journey would be held in the curriculum and this next phase of my journey. I was beginning to get myself back, although I didn’t know it yet. I had started following the energy I could feel around me again, now that I was no longer numb. I elected to take The Coach Training Institute’s Coaching curriculum simultaneously with their Leadership program. The first Leadership session included what we today call Natural Number Identification. Sitting in a circle with my 23-person cohort, Alan Sheets and Barbara Tovey, the couple who initially discovered this little-known truth about our bodies, activated and acknowledged each of us at a fundamental and deeply natural level. I was blown open – I felt the strength and power within me re-emerge and knew in my being that I had found myself again. This launched a nine-year journey learning everything I possibly could about this incredible discovery, about my Natural Number, and the other eight.
In 2012, after nine years of healing and discovery through this work, and learning how to activate all nine Natural Numbers in my body, I knew that I was ready to go out into the world with this knowledge. I had access to my strength, intuition, power, and compassion. I had learned how to be with others and had begun to open my awareness to the full spectrum of information available through the human body. My relationships were richer and more loving, and I knew who I was.
The next nine years were a period of research where, with my husband and soul-mate Martin Fisher, and I worked hand-to-hand with over 8000 people. From this experience, we developed the system that we now call Body of 9 – a comprehensive description of all nine types of body development, how each perceives, and how each describes their reality and purpose. We have distilled the wisdom from all of these people into our books, our Natural Number Identification process, and the teaching and systems we now offer.
Getting your Natural Number Identified is finding out how your earth-suit is meant to function, knowing how to activate it, and using the superpowers that are built into your body.
The impact of knowing your Natural Number is significant. Although many people feel they are doing just fine, evidence shows that people who know their Natural Number and explore what it means to attain a new level of understanding, purpose, and happiness that was not previously available to them, discover a whole new outlook on the way they navigate themselves in their lives. Imagine going around with your eyes closed because you didn’t know that you could open them. – Being unconscious of your Natural Number and not understanding how it informs and shapes who you are, has a bigger impact and is even harder than unconsciously walking around with your eyes closed.
A more profound experience, an evolutionary step, happens when we learn to activate our full earth-suit, all nine Natural Numbers. If you can imagine what you would miss out with one of your senses unavailable, the fact is that even with your Natural Number activated, there are still eight other sources of information unavailable to you, the other eight Natural numbers. It is only when your body has the facility to activate all the nine centers in your earth suit that mastery of your environment is possible.
Of course, you can be happy, fulfilled, connected, and so much more without ever knowing your Natural Number! This has always been true. You can be a great coach, healer, or teacher – but when you do not understand how others’ earth-suits are equipped differently than yours, it is harder to give your gifts and receive from others. Misunderstanding, miscommunication, and missed possibilities abound when the context of the Body of 9 is missing from your being.
For those of you who have sensed that there is more to life than what we are offered today, we invite you to explore the possibility offered by Body of 9 – this is a key to what that more is for you. Your “more” is different and unique but it is rooted in your Natural Number and how your body is equipped. Would you consciously choose to go around with your eyes closed once you knew that you could open them? Are you too busy to open them? Do you already know that your eyes don’t open? We are inviting you to learn the profoundly important truth about our human reality – the context for our human experience, and the simple body-based way to be the beauty, live life and offer the gifts that come with who you are meant to be.
This is transformational and life-changing work that is unparalleled out in the world for 3 reasons:
1) it’s body-based access to your whole being;
2) it is actionable through the body;
3) it enables you to access more information and perspectives from the world around you than you can without knowing this. It is the “more” that I had been searching for – the piece of information I knew had to be there, and the knowledge of myself and others that gives context to all that shapes our human experience
Take your life experience and your practices to a new level – that place of “more” where you have always sensed you could be, sometimes wandered into, but have known deep within you that it was there.
Get Identified and open far more than your eyes!
