Today we’d like to introduce you to Carrie Ann McCormick.
Thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, how did you get started?
I began my embodiment practice, unbeknownst to me, in seventh grade with a poem about my first heartbreak. I wrote prolifically after this and became known as “Writer Girl” throughout secondary school. I served as Editor-in-Chief of our school’s AP Literary Magazine the same year I placed second in a drama competition in Florida, earning me a spot at nationals after a four-year winning streak. I signed my senior pictures to my friends as if that signature would mean something someday. Though I had to decline for financial reasons, an invitation to audition in LA from a Universal Studios casting director buoyed my confidence enough that I set out to get my BFA in theatre.
I was still determining who I was and what I wanted to be. I lacked models for how to be a creative, passionate, and fully expressed person, so acting allowed me to shapeshift and be all the things. Heading to college at 17 1600 miles from my home brought many challenges. While I craved independence, I didn’t know how to execute it. The card catalog at the library did not bring me the healing I needed.
Counseling was out of my means, so I dove headfirst into my writing, which I had never abandoned. I had copious journals full of poems, plays, and prose. Looking to replicate the feeling of connection I found through theatre, I secured a role as a reporter for The Daily Illini, the University of Illinois paper. I quickly transitioned to writing Opinion pieces as I preferred having editorial decision-making in my work.
I relocated to Tennesee, an hour outside of Memphis, with my grandparents, met a man, and married. It wasn’t until I began a weekly yoga practice at the local park that I realized I had abandoned myself in my new roles as a wife, mother, and teacher. My alcohol consumption had slowly gone from unhealthy to blackout level, and while I was still quite functional, I was dull inside. Trouble in my marriage could be washed away with another swig of wine until it couldn’t.
I saw a quote in a frame multiple times at my son’s doctor’s office, and it gnawed at me: “I wanted more than this.” It resonated to my core, and I set out to figure out why. I dug deep to move aside those patterns and behaviors that did not get me the desired results. I knew in my gut that my drinking was holding me back, so I carefully selected a quit date to assemble my toolkit of yoga, writing, running, cycling, breathwork, and human connection. Slowly, while writing every feeling, I got clearer, more aware, and more intentional, moving my family from Tennessee to Texas and self-publishing my learnings from my first six months of sobriety while doing so.
Starting over in a new place allowed me to step into my true self, which I never anticipated. Once we moved to the Austin area, I obtained my RYT200 yoga teacher certification, followed the year after with Embodied Yoga Principles (2019) and Foundations of Embodiment certification (2020), and began my coaching, classes, and workshops. I infused this work into my classroom teaching, finding community in these embodied professionals. I heard we are an average of the 5 people we spend the most time with (Richard Rohn), so I became more discerning.
Awareness of my patterns and state of embodiment cascaded into my knowing quickly once I had the concrete, practical tools from my training. I was so grateful I had left behind drinking before we were all shut in our homes in lockdown. I was also grateful we lived on almost two acres with a shed that became my “Med(icine) Shed,” where I could write my soul’s longings without peering eyes and see who I was without squeezing into a label of wife, mother, or teacher. I revisited the few things I had written over the years, and clarity arrived. For me to become my best and highest self, I could not remain in my marriage. Instinctively, I knew this was true of my husband as well, though he could not see this when I first left in June of this year.
I just thought the words flowed while writing about my sobriety journey. I was naive. The floodgates opened, and here I am now, wearing out my keyboard, living in the city, not the country, and energized by everything around me. I cannot write what is flowing through me fast enough. I have always been one who can create a bridge for people from where they are to where they want to go. I can intuitively speak messages that inspire and activate. Combined with solid and practical tools that anyone can access, this connection is paradigm-shifting work. And I am so here for it.
We all face challenges, but looking back, would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Once my family of origin trauma began to bubble up after a violent sexual assault, I wrote a piece for the paper. I performed and participated in events for Sexual Assault Awareness Month. I began, through writing and acting, to find myself. I enjoyed these expressions of my power and wanted more.
I also landed in respite care several times when I spiraled up and got a Bipolar II diagnosis and ultimately a week in the psych ward. Once strong medications took hold, I was lucidly aware of being different – not only from those outside the locked ward but even from those with me. My takeaway was that I could not have a life of creativity if I wanted to function in this world. I was broken and sorely mistaken about what kind of life could be available.
Right after I left school, I met the man who would become my husband of almost 25 years. He supported me and believed in me and my talents. He also read my journal. He said it fell open, and I chose to believe him, but I rarely wrote or acted again until 2016. My writing was always sacred, and sharing had always been on my terms. Instead, I fostered writers, directed plays, and produced television and film in my accidental career as a public school teacher | shadow artist.
I became the adult I needed for the students I served. I danced between what was expected of me in the classroom and what I knew my students needed: a manual for life. I sprinkled in the wisdom of my learnings and saw transformations in these teens. I watched them flourish while seeing peers from college land major television and film roles on and off the screen, and after years of feeling, “Why not me?” I began to feel a sense of “Me too!” I took my advice and auditioned for a play with two roles I could play well. I made it to callbacks with the director, somewhat skeptical, wondering why there was a 15-year gap in my performance resume. Not landing a role disappointed me, yet I still gained a sense again that “only those who *can do * should teach” instead of the trite, “Those who can’t do, teach.”
Public education is still rife with challenges. I expected COVID to bring desperately needed education reform and saw these embodiment tools as a large part of the panacea. Most of those making the laws are experts in public education because they got private school diplomas and degrees, and change is devastatingly slow. These practices awaken individuals, which can harm the status quo. I still shut my classroom door and do what I know best for kids. It is the same as what is best for adults: to meet them right where they are, figure out what they want, share similar experiences, and offer a curious exploration of what they feel to bring them to where they desire to be.
Let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
As an embodiment professional, I have a collection of tools from a lifetime of therapy, yoga, meditation, breathwork, embodied facilitation, acting, martial arts, dance, improvisation, embodied intelligence, and spirituality. I am proud that I did this work before I had a name for it. I’ve transformed my own life multiple times and am at it again. I have grown confident in my embodiment and understand that modeling these practices brings the greatest transformation. It allows people to feel safe and grounded in my presence and feel confident in their ability to grow. To facilitate this work, I have created an embodied curriculum for teens and am currently building a card deck for individual and educational use. I offer private and group yoga, writing workshops, and embodied facilitation. I’ve worked with public school teams, student councils, winter guard teams, and faculty members. I am most proud of the honor of leading teachers attending a social and emotional learning conference hosted by Education First. In addition, I have spent a good part of my career working with marginalized populations – speaking to a prestigious audience as a Facing History and Ourselves Margot Stern Strom Award recipient.
How do you think about luck?
I am not sure I believe in “luck.” I like to operate from intention and accept that what is meant for me will find me. This allows me a healthy detachment to operate in the world as a sensitive soul. I have earned wonderful opportunities to write theatre curricula and Fine Arts standards for the State of Tennessee. In several cases, the competition for roles such as those is stiff, and I’m grateful for the opportunities and experience, even if I earned some spots as an alternate. Instead of luck, I enjoy “happy accidents” or synchronous moments. I had a strong yoga practice when I quit drinking and moved my family from Tennessee to Texas. In Texas, within the first month, I learned of a yoga teacher training for educators that was unavailable where I had lived. The first Embodied Yoga Principles training was held in Austin, and I happened to see a scholarship post that put that training within my reach, expanding my base of colleagues internationally and ultimately leading to recording an interview about Embodied Education on the Embodiment Unlimited podcast, which boasts almost two million downloads.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.embodiedlivinghub.org
- Instagram: @carrieann.author
- Facebook:Carrie Ann McCormick
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carriepaulo/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZ7FxDNIomrpZigqGuOmWTg
- Yelp: https://yelp.com/biz/more-embodied-living-austin
Image Credits
Gil Garcia
