why we don’t follow our intuition
We've all made choices that conflict with our intuition and then looked back and wished we'd trusted what some part of us already knew. We might feel down about ourselves when this happens. Maybe we experience shame, embarrassment, and anger. Perhaps we close the blinds and don't want to tell anyone what has happened for fear of being met with the proverbial "I told ya so."
Following our head over our body is not a personal defect. This is something we've been trained to do -- often from very early on in our lives.
navigating the unexpected
As our emotional landscape tries to settle, internally we may feel like we're in freefall. We're dropping, dropping, dropping, and as we reach for the world that once felt "under control" its construction reveals itself as paper thin. There's nothing to hold on to.
From this perilous place, we vacillate between a desire to recreate or "get back" what's been lost and total collapse. In our body a hot buzz of anxiety grips our throat and belly while at the same time we may feel heavy, dull, and uninspired.
it is the work
There was a time when I felt guilty about the practices my body needed to arrive for the day.
Conditioned by an education system built to support compliant and productive little workers, when I wasn’t pumping out the emails by 9:00 a.m., there was a sense that I should probably hide what I was actually doing. I felt this even when I didn’t go into a formal office, even when I worked for myself.
joy comes first
Do you remember the fable of the Grasshopper and the Ants?
As a child, I watched this story over and over shuddering at the foolishness of the Grasshopper. My 5-year old self promised to never be like him. I would always be a hard worker. Otherwise, the risk was clear: starvation, exile and death. That wouldn’t be my reality.
As I’ve looked back on this memory I’ve wondered, is this where I first learned the importance of hard work? Is this where I learned to distance myself from my joy?