What is the most loving choice you can make for yourself today?
For your body?
For your heart?
For your soul?
For your inner child?
And yes, for your mind?*
My understanding of “love is the answer”, after months of pondering, finally made deeper sense to me today and I was both reviewing a past free write journal entry and starting a new free write. (Society may label me a “slow processor” and call that a bad thing, but really, it is such a gift. When I come to truly understand something, it is at more than just a logical level…its a deep knowing in my bones. I believe it is from that place, only, that I can write and teach about the topic in a way that allows others to understand concepts at an embodied level as well.)
The reason why summer was such a challenge for me, the reason why I was so uncomfortable, was because I had made the choice, to choose and love myself (and Pacer) first. It is the choice I have rarely made in my life…too many times, I have pushed through a race or up a mountain while tired and in pain, studied too hard for a test to get the “A” that didn’t really matter, done the thing to look and feel tough for a moment, or woke up way too early because I believed that is what I had to do to be successful.
But it is only the mental, never the heart choice, to push through pain in search of success.
The uncomfortability was a sign I was on the right path. That I was breaking free.
The panic attacks were simply a sign of my ego cracking.
(Personally, my anxiety often first comes when I feel like I have to do something scary or something I don’t really want to do to serve my mind. I have panic attacks when I make the choice to follow my heart…which is basically the pain of my fragile ego cracking and the energy of my soul saying “let me out!”)
Loving myself is resting. Loving myself is not forcing a goal to happen. Loving myself is serving my core needs of acceptance and connection to my own body and soul. Loving myself is not doing the scary or painful thing. Loving myself is allowing beauty and love in. (Other people’s brains may be wired in a reversed way as compared to mine. I come from a society, family, and church that stems from the toxic wounded masculine- control and work, work, work to prove your worth. I know other people who come from the disempowered masculine and the fear of trying something new or putting themselves out there can be paralyzing, which looks like laziness to the untrained eye. )
In this process of asking ourselves “What is the most loving choice I can make for myself today?” we are both starving and serving our minds. Again, the path becomes uncomfortable (anxious sensation in our bodies) when we choose to side with the heart over the mind. However, the mind ultimately wants to be at peace…so choosing what is at first uncomfortable actually leads to greater freedom in the end, once the mind realizes it is now safe when allowing the heart to lead.
While I hope my examples are helpful to some readers, the nuance is that our minds our wired differently and our egos have developed different protection mechanisms, so there is nuance in what might be right for me is wrong for another. The commitment is getting to know one’s truest Self at the deepest level possible.
I have a lot more coming on the topics of bravery, panic attacks, ego, listening to the heart, and choosing joy coming up!
***For those people who have worked hard their whole life, what I’m noticing with a lot of women now (although this probably goes across genders) is that when the person gets a cold or a little niggle of an injury, the body isn’t asking the person to just take a week off, or even a month off. The body (which communicates for the heart once our connection to the heart voice has been blocked) is asking the person to take months, a year, or even years of rest to re-harmonize the body. Once we let go of our resistant thoughts to rest (and keep trying to push through), healing can begin.
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This was my Instagram post that preceded this blog:
A Dog and Her Girl 