"I don't know why I am telling you this" she said.

I have a defined throat centre, a NEED to speak and a natural suspiciousness - it's how I am wired energetically.

From a client this week, a consultant last month, a friend weeks before that and countless times over my life, I am told "I don't know why I am telling you all this" by the person sharing with me, in the middle of a personal conversation.

It took years to recognize this pattern and even longer to be comfortable with it. "Lorianne is a very good student but she concerns herself with the business of others too often" (a grade 4 report card antidote), lol. My natural curiosity asks me to find meaning when it is not clear to others and my energy attracts those open to that conversation. I am honoured to hold space for others and have come to see that I need what others bring just as much as they need my safe space. When we are aligned with the energy of our bodies, those around us can feel our truth and we both feel good. I have learned to appreciate this gift.

But the mind is a master of resistance.

Because the mind relies on past experience to predict the future (hello self doubt) and is unable to consider anything it hasn't yet experienced, it needs direction.

As most of us are wound SO TIGHTLY from the moment we begin to stir, connecting to our inner knowing is a hurdle. We rise and the day ahead, the events of the days and weeks before, the things we know we must deal with but simply cannot (lest they break us) ... it all creeps up and fills our minds and we then brace ourselves for the day ahead. That tightness over time becomes the norm and before we realize it, we have trained our bodies and nervous system again, for a state of readiness. Our inner knowing doesn't stand a chance.

How sad.

Retraining the mind and providing it a new direction is IMHO one of the most important practises. There are countless lessons to be learned in the times that we have not listened to our bodies. Yet like most things in life, only in reflection does this become clear.

I had no idea how engaged my nervous system was, constantly, in gear, ready to GO and how disconnected I was to my inner knowing. Until it demanded to be listened to. Being able to recognize this, prioritize inner knowing and learning to quiet the mind, IS THE WORK. I'm still in it.

"Sit back and watch me do this."

Quieting the mind had always been struggle for me, until I learned a new language, one it would listen to. Yes I am referring the mind in the third person - stay with me for a moment. I ask her to "sit down, please, while I focus on how I am feeling". When she responds with all of the self doubt, "you can't do that" "they will think you are crazy" "who do you think you are?" and "no one will listen" or "they will never understand"... my response is a compassionate one: "I know this is knew for us but I am safe, I have all the experience now to forge ahead with this, trust me, I got you, sit back and watch me do this."

And of course my mind right now is screaming "what the hell are you sharing LA, people are going to think you're nuts!" No, not nuts, vulnerable and that is always scary. I am in such a better place. My nervous system is healthy, I react less, I listen more and those around me continue to tell me how they want whatever it is that I am on, lol so yeah, NOT nuts :). Breath work, prioritizing my writing and my time in nature and curating my surrounding to support continued growth, at 61, is "what I am on'.

When we are truthful to and with ourselves, things that are no longer best for us, fall away and the good arrives. The things that fall away are sometimes to hardest to let go of but of course they must, to make room for the good.

Be With Ourselves First

The mind-body dance is a uniquely sacred one to learn and practise. It's personal. Humans have a unique genetic and energetic blueprint that then determines the pace of this dance. When we learn to lean into our energy, our knowing and into what FEELS right - which takes devotion, our whole world opens up and things we have always needed, become clear.

Looking up from my writing just now and out my window at the sun dancing on the bark of my paper white birch tree and suddenly I see her. Just the way the shadows are falling on her forever shedding skin, is beautiful. A face becomes clear in the peeling bark, eyes, lashes, slender nose, bulbous mouth. As the shadows change and the wind blows ever so softly, her expression changes and I can somehow feel it. Overcome with joy, I suddenly become aware I am crying and smiling at the same time. This feels good. I need more of this.

Deep sigh.

I don't know why I am telling you this.