But there is practice, self-reflection and action.
For the past few weeks, I’ve been talking about deep listening. This week I was able to use my deep listening skills to anticipate Miles getting sick. I could smell it on his breath. I knew how to support him. He would get sick 12 hours later. I’ll call it my new superpower.
I now have these cool, awareness skills I use all the time, without even thinking about it. They were learned or relearned over the past decade. They were once challenging and out of reach for my mind to understand, let alone apply to my life. There were many years I looked outside of myself for reassurance of my health, not really knowing the signs and symptoms my own body was emitting when I was sick or out of alignment. It took me a while to really tap into the concept that I am my own best caregiver (and now Miles’).
I still go to the doctor and certainly call in experts when I need to.
As a preventative measure, I’m more drawn to practices that have a direct correlation to my physical, mental and emotional health. I’m interested in the actual practices, skill-building or lifestyle of wellness, well-being, and ease and doing my darndest to navigate my own resistance patterns. I’m a lifelong learner, but more than acquiring information, I’m looking for implementation techniques, ways to apply information to my life. An embodied practice. I seek out people who will shine the light into my darkness and hold the potential for my vitality.
And I am eternally grateful for the wise counsel of coaches, mentors, healers, doctors, accountability partners and teachers who support me along the way.
I am constantly upping my game to put in place new practices that build my own confidence in a deeper wellness wisdom. This is why I do the seasonal cleansing, shift up my breath body practice, sit with myself, and am on a path of growth, to clear the pathways of communication so I can respond to the needs of my body, mind, and emotions with greater integrity.
There is no magic pill.
It is hard work. We either chose action or inaction, isolation or connection, critique, and judgment or acceptance, openness or contraction.
I feel like I’m on an accelerated growth path and the real change is anchored in the mundane. Daily habits become the gateway to unraveling resistance, perfectionism, procrastination and limiting beliefs. Changing actions.
Let’s take oiling my body as an example. Where I once used lotion with nasty petroleum products, I use oil.
It may just look like I’m simply dealing with dry skin from living in the high desert on the surface, but it’s more than that.
I massage my body with oil every day. I use it as a check-in, a body scan. I am waking up my body. I rub it into the seven layers of my bodily tissue: plasma, blood, muscle, fat, bone, marrow, and reproductive layers. I do it as a practice of deep listening, self-care, deep hydration. I become more aware and connected to my body. I’ve never had this kind of connection with my body before. It’s the coolest experience ever.
Why? To literally be in touch with all parts of myself.
I enter into a sacred relationship with my body using my hands, carving and sculpting my temple. This simple practice keeps me in tune with every curve, every bump, every vein, every bruise, every scrape.
The body I once judged and even ignored, I now adore. The curves I once critiqued, I now love. In the Spring of last year, I noticed a change in breast tissue so I went to experts. It was my daily oil massage that gave me the insight. After multiple tests, all was good.
The more in touch I am, the more magical it all is, but there is no magic pill.
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Rachel Peters is a yoga teacher, yoga health coach, lifestyle and habits expert, easeful living advocate, and lover of wild places. She leads others towards Embodying Ease through a yearlong wellness & lifestyle journey to dissolve perfectionism, embody daily habits that promote mental clarity, overall ease, and deeper connection to life on this wild ride of modern living. Learn MORE today!