218. Embodied Living & Body Wisdom Magic With Cecile Raynor
218. Embodied Living & Body Wisdom Magic With Cecile Raynor
What if your back pain, posture struggles, or recurring tension had less to do with strength—and more to do with how you relate to your body on a daily basis?
In this powerful interview on the Embodied Writing Warrior Podcast, host Kayla MacDonald sits down with Cecile Raynor, author of The Wise Way to Yoga and Body Wisdom Magic, to discuss how true embodiment isn’t about muscle tone or flexibility—it’s about learning to activate your body’s intelligence.
Cecile shares how a single moment during her pregnancy sparked a lifelong shift in how she listened to her body. From there, she pivoted from academia into the world of the Alexander Technique, eventually developing her own method that addresses the five key relationships of integrated physical function. These aren’t just about good posture—they’re about how you carry yourself through life.
You'll learn:
What most people get wrong about yoga and fitness
Why “feeling your body” isn’t the same as being guided by it
How to identify habits that are causing pain—even if you're doing “healthy” things
What integrated functioning means and how it transforms your everyday life
We also dive into Cecile’s creative process and what inspired her two books, including Body Wisdom Magic, which blends intuitive movement with visual and reflective tools designed to bring wisdom off the page and into your daily life.
This episode is a must-listen for anyone on the path of deeper embodiment, healing, and mind-body-soul integration.
✨ Listen to the episode and explore Cecile’s work at cecileraynor.com
Embodied Activation
Today’s embodied activation invites you to reconnect with your body as an integrated whole—beyond isolated stretches or strength moves. Here’s how to begin:
Pause and Sit or Stand Naturally.
No need to “fix” your posture. Just land where you are. Let your body be as it is.Notice the Relationship Between Five Key Areas:
Your head, neck, and torso
Your arms and torso
Your upper and lower body
Your hips, knees, and ankles
Your feet and the rest of your body
Gently scan these relationships without trying to correct anything. Just observe how your body parts are relating—or not relating—to each other.
Breathe, Then Ask:
“If my body knew exactly how to move with ease and grace right now… what would shift?”
Let your body intelligence respond, even if it’s subtle. A tilt of the pelvis, a softening of the jaw, a change in weight distribution… trust what arises.Move With Micro-Intentions.
As you go about your day—standing at the sink, walking to the car, lifting something—bring awareness to how your body is functioning as a whole. Avoid focusing only on individual muscles or corrections. Instead, ask:
“Am I letting my body lead?”
Transcript
Kayla: Hello Cecile and welcome to the Embodied Writing Warrior Podcast.
Cecile: Thank you, Kayla, for having me.
Kayla: Yes, thank you for being here. I know that you do a lot of work in the embodiment space, so we are gonna have a great conversation today. I would personally love to hear how your journey into more Embodied Living started.
Cecile: Yeah. So, you know, I thought I was already embodied. When I worked for my, PhD because I was medic, I was, studying, so I'm like, okay, I'm in touch with my mind and I was going to the gym and doing all the exercises. So I'm in tune with my body. But then at the end of my PhD, when I got pregnant with my first child.
I caught myself at the library with my very pregnant belly squished against the table, and I was like, oh my God, what am I doing to my baby and what am I doing to my body? To somebody else? It may have been just a moment, and then they move on. Had I not been pregnant, I probably would've done that, but because I was pregnant, it stopped me and I was like.
I thought I was in touch with my body and it really started a journey of like, I realized there has to be a more, a deeper way to be in touch with my body so that I wouldn't find myself in that situation, and that led me to. Switched to a, new career and everybody thought I was crazy, but I've always followed my intuition.
And even though it sounded crazy, I knew I had to do that because if I stayed in academia, I could sense I would become 300% and I didn't want that. So I became an Alexander Technique teacher, and that was great. It really helped connect my mind and my body in a deeper way
but eventually I realized I'm a mind, body, heart and soul person, and Alexander's just mind body. So I kind of developed my own thing, and studied other things to make it more of a complete offering. So that's how it started being pregnant.
Kayla: You brought up a few really beautiful things, and one of them is not that I know about this from experience, but from other mothers.
I know that having that other life to take care of does give this other level of resin and awareness. And another beautiful thing you brought up is that. Oftentimes we think we're embodied 'cause we're going to the gym, we're going to the walks, but often we're only embodied for that 30, 45 minute session.
Or even in that session, we can be disconnected from our body. Just kind of going through the motions. Yes,
Cecile: yes. So if you don't mind, I would like to make a little clarification there that you say even we we're embodied only during that 30 minutes, and I know what you mean by that, but I will. Add the distinction that I wouldn't have known before, which is we, a lot of people think they're embodied just because they're doing yoga, they're going to the gym, they're connecting to their muscles, strengthening or stretching but actually that doesn't mean you're in touch with your, the guidance of your body intelligence.
It's often the case that your mind tells your body what to do as if it knew better than your body intelligence. And we assume as long as it doesn't hurt, we're. In touch with our body intelligence. Well, we're in touch more than if we ignore it, but there's way more wisdom to access that most people don't have a clue about.
And that was the topic of my first book, the Wise Way to Yoga. How we got there, you know, how we got to a place where we, we've integrated misconception around body movement. Posture and self image, and a lot of people are suffering because of those misconceptions, and that's why I feel very fired up with my work for people to realize, no, you're getting hurt.
Not because your guy is bad or not because exercise is bad, but because you don't know how to activate your body intelligence so that you can listen to its guidance. So that's what's unique about my work. It's not just about listening to. Whether your body aches or not when you're doing an exercise, it's to learn how to actually activate your body intelligence.
So it'll tell you how to do this, pose the best way for you that day. And when you do that, you're connected to your new teacher. You don't need your teacher to tell you 'cause your teacher doesn't know your body. It has some tips that could be helpful. With some people, but it doesn't know your body, only your body intelligence knows your body and what you need.
So if you don't mind, I had to clarify
Kayla: that. Yes, that distinction is so helpful and really do touch on the reality that many people do get hurt, whether it's inside or outside of. Jim, because of this lack of body awareness or like you said, using the mind to say, oh, my workout says I need to do X, Y, Z.
My yoga teacher says I need to stretch in this way. Exactly. So can you share for people how they can start to access more body intelligence as they're going throughout their day?
Cecile: Yes. So in fact, that would be the next thing I would've said, which I am saying, which is that. If people have, a lot of people now, they don't go to yoga just for yoga's sake.
They go to yoga to the gym because they think they have weak muscle or. Tense muscle or they're trying to fix something and they tend to focus on body parts. But what they don't realize is that, it's really how you move in your everyday life that's gonna make that yoga class or gym session, be more beneficial or not.
And even when it's not. The most beneficial people see get benefits. That's why it's confusing. They're like, oh, I started exercising, or I started yoga, and I like, this is better and this is better. But unfortunately, very often people reinforce in those practices, the harmful habits they have developed in everyday life.
Without knowing it. So they may not hurt on the yoga mat, but they might hurt, get hurt another time. And that's where there's a lot of confusion and that's what the clarity I'm bringing to people work with me. That you have to start with your daily body on the one hand it's easier. On the other hand, it requires a desire to be more present and, and to be, to have educated awareness.
Just being present is not enough if you don't know certain things about your body,
Kayla: and what are some of the most. Common challenges or roadblocks that you find with your clients as you're sort of going through their daily life and finding these places where they're not listening, not connected and potentially creating some pain?
Cecile: Yes, so that's actually, I talk about it in both my books and the last one, body with the Magic, which was published this year. The whole book is divided in five section. And it's to follow what I call the five key relationship of integrated function. So I started as an Alexander technique teacher, but now what I feel is I'm teaching what I call integrated functioning.
Integrated functioning can happen on the physical level. Like you want all your body parts to work home when you sleep together. So to give you an example. A lot of people think that good posture is chest up, shoulders back, and yet time and time again, they realize it doesn't stay, but they're gonna do it again because they don't know anything better.
Right? And so when you do that, you are not, you can't fix. Posture. If you don't address the whole body, you may have a poor posture because of what you do with your knees when you're standing. People don't know that. So if they keep focusing on correcting muscularly the posture, that's why they don't get the sustainable results they want.
So the five key relationship is. How does your head, neck, and torso relate with each other? People don't know how to move their heads and, but they don't know that they don't know. How does your arm relate to your torso? How does your upper body relates to your lower body? How? That's, number three.
Number four is how do your hip, joint, knee, joint, ankle, joint relate with? Each other as you go up and down in space and how your feet relate to the rest of your body. So those are my, my basic 1 0 1 integrated functioning without knowing. How you are misusing your body in those ways. You're gonna bring that to your yoga mat anywhere at the computer, whatever you're doing.
And if you're a parent, children learn from seeing you more than from what you tell them. And so they, you're passing on. Misuse to them. So that's, I always tell parents, really, if you don't do it for yourself, do it for your children. Learn how to function as an integrated whole.
But integrated functioning is not just body parts working Harmon sleep together. It's also. Mind and body working harmoniously together, mind, body, heart and soul functioning harmoniously together. And so that's why I'm so excited about, this new, mastery program that I'm doing with Patrick, Dominguez about, addressing the underlying 'cause.
I can help people discover the underlying cause of their physical misuse, you could say. And, and as long as they're healthy otherwise. It fixes some problem that they've had forever, but sometimes it's not just on the physical level. Sometimes there's some unconscious pattern that are holding us back or, or making us overdue.
And that comes with physical attributes. When you hold back, you kind of go like this. And when you go into yourself and when you, you overdo, you tend to create excess tension. And yes, we can, people feel the tension or feel the poor posture, but if the five key relationship are not enough, then.
It's a question of feeling, exploring which part of you is contributing to that, and then clearing these ties so that you can, everybody can blossom into their best potential.
Kayla: Mm-hmm. Amazing. And can you share a bit more about the Alexander technique specifically? 'cause I am not well versed on that myself, and I would love for the listeners to hear a little bit more as well.
Cecile: Yes. So I'm always hesitant to talk about it because as time goes, there are so many different ways that people are teaching it. Initially, the Alexander technique came from, Frederick Maia Alexander, who, was from Tasmania and he was a performer, 19th century performer.
His voice was really important for him. And in those days, they didn't have microphones, they didn't have things like that. So the voice had to be used. And if you didn't function as an integrated whole, you would end up with a horse voice or losing your voice, or it was affecting your profession.
So one time you just. His voice, was out and he went to the doctor and every doctor said, oh, there's nothing wrong with you. So he is like, okay, they can say what they want, but you know, I lose my voice periodically, so I need to figure that out. And luckily enough, he was a teacher, Del Franco.
Del was a French. Man who before Alexander already had a sense that how we use our body was key. So he had an advantage there, but he discovered some things of his own and he discovered that you can actually activate your whole body intelligence. So you don't need to exercise every body part as if your body was a bunch of parts.
You can actually activate your body intelligence so that. In essence, Alexander is also about noticing our reactive patterns so we can respond to life the way. Of two people the way we truly want. So that's why again, the work I'm doing with Patrick right now is so in tune.
It's an extension of what I've been doing all along and Alexander is great, but there are lots of school. Alexander have different school of yoga. Maybe you don't have as many, if people are interested in Alexander, which has been the big secret for a while now it's more popular, but for a while it was the big secret of Olympic athletes and, performing artists because they swear by it.
Because they, when they learn these, they can act, they can do more. Doing less, you know, less effort, more accomplishment. So they love it. And that's still part of my work. I didn't drop anything out of Alexander in my work. I'm just taking it to another level. And Alexander wrote some place that he knew, he touched upon something really big, but he also knew that teachers would.
Expand on it. So that's what I did. Absolutely. So,
Kayla: Can you share more about this? Body intelligence in that your body knows what to, so for example, say that you have one person with a particular shape, a particular personality, is their body gonna have certain movement patterns and I guess ways of moving that they gravitate to versus another person with like a different body shape and a different personality.
Cecile: So that's a given, but that's not really what my work is about. It's more. When it comes to movement, so if we don't talk about the other stuff, but just the movement, there is something in our body called the postural mechanism. Mm-hmm. So when I refer to body intelligence, I'm referring to the postural mechanism.
And the postural mechanism starts developing when you're in your mother's womb. That's why the baby's kicking. It's checking the reflectors. And then when the baby is born, it takes. 10 months, one year, one year and a half depending on the baby to go from not being able to move to sitting, to crawling, to standing, to walking, to running.
Once people, the children feels very comfortable running, the postal mechanism is fully developed, and the AL mechanism is meant to handle your best coordination, your best balance, and your best posture. But because people don't know about that, they do it the hard way. They're trying to control everything, and in fact, they're interfering with the most effortless way of being upright.
Sitting upright, standing upright, and moving with more, ease. And you know, since the 19th century, like I explained my book, bodybuilding is overrated 'cause people think your strength is all about your muscle, but it's not. You have a skeletal structure that's super strong that has a blueprint that if you use your skeletal structure the way it's designed your muscle.
Can get stronger, but never, you never overdo. They go along with whatever the movement is. But you know, we've come in a culture that focuses so much on muscle. That's why we end up with. Women and men who have overdeveloped muscles. And we all know it doesn't look natural, but it became like a standard.
Like people want that because they think that's a good thing, but honestly it's not. And one time I was talking to a therapist and she said. Athletes are the worst clients I have. They're the most tight in their bodies. Mm-hmm. And that's why, it's because everybody's thinking that, ah, tensing your muscle is the way to be strong.
But honestly, it's the opposite. It's the more you relax your muscle, but you use your whole body incorporation. With your body intelligence. You can develop a lot of strength without. Overdeveloping your muscles, you will develop your muscles, but not overly. And that's why, I mean, I, I can be very soft, but I'm pretty buff, you know, because it's, I've been doing this for 30 years, so I have lots of muscle, but I feel very flexible and you see, you see and light.
So it's, I love my work. I've been doing this over 30 years and I'm even more excited now than I was. When I started because I've seen what it can do to PE for people, so,
Kayla: What are some of the most, rewarding experiences you've had watching clients transform? Like what are some of the things you've seen in your work that have just so inspired you?
Cecile: Well, first of all, to, I seem to attract people who are very receptive and open to what I'm doing. And some of them, they tend to take good care of themselves, but they have that lingering neck pain or back pain or whatever that they tried everything and nothing has helped. Or nothing has helped in a sustainable way.
So they come to me and then they tell when they start, I start teaching what I'm teaching. They acknowledged that that was the missing link. So the first time somebody said that, I was like, ah. And even if they've had that pain for a long time, as long as it comes from a lack of integrated functioning, it can disappear.
It doesn't matter how long it's been there. So to see people getting better even when they've had that challenge for a long time, that's really cool. And the other thing is. On occasion. I run into some, like not too long ago, I run into a student of mine I haven't seen in a long, long time, maybe 10 years.
And we started talking and he said, you're not gonna believe me, but you've been with me every single day since we have seen each other. And I said, that makes me really happy. 'cause that means I did my job. Right? Because that's the idea. I'm expanding their awareness and then it's there for them to stay.
That's why. I feel like the work I do as opposed to massage, which I do too, if need be. But, it's the gift that keeps on giving. Like once you have that expanded awareness, it's for life. It's gonna change the direction you're going into. So it's pretty powerful and, I love what I do.
Kayla: Absolutely. And because you work across those four aspects, mind, body, heart, and soul, you're not just changing a person's body. Like you said, they can go on a completely different path. So can you share how doing this body intelligent work and dropping into a more embodied way of being, you actually start to translate to shifts other places, whether that's career, relationships, where else have you seen this go and affect other places?
Cecile: So it's gone from somebody having to change his car to somebody deciding to become an Alexander technique teacher. You know? So it, it's a wide range, but I had a student who was very tall and he, he had the kind of car that he had to kind of crunch down to drive, but he was so used to it. That it didn't even register as a habit that didn't serve him.
But when he started, working with me and he started reclaiming his full height, even when he was not with me. He came to his lesson after a while and, and he's like, you know, I think I have to change my car because I keep bumping on, you know, so he had to buy a new car. So that, and Alexander used to have a sign on his door saying, I'm not responsible for Taylor's bills.
It can really change. And in those days, they had a lot of fitted things. So if you had a fitted suit and suddenly your posture changed, it didn't fit right anymore. So that's on that end. And then I remember working with someone and when I met her, she was pregnant and she wasn't sure what she was going to do beyond being a mother, but.
Years later, I didn't even know, but years later I went to assist in a training course local and I open, they opened the door and here she is. And I said, oh, what are you doing here? And she says, oh, I became an technique teacher. So it was like, wow. So it, you know, it's these a wide range of things that happen when people.
Get more embodied and ha have this expanded awareness of how to use their body in an efficient way without training. People think, and in fact I have a blog I've been, posting on LinkedIn and on Facebook. Different posts on that topic. The the how. You know, like people think that being still, let's say you're meditating, it's all about holding yourself.
And sometimes they know, okay, I don't wanna hold. That's why they're really bit, but they're still holding because that's the only thing they know to hold posture. I don't know if you've been in a room with other meditators, but when the end of meditation arrives, everybody was like, whoa.
They've been holding the whole time. And when you hold, you are not letting the energy flow. And so, when you learn this, I mean, it changed my meditation practice drastically when I studied Alexander, because I, I'm a fidgeter. I like, I like movement, I like to move. And so before I started my training, it was hard for me to just sit five minutes, you know?
By the end of my training, to this day, I've been able to go to meditation retreat three days where we meditate a lot on regular chairs or on pews or whatever, and I'm totally comfortable. It can have a really big impact on the quality of people's lives.
Kayla: It's amazing how many different places it can go and just the ways it can also open up a person's understanding and their life, which is amazing.
So I would also love to hear about your books 'cause we are writing podcasts. So can you share about both of your books, what inspired you to write them and also what writing process was like for you?
Cecile: Okay, so, having a PhD in literature, for me, the writing is fairly easy. I love writing. I, never have a blank page.
That's not my challenge. My challenge is to condense. But, the first one, what happened is, you know, when you become an Alexander technique teacher, often you start thinking, okay, who do I wanna serve? 'cause it can serve so many people and for a while, so I went to a yoga class, I just happened to go to a yoga class, and when I saw how the teacher was using her body and people were using their body.
I created a blog called of the math yoga blog, and I was writing posts and I was getting emails from all over the world from people saying, oh my gosh, that changed my yoga practice or whatever. And so after a while I'm like, oh my gosh, I gotta write a book using the content of all those, blogs and to help people.
So that's how the Wise Way to Yoga was born. And so it's a, it is 200 pages. I'm an artist, so I did a lot of the sketches myself, and there are a few pictures, but I purposely avoided. Real life pictures because in the yoga world, people tend to focus so much on the way the pose should look like or things like that.
So I didn't want them, my sketches are very loosey goosey, so , it illustrate the essence of the pose, not how you know. It's not for you to copy. Yeah. So, but it has, it also has five different parts and there's a historical part that shows give a lot of, facts about history that shows how we inherited misconception around, around body movement, posture and self image. And then there's a autobiographic sec section with my story a little bit. And then there is a kinesthetic section where I give people a chance to do their yoga, post their regular way, and then I give them a little integration, integrated functioning tip for them to.
Feel the difference. And then, I haven't even looked at it in all, so I don't even remember. But I can tell you from the, oh, and, and I created, amazing charts, you know, amazing charts like this one. Wow. Yeah. Every section as a chart, we illustrate what I'm, say, what I'm saying in the, in the. So, chapter, but the, the, the title of each of the five section looking for the index, is
part one. How is your yoga practice affected, by the way, modern yoga has evolved. Part two is what is the relationship between your body awareness and your body image? Part three. Why is activating your whole body intelligence, the pathway to your best practice? Number four, common yoga practices revisited.
So I go through different common poses. Number five, thickness redefined for optimal safety and best performance. So it's not just about yoga, it's really about fitness in general. Conclusion, the wise way to yoga and the yoga of the future. 'cause I, I predicted that over time people will make adjustment so that what I'm recommending will be hopefully become more the norm.
Yeah. So that's the first book and the second one is this one body with the magic. So how did this one come about? First of all, after publishing the wise way to yoga, I realized, first of all, I didn't even promote it.
'cause I, you know, it's not my, my way I would sell it to students or you know, things like that. I'm thinking of republishing it and promoting it. But Body was the magic came because after the Wise way to yoga, I realized that when I mentioned the title, people who were not doing yoga. Had no interest in reading it because of the word yoga, even though it really talks a lot about fitness, and personal growth.
So I knew I had to write another one that didn't have the word yoga in the title, the first one had a lot of. Text. It had to because I shared, research and, a lot of things. But the second one I knew had to be a different kind of book. A book that had a lot of empty space, a lot of color illustration, and that was not even barely teaching.
It was more like encouraging people to, to play really. So that's, and, and so then time passed. And one day I got a download, but it was the magic. And I also, I was playing with some, Oracle cards and I was like, oh my gosh, my book, that's how my book should be. Not necessarily. Recall card deck, although I could do that eventually, but, I'll show you.
It's like every text, every topic, that's as much as you have to read. And the second half is all experiential. So it's very little to read. It's more questions to help people open their mind. And then there's an illustration out of daily life. That correspond to that. And it's designed so people see both at the same time, so that they're working on , both sides of the brain are working together at the same time.
So it's really cool and I've gotten a lot of great previews on Amazon. But there's pictures, on every page. And, for the beginning of each chapter, I'm using this drawing. Because to me that's body wisdom in action, yes. So that's how this one came.
Oh, and also there's another component, a lot of students would leave my office saying, I wish I could take you your hands home. So I was like, how can I give that to them without having to go there? And that was so that's how this was designed it. And then. Once I started writing it, I figured I should write it, not just for my students, but for anybody who's interested in that topic.
So it's almost like a workbook because really you can read one page at a time, and you can select a topic that speaks to you, or you can randomly let universal intelligence, choose the topic for you and you get a lot of wisdom nuggets. And I'm thinking of creating a workbook for that.
People could write down their insight and their experience on whatever, topic. So that's my second book.
Kayla: Yes. I love that. The title, body Wisdom Magic is so accessible to people who do movements of every kind, and I love how there's such an experiential part to them. 'cause many books you. Read, but you don't embody. And I love how you take care of that in how you write. So thank you. You are welcome. So Cecile, this has been such a beautiful conversation and when listeners want to connect with you further, find your books, all of that, where are the best places
Cecile: for them to go?
They can just go to my cecileraynor.com. There is a section. Called what's new they can just go to my website and check what's available.
If you go on my website, there's three portals on the homepage. One, if you're interested in posture stuff, one, about emotional intelligence. And one about yoga.
So whatever interests them most, they can go through the portal and get information on each of those things. So that's a good place to start.
Kayla: I'll include links to all of that in the episode.
So thank you so much again for being here. Thank you, Kayla, for having me. It's a pleasure.
