This past week, I have been paying particular attention to what it feels like to be in my body and in energetic integrity with my needs. Over the course of our day we are given the opportunity to make dozens of choices. Choices about what to eat, when to sleep, how to hydrate, how to move our bodies joyfully, and the beautiful opportunities to honor our needs for belonging and physical intimacy.
We get to choose.
We get to choose to stay with ourselves, to lean into our own divine deserving, or to pull away from ourselves, burying our desires with food or numbing our cravings with the slow drip of reality television. We get to choose.
And the beautiful thing is, we will not always get it right.
We will misunderstand the whispers of our cells, the bodily yearning for true nourishment. We will mix it up, getting lost in the complex matrix of options. We will not always get it right.
And yet? We get to be the sacred data collectors in our own lives. We get to break down our experiences, testing them for truth. We get to pay close attention to the things that bring us closer to ourselves and the things that take us far, far away.
We get to use that data to make different decisions the next time around.
Judgment used to fit me like a second skin, caressing my best intentions and blowing holes in all of my ideas about right living. I used to fill myself up with self-loathing: You really fucked that up, you’ll never get it right. You don’t know how to feed yourself. You’re so stupid, that was the WRONG thing to do. You can’t be trusted. Judgement used to permeate my every waking moment, and I spent my days regretting the choices of the day before. At the time, I believed in my heart that I was always going to be behind and that I would never figure it all out.
You are imperfect. You will always be imperfect. And yet, it is your imperfection that provides fertile ground for you to evolve. It is through your missteps that you learn more about yourself. It is through your sacred data collection that you are offered a chance to grow.
Love your mistakes. Embrace the information you receive. Choose better, next time.
For example, this morning I woke up and set the intention to stay with my body for the duration of the day. In this moment, at 12:42 pm when I am writing this, I have an opportunity to pay close attention to my actions over the course of the last four hours. In this moment, I am allowed to assess my behavior and to recommit to my original intention for the day.
In integrity: Waking up slowly, getting my teeth cleaned, and writing a to-do list that a human being could realistically accomplish.
Out of integrity: The breakfast sandwich and coffee that my mind wanted, manually overriding the craving for veggies and water that my body wanted.
Now, I could spend the rest of my day regretting that breakfast sandwich, or I could open my heart to receiving the information about how it made my body feel and choose differently for my next meal. I could tell myself that this day is already so messed up I might as well start again tomorrow, or I could be kind to myself and start again, in this moment.
When we pay close attention to our bodies, we have an opportunity to witness on a cellular level the things that bring us closer to ourselves and things that take us away.
We can use that data to make different choices the next time around. We do not have to lean into judgment. We can choose: love, nourishment, and divine deserving.
What is paving your way home to yourself today?
What is taking you away from yourself?
How might you use this data to choose differently the next time around?
Returning home to yourself through sacred data collection is just one of the concepts that will be explored during my next class, 31 Days of Deserving. This is such delicious, life-altering work. It is about cultivating an internal landscape that is free of judgment and ridicule. It is about your intention for your beautiful life, and taking advantage of the multitude of choices available to you in each and every moment. I hope that you will join us in paving your own way home to yourself this December.
Oh,thank you! I needed the reminder of “Love your mistakes. Embrace the information you receive. Choose better, next time.” And also love the concept of the to-do list that a human being could realistically accomplish.
It’s so easy to get distracted and never listen to what your body needs or wants…thank you for the reminder. And also the reminder to forgiving to yourself 🙂
Thank you! I needed to read this right now. Especially this bit ‘When we pay close attention to our bodies, we have an opportunity to witness on a cellular level the things that bring us closer to ourselves and things that take us away’