I’m off to the Martha Beck Coaches Summit this week to teach workshops and connect with other coaches. However, I wanted to let you all know that I’m working up a sweat creating the new Mind-Body Community! It’s looking like it will be ready to go in late spring or early summer. I cannot wait to open the doors! (I am terrible at waiting!)

Thank you so much to those of you who joined me on the Community Brainstorm Call (didn’t get to join? You can grab the recording here!). Your ideas have helped so much, and I am implementing many of them. Very soon, we’ll have a great new spot to talk mind-body tools, energy, connection, support, and so much more for anyone who wants community around their mind-body journey.

By the way, my fellow mind-body travelers: remember talking on the Community Brainstorm Call about feeling like we’re the oddballs, misfits, etc. because of our personality traits? Well, guess what. My best friend, oil painter Aumi Perry, mentioned a fascinating system of personality classifications to me the other day, and it made so much sense to me! Here is a description of the personality type I think many of us share. You can read about it here. We are a community of melancholies. Doesn’t sound like a good thing, but it actually is.

Very soon we can gather together and help ourselves love our personalities, bodies, mind-body issues, creative genius, and so much more…

I learned a lot in 2013. It was a year of growth, transformation, humility, discovery, and so much more. Going through another TMS experience, being a new mom, and finding out what wasn’t working in my life caused me to look deeply inward in whole new ways. What did I find?

1. I learned that I still didn’t completely trust myself.

2. I learned that I was afraid to reach out and ask for help.

3. I learned that I was still not being very loving to myself in many ways.

4. I learned that I was longing for more community with like-minded individuals.

The discoveries that came from those insights were:

1. I discovered that whatever I need to know, it’s already available in that place of stillness, behind the chatter of the mind. I can trust myself when I listen within (I like to use the Core Anamsong Practice as a listening within practice).
2. I discovered that asking for help creates connection, and that it’s ok.
3. I discovered that my health and happiness cannot be complete without loving myself in every possible way.
4. I discovered that community is vital for me, and that I get to create whatever community I need.

In the last few weeks, I’ve been thinking a lot about these discoveries. I’ve wondered how you feel, out there, in your own mind-body experience. Do you long for community, too? Do you wish you had a place to talk emotions, body awareness, TMS, stress-relief, self-love, and connect with others who are doing inner work?

The hardest work, in my opinion, and the easiest to let slide, is inner work. Inner work is the stuff you do in your own bedroom, with tears, journals, meditations, and truth.

It’s not the kind of thing you talk about much in social settings. Sure, we talk about meditation. But we don’t always talk about the deeper aspect of meditation – the awareness of our own embarrassing patterns, our hardest emotional discoveries, the confrontations we have with our shadow. Inner work is a solo experience, but that doesn’t mean we have to feel alone.

So I found myself thinking….

What if I created a place where people from anywhere could converge, using technology, and find:

1. Support for learning to trust themselves and continuing to do so throughout their lives.
2. Support for learning how to ask for help, and a community in which to do so.
3. Support for learning to love themselves – shadow and all.
4. A community where connection goes beyond just a shared interest in mind-body work.

What I mean by all of that is I’m envisioning an Anamsong Community that addresses all four points above. I imagine it creates a space for learning to allow emotions and is a place where you can discover the gentle art of embracing anger, fear, sadness, and the messages that flow from them to help you create joy, health, and strength. I imagine it’s a place where you get support from both me and each other, so that you don’t have to feel alone in your inner work and personal growth process.

I imagine this community would be private, because Facebook just isn’t a great place to share our deepest inner work. I imagine this community would be inspirational, uplifting, and like a soft place to fall and be embraced when you’re feeling lost. It would be a place where you could confront the blocks keeping you from creating what you want, and learn to grow without beating yourself up over everything.

Most of all, it would be a community of compassion – compassion for the darkest shadows, deepest emotions, most frustrating limiting beliefs, and everything else inside of us.

What I learned, above all else, last year, was this: When you bring light (awareness) to the darkest places, they are transformed. And the hardest practice is letting yourself be aware of those things you think you don’t want to see or know about yourself. It’s why we repress, suppress, avoid, and hide from ourselves.

It takes absolute kindness and compassion to shine the light of awareness into the places we don’t want to go. It takes support. It takes community. It takes knowing you are not alone, and that we all have those same places. It takes courage. It takes conviction. But, above all else, it is the work we must do if we want to live more consciously, awaken to our true nature, and be at peace in our hearts.

I want to create my own community for anyone who wants to practice all of the above in their own lives.

Right now, it’s just a seed of an idea. I thought I’d share it with you all, with the purpose of asking you this:

If I do create an Anamsong Community for Mind-Body Support, what would you want it to look like? What would you want help/support around? What are your ideas, if you have any? It would be a lot of fun to create this together, from the very beginning.

You can post your ideas below in the comments, and I’d also love to have you join me for a conversational call about this on Tuesday, January 21st, at 9 am PT, 10 am MT, 11 am CT, and Noon ET.  I’ll be sharing more of my ideas and asking you for yours. I want to talk to you all and I want to hear what you need most as you continue your inner work and mind-body journey.

Register for the call by clicking here, and then save the date. Can’t wait to connect!

While I rest, Anamsong will also rest. So, there will be a few weeks without blog posts. As I write this, I notice the resonance of the word “rest.” Doesn’t it just feel good to say it? It sends a peaceful current through my body when I let it float around in my mind. Rest is healing. Rest is healthy. Rest is loving.

After the Healing Circle Call , my biggest takeaway was a feeling of love. When everyone reached out with love, I felt an inner knowing that I must access my most powerful feeling of love and treat myself to a whopping dose. Right now, that means rest, snuggle with my sweet baby girl, and laugh as much as possible.

Thank you all SO much for your participation in the Healing Circle Call and for all the amazingly kind comments, emails, and messages you’ve sent. I love the magic of connection through sharing, giving, loving, and receiving. I am blessed to be connected with all of you through our shared interest in the mind-body-soul relationship. I wish you a restful, joyful few weeks as well and look forward to writing again, post-rest.

I am having a very difficult experience right now. It’s probably the toughest experience I’ve ever had, even though I can see so much good in it. I’ve been mining for gold in this experience, looking for what it is I need to learn. What is my body asking for right now? What is it teaching me? Well…it’s actually pretty cool, in the end. My body is taking me to the root of many patterns that just don’t serve me anymore. It’s kind of a funny story…

Once upon a time, I got pregnant. Being me, I decided to renovate my business, website, and home at the same time. (Why not, really?) I tend to do life at full speed, foot on the gas. This is how I did my whole pregnancy. I wrote two ebooks, created all new content for my website, ran several telecourses, and continued coaching, training mind-body coaches, teaching, and running Martha Beck Life Coach Training.

What did I actually want to do during my pregnancy?

Lie down. For nine months.

My body felt terrible throughout my pregnancy. I was constantly nauseous. I had hideous heartburn. In the second trimester, I started having this thing where when I sat or stood, my blood pressure dropped so low that I blacked out. For the entire final eight weeks of my pregnancy, I itched all over my body, all the time, and could only sleep in small chunks. I nearly went insane.

Hmmm. I wonder what a mind-body coach would say to me? Um…lie down? Rest? Stop? Stop the madness?

Then, I gave birth. The birth itself went well, but afterward I hemorrhaged. There was a terrifying post-birth period in which the doctor was working frantically on me and the baby nurse was trying to get my daughter, Aela, to breathe. It was incredibly scary.

Thankfully, everything was okay. I brought Aela home, alive and well, and began my recuperation. I was in immense pain, and soon discovered I had an anal fissure from the birth. My muscles around this injury went into a major spasm. (Muscle spasms HURT.) In the end, I required surgery. Post surgery, my muscles went into deeper spasm. I couldn’t sit down, and still can’t, due to the pain.  Physical therapy seems to help in the tiniest of increments, and incredibly slowly.

Then I started feeling terrible in other ways. I lost all remaining tidbits of energy. I felt deeply depressed. I love my daughter so much, and love being a mother, so this felt like the worst kind of torture – not being able to really bring my full energy to motherhood.

I sank into a place of really low self-worth. I felt like I should be able to heal myself. Not only that, I should be able to do so quickly! Why weren’t my mind-body tools “working?” Instead of using self-kindness (probably the most important mind-body tool), I berated myself constantly.

I was running full speed ahead, and then I smacked right into my wall. Splat! I was knocked flat. All the old thoughts, patterns and ways of being that simply aren’t going to work for me anymore came up. My old life pretty much exploded in a large, hot, painful fireball. Well, that’s one way to clear out old patterns. Yeesh!

Having Aela cut straight to the core of me. It forced me to wake up and be reborn right alongside her.

All the usual stuff – my Achilles’ heels, one could say – surfaced. Perfectionism, self-judgment, not asking for help, pushing my body too hard, blaming myself for physical ills, thinking I should never be ill. Kaboom! Kablooey! It was not fun.

Slowly, one-by-one, I started addressing these issues. I started listening to my body and actually resting. I started hearing its messages. I started reaching out. I started learning how to take care of myself in an entirely new way.

I also fought this experience. I felt angry. I felt incredibly overwhelmed. I felt grief. Despair. You name it. Acceptance came only in bursts and bits.

Following intuitive hits, I found a great doctor. It turned out my thyroid has basically said, “Bleeerg. I’m exhausted.” This meant my poor little adrenal glands had to do a lot of extra work, pumping out adrenaline to keep me going. Then they said, “Oooooof. We’ve had it!”

My body has literally used every possible method it can think of to get me to just stop. Lie down. Be. I was really, really avoiding being. I was disconnected from my body. I was actually having trouble using my own mind-body tools. Why? I didn’t want to face some of my painful beliefs, inner truths, and fears.

When I finally surrendered to the being, I was able to finally be kind to myself and to release. The core beliefs around my body were:

I should be able to heal myself.

I should not need help from others to heal.

Being unwell and needing help/love/attention is shameful and should be hidden.

Which is so funny, because last time I went through a mind-body healing process, I did not do it alone! Several years ago I wrote a blog post about how it takes a village. Yet, I guess I still held these beliefs, and I still held myself apart from others as a result. I still wouldn’t let myself be vulnerable and open and loved. I haven’t been loving the part of me that needs help, is in pain, and doesn’t feel well.

I’ve used all the mind-body tools, but I forgot the biggest one of all: community.

Being a life coach, or a mind-body coach, is not about being happy all the time. It’s not about being well or doing well all the time. It’s about being authentic. I needed to clean up this part of my thinking, because it’s holding me back from being fully authentic. If I’m willing to look deeply into the ways I hold myself back, am unkind to myself, and am not loving myself, then I open the door to truly loving and caring for me, mind, body, and soul.

It’s been a really painful lesson. It’s been really hard.  It has felt hellish. It is still hard. My body hurts. I’m exhausted. I’m having hormonal rollercoaster rides from starting the new thyroid medication. I’m bummed out that I can’t drive around and do fun stuff. I am not a fan of lying in bed a lot. I miss my old way of zipping around. I’ve had to learn that my body heals on its own timeline, and I must trust its wisdom.

And yet – I’m (often grudgingly) grateful that I’m tearing down the walls and opening up to a new way of being, of not zipping around, and of loving. And of being loved.  It’s time for me to fling open the doors and say, “You know what? I want community from you all. I can’t heal all by myself. It’s lonely. It’s not fun. It’s not how it’s supposed to be.”

I mean, really!! Seriously!! Would I tell a client to do it all on her own? NO! Never! I would say to trust her body, follow her intuition, and let it lead her to all the healers, teachers, friends, and modalities that are meant to be a part of her healing journey. Mind-body healing isn’t about healing yourself.  It’s not about using only your mind to heal. It’s about honoring all the parts of you and what they need. It’s about becoming aware of thoughts, feeling emotions, hearing intuitive messages from the soul, and learning to trust and love yourself. That’s it. I’m learning all about it, on a whole new level.

Pretty funny, no? Guess I need to change the title of my free ebook, Hear Your Soul, Heal Yourself! Ha ha! It’s not about healing yourself. It’s about loving yourself. That’s what brings true healing, on all levels. I’ve been in what we call my “blind spot” in coaching. I wrote a really helpful complimentary ebook, but I left out a GIANT mind-body concept: opening up to the healing, love, and support you need from others. It cracks me up!

What is loving to my body right now? What is kindness to myself right now? To share all this with you, and to stop trying to go it alone. To let go of my old story that I shouldn’t be unwell, that I should be perfect, that I need to get it together so I can get back to helping others heal and getting stuff done. It’s quite the opposite. I need to share myself, exactly as I am right now, and be loving of this version of me. I need to open gracefully to this lesson. That’s my job right now. That’s love.

So, yeah. Here’s where I am. I’m at home. Lying in bed. My ass still hurts. I don’t feel well. I miss sitting in chairs. (You just don’t appreciate a good chair until you can’t sit in one!) I work in small chunks, rest (when I’m not resisting it), cry when I’m really down, and love my baby.

She seems pretty happy to be with me, nurse, and be loved. In the end, it’s been perfect with her, after all. I’m writing a blog post about that, too – coming soon. Slowing way down has made me the mom I want to be. Slowing down has given me everything, actually. It’s shown me just how much love and connection I was missing out on before. It’s shown me where pride closed doors, and limiting beliefs held me back. It’s shown me how to let myself experience the one energy of which we are all a part. It has given me a deeper spiritual practice. It has given me so much more understanding and respect for emotions and their innate wisdom.

The other day, Donna Reed, a coach friend, visited me. She was inspired to create a healing circle phone call to create support and community for me. She’s the one who made me realize I’ve been missing this vital piece. I am so, so grateful. Thanks to her, I’m using my brand-new (to me) mind-body tool right now. I’m reaching out and asking for connection and healing from all of you. I’m voicing my truth. Right now, I’m having a difficult time. And no matter how much I’m learning, how amazing it actually is, and how grateful I am, it’s still damn hard. I want help. I don’t want to feel alone or be alone.

With that said, you’re invited to the Healing Circle Call! As of publication, plans include coaches Jeannette Maw, Gail Kenny and Diane Hunter leading the vibration-raising and healing!

Where: On the Phone!

Date: Monday, April 8

Time: 12:30 pm PT/1:30 MT/2:30 CT/3:30 ET

Call-In Info: (760) 569-7676

Access Code:      855742