This last week I’ve been on what I am calling my “body love vacation.”

I took 6 nights to simply be with my body and listen.

The amount my body has changed and been through in the last 5 years is really mind blowing.

Two pregnancies and fully natural physiological births, co-sleeping with babies and toddlers, four years and counting of breastfeeding, gaining 80lbs over the course of this, completely redefining my identity on multiple levels, 1.5 years of severe insomnia, the stress of covid throughout this.. there is more, these are just the big ones.

And I can honestly say that these have been some of the best years of my life too.

I have never felt more well used, alive, and like it’s all for something bigger than and beyond me.

When I heard Lindsay Courcelle being interviewed on Amber Magnolia Hill’s podcast Medicine Stories a few years ago, I could feel the resonance in what they were discussing and I knew that part of my lingering health issues were related to my fascia and what it was holding on to.

When Lindsay shared that she offers week long intensives where people travel to see her for this myofascial release technique body work I felt the very familiar zing of “this is for me.”

So end of last week, I got on a plane to Vermont, leaving my girls for the longest I’ve ever left them, 6 nights, to be with my body and be held and worked on by Lindsay for 2-3 hours a day.

I also put everything else I have been holding down to simply see what comes up. No work. No house care. No cooking if I didn’t want to. No distractions or external obstacles to simply being with my body as the intention.

My work with Lindsay is still landing and digesting. I will say that I have never had such a clear experience of the “issues being held in the tissues.”

There was no doubt that an experience with an ex boyfriend I hadn’t thought about in years was stored in my diaphragm.

There was no doubt that there was sexual shame and repression from another experience I’d had being held in the left side of my pelvic bowl.

The work I did with Lindsay gave me a more visceral experience of this truth than I’ve ever had before.

I know releasing what I released this week is huge. Some things my body had been stuck holding for over 10 years, moved and changed. I feel I even moved emotions and patterns that may not have even been mine but were generational in nature.

I had a session a few weeks ago with Alee Reina and one of the nuggets that has stayed with me since is: “Receive, Don’t Carry.”

My system is big.

It’s wide.

And I can carry a lot.

I have always been able to.

My generational pattern and inheritance is to just take it on. Carry it. Hold it. Just because I can and I’m doing it on the level of the unconscious.

(this, carrying because we can, is also a manifesting generator thing in human design.)

My system is big for a reason. I was created this way because I have a lot to do in this lifetime.

I have a lot of energy I am designed to bring into manifested reality.

I am like lighting being grounded in the earth. (Come to the Magic of Minerals class on Tuesday for more on how every human being is actually light).

But if I’m not aware and conscious, I will take on everything. Just hold it. Because I can.

What I know for sure from my personal and professional experience with healing the physical body is that no one else can live inside you, but you.

The obsession with finding someone who is the “authority” on whatever subject and following them just because you are desperate for some outcome is not how we really heal.

It will never be how we heal.

Those parts that are so desperate to figure out your health issues are not the parts that bring healing.

As radical as this is to say: healing isn’t something we figure out.

I know, that is a big one.

In the way I work with the body; you cannot protocol your way out of your ongoing body issues.

You cannot yoga, meditate, restrict, or supplement, your way out of a belief about yourself or an unconscious pattern you are running.

It’s unconscious. It takes examination, a deep listening, and a willingness to follow threads and paths with no definable end in sight.

It takes a willingness to follow the nudges, the pings and the zings (because that’s the way the unconscious communicates).

Something I only recently have seen about myself is how subtly addicted I am to the next “healing” thing.

Maybe the new health tech health gadget will be my savior!

Maybe this supplement will finally be the silver bullet!

Maybe this class or book or knowledge will be IT!

And, I also love my insatiable desire to get to the bottom and my willingness to keep learning and always try new things. This is also part of my human design. I’m a 1/3 profile. The seeker of truth and knowledge.

I’ll always follow the thing I’m interested in to the very bottom.

But when this seeking is done with this idea that IT is the thing! Then it’s just a desperate part of me looking outside myself for saving. When this quality of seeker I have is used by my mind seeking a solution to something I am off on a ride that will never bring anything truly nourishing or healing.

There is nothing outside of us that can save us. We are only ones who can save us.

Constantly looking outside and thinking we need to find the answer is actually inherently stressful and activating.

It is the opposite thing most of us need to heal.

There is so much focus on fixing and eliminating symptoms. And I’m not saying that all our symptoms are fun or that we shouldn’t want to be comfortable.

But most of us want bigger lives, yes?

Most of us want to grow and stretch and expand.

If we are constantly thinking that if we get rid our symptoms that’s the solution AND THEN we can get bigger, I’m here to tell you, the thing you think is your hindrance to getting bigger is actually the way you get bigger.

It’s asking you to become.

You don’t become by avoiding. You become by going through, not through force. Not through “figuring it out.”

You become by surrendering to the guidance of the body.

If your body is consistently telling you things through symptoms, maybe it’s time to listen to those symptoms instead of trying to figure out how to get them to go away.

Do you feel the difference there?

One of the experiences in my healing journey I get victimized by is how the more I tune into my body; the more kindly I treat it, the more sensitive I and my body seems to be.

For example, as a kid I ate all sorts of junk food and fast food, no issues. Now; I eat junk food once in awhile and I am laid out. I feel awful.

There could be a piece of metabolic health here (again, see Magic of Minerals class) but I think it’s also just that I am way more IN MY BODY now.

I am attuned to myself in a much deeper way. Which means I feel the negative at a much deeper level as well as the positive. I have far more access to pleasure now too.

I have been changing the way I’ve been thinking in that I’m saying to myself: the body will never be free of symptoms, it shouldn’t be. Symptoms are how my body communicates to me.

They’re just all communications. They are not something to fear.

It takes time to be with the body. It takes slowing down. Getting curious.

It takes coming at your symptoms with an openness and reception versus anxiety and worry or attack and a desire to destroy.

I believe people with unique and pertinent-to-our-issues gifts, skills, and experience can be wonderful guides on our healing paths.

I know, personally, I need holding to access the deeper the spots. It’s just something about my system.

Those who hold me are sometimes people who know me in my personal life really well and sometimes they are long lost soul friends with a very specific gift.

The healing experience always requires that I am willing to open.

It requires I am willing to surrender to the cues of my body.

It always requires me to follow the destination-less path that only shows me a tiny bit of it at a time.

Here is to building a new relationship with our bodies.

One of curiosity towards our symptoms.

One of trust in the fact that we are the only ones actually living in our bodies and therefore the ultimate authority over them.

One that honors our bio-individuality and the differences between you and I.

A relationship where we can walk with ourselves through our health challenges instead of exacerbating them with a desperation to solve, figure out, and fix.

You don’t have to go on a 6 day body love vacation. I know that ain’t in the cards for everyone.

You just have to stop; slow down, feel your body and get curious about your aches, bloats, sensations, emotions. Let yourself be open to them.

You may need to move while you do this, sometimes being still creates a lot of agitation for people. Take a short silent walk before and after work and feel your body moving.

Roll around on the ground and stretch while brining your awareness inwards.

I’m a big fan of bowspring classes with Amanda Cepeda for coming into your body and listening and becoming aware in an open way.

I heard the other day to just take 10 breaths in between each time you switch tasks.

Just start to bring more awareness to your body and its communications. See what happens to your symptoms.

I find the more acute symptoms dissolve or release as I turn toward them with love and attention.

The ongoing chronic symptoms are more mysterious. I’m in all honesty still figuring out how to listen to my body when it’s repeatedly not feeling the way or doing the things I think it should.

However, I would bet my life that listening to them more deeply and with more openness is always the best course of action.

Questions to sit with, write about below in the comments or send me a message about:

* What are the symptoms my body has over and over again?

* If I came at these symptoms with curiosity and openness, what is my body trying to tell me?

* What does my body need to heal?

There are two offerings I have right now that are related to this subject of listening and being with:

* Magic of Minerals | A 2 hour free class exploring minerals as root cause and solution to our health concerns. Tuesday May 21, 8-10am Pacific. If you can’t come live, register and you’ll be able to watch the recording for a week after. *I know this doesn’t sound like it’s about being with your body, but you’ll see, it is on the same thread here. Register here.

* HomeBody practice. First Saturday of the month 9-10:30am Pacific. June 1st. If you don’t take the time to be with your body, feel confused about what that would look or feel like, or just want a container to experience a deep connection to the body and its wisdom, HomeBody is an embodiment practice for you. Get more info and register for the June 1st practice here.

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