I have many projects going, and I’ve had zero desire or energy to work on any of them. So, I did what comes naturally; freak out and put pressure on myself to work on them.

Because that always works.

Then, I remembered something important.This pattern of self-pressure is what got me into a chronic pain mess! Vulvodynia, interstitial cystitis, pelvic floor dysfunction, and such all came about because I held emotions inside, didn’t listen to myself, and shoved my way through life. When I realized those syndromes were all just forms of TMS (aka Mind Body Syndrome), I was able to unwind the pain patterns and the brain patterns.

Of course, old habits die hard.

Last week, I had to admit to myself that I was in a full-on Sloth Mode.  Once I admitted that, I remembered this is just a cycle. For me, creative work is always like this. There’s an action phase and a resting phase, over and over again. The hard part is that the resting phase may come before the project is completed. Deadlines and dreams be damned, my body simply stops going with the flow and demands rest and vegetative mental states. Lack of energy is a sign I need rest, self-care, self-acceptance, and time to let the creative projects gestate.

Once I finally accepted Sloth Mode, set aside my visions of completed projects, and rolled with it, I became much like a turtle on downers and asleep; possibly hibernating. (Here’s where the metaphor stops working.)

I always assume that Sloth Mode will never end, and I’ll spend the rest of my life watching Netflix, reading trashy novels, and staring at the wall in between naps. This is despite much evidence to the contrary.

In fact, what happened was the exact opposite. Sloth Mode passed fairly quickly, and I woke up last Thursday with enough energy to do a HIIT workout, tackle several writing projects, spend hours with my web developer making huge progress on a new website, and get many small annoying tasks done. (Lest you think I’m superwoman, I totally ordered pizza for dinner instead of cooking.)

That’s right; Sloth Mode left and Go Mode returned.

If you’re like me, you kind of prefer Go Mode. Except, that’s not even really true, because Sloth Mode can be really, really fun, when you’re not guilting yourself for having it. Go Mode is more culturally accepted, so it seems cooler. And it can be fun. But, I have to say, Sloth Mode is where it’s at. Sloth Mode is what makes Go Mode possible.

In the end, I realized it’s either Sloth or Go. That’s just me. For years, my husband has remarked on this, suggesting I try this weird thing he calls balance. (Sometimes he’s even mentioned moderation. No idea what that is.) Unfortunately (or fortunately) I’ve just gotta roll with my own style here; two modes, no in-between, a creative cycle, and gulping life instead of sipping it.

Your modes may be entirely different.

I encourage you to observe yourself to find out how you roll.

Then, instead of pressuring yourself to do it differently (or be in Go Mode all the time), accept your truth. Learn to love how you roll, and take off the self-pressure. This is a huge part of healing from TMS, pelvic pain, depression, anxiety, and stress in general. The less you resist who you are, how you work, and what you need, the better you’ll feel. Take your Sloth Modes (whatever they look like) seriously. That’s how you take great care of yourself. Embrace your inner sloth, love your wild inner child, and take naps. Naps are very, very good.

I’m sure someone else is feeling much worse right now; what right do I have to complain?

I’m sure he/she didn’t mean/didn’t realize what they were doing.

I shouldn’t really feel __________, because ______________.

These, my friends, are the sentences that precede months or years of TMS (aka Mind Body Syndrome) pain, anxiety, undue amounts of stress, and much struggle. You may have said one or all of them to yourself in the past, and undoubtedly many other variations as well.

If you want to heal, you’ve gotta go there. You have to allow yourself to feel how you really feel about experiences, be they past or present. You must allow yourself to express the deep hurt, the anger, the grief, or whatever it may be.

I see two different styles of suppression in my work with clients. There’s the person who wants to be above it, whatever “it” happens to be in the moment, because he/she wants to be good, spiritual, or evolved. Then there’s the person who unwittingly resists emotions by telling him/herself to suck it up or just keep going. (And some people do both!) As a result, everyone is short-circuiting a vital and unavoidable healing process.

These patterns of behavior around emotion are learned, and we can unlearn them. Our emotions are not meant to be suppressed or ignored. They need to move. Emotions are energy in motion, and holding them stagnant in the body can only cause trouble. For anyone who has TMS, the healing path is clear. You literally can’t afford to suppress emotion, because your body is in pain as a result of years of doing so.

In general, whether you have physical pain or not, emotional health does not equal holding emotions inside or pushing them out of your awareness. It also doesn’t equal violently and repeatedly expressing the words around an experience without both feeling the bodily emotional sensations and observing the mind (this is often referred to as being a ‘drama queen’).

Certainly, there may be times when something occurs, you find yourself imagining you could be upset or bothered, and yet you truly aren’t. You are deeply at peace with the circumstance.

I’m not talking about those moments.

I’m talking about the moments when you actively feel bothered, and then you engage the mind in a suppressive self-dialogue (such as was listed at the beginning of this article).

Trying to “be evolved” or “dangle above the mess of life” (my favorite Pema Chodron quote, ever) is deadly.

For the spiritual seeker who is a recovering overachiever, this idea of being evolved is like the ultimate carrot. The mind can turn that into yet another achievement, and see it as a goal to be reached. The temptation becomes strong to skip the part where you feel emotions and simply leap to the end in a futile attempt to evolve as fast as possible.

The spiritual communities I’ve connected with, from yoga classes to meditation groups to circles of life coaches are rife with this confusion. Don’t fall prey to this ego trap, because that is exactly what it is.

Transcending an emotion is not something you do by thinking about it. You have to do the actual healing work of feeling the emotion as a physical sensation in the body. You have to allow yourself to express the not-so-nice thoughts in your head. They’re there, and no amount of leaping over them will ever create healing.

If you don’t do this kind of awareness practice, you’ll find yourself suddenly going Towanda (see video below) on people you love. This is how you become a classic example of an exploding doormat.

(Click Picture to Play)

The TMS personality trait Dr. John Sarno calls “goodism” is at the core of this emotional suppression issue. A good person wouldn’t “go there.” A good person would understand and feel compassion for the human being who hurt them. A good person wouldn’t say angry things, not even in their own head.

The problem is that this “good person” is absolutely the person who goes Towanda when they least expect it. Trying not to be reactive will only make you more reactive. I speak from much experience.

So what should you do if you want to grow and evolve, heal your body, prefer not to Towanda loved ones, and yet don’t want to store emotional experiences in your body?

Go there.

Get out a pen and paper, or your computer and say it all, on the page. Say the rude stuff. Say the angry stuff. Say the dark stuff. Don’t judge yourself. Allow yourself a chance to express. If you have a compassionate friend or coach who can let you do this verbally, listen with compassion, and not jump into the fray with you to escalate your reaction, then vent with them. Or, simply vent out loud in your own space.

Feel the emotions that want to be felt. Let them exist in your body as sensations. Hot, tingly, rising warm floods, buzzing, swirling thunderclouds; whatever they are, feel the sensations.

Don’t try to be evolved. Instead, evolve. Evolve through the process of feeling the physical emotional energy, expressing the mental language connected to the emotions, and then resting.

Rest into the space of an expressed, felt, and integrated emotion.

In that space, wisdom arises. It comes from the clarity of energy that has moved and is no longer keeping you stuck. It comes from the willingness to say what you need to say, and then be present with your body instead of spinning around and around in the story.

This is the important work you’ll do in the extremely humbling, honest experience of actually evolving. When you let yourself feel, express, and rest in the space from which wisdom arises, you do evolve. If you can let yourself actually feel and express the not-so-pretty stuff, you’ll find that wisdom, compassion and understanding naturally arise.

In fact, the more you practice the art of going there, the more you find that some things simply no longer bother you at all. You find that you do have a natural compassionate response more and more and more. You learn how to stay unattached to the sensations and thoughts of your emotions, but you flow with them. You allow them. You rest in the center, where the storm cannot sway you from deep peace, even as you feel the full rainbow of emotions given to us in this human experience.

P.S. Want to learn all about how to feel emotions in order to heal? Take the 2016 Mind-Body Coach Training! You’ll learn how to apply mind-body healing to yourself, and then you can even help others! The application process is open. Click here to learn more and apply!

A smart and hardworking client who is a full-time student and almost full-time employee shared this thought recently. A cause of her angst? She took a nap after getting more done in a morning than I do some weeks. It got me thinking about this particularly sneaky form of perfectionism and self-criticism. It’s a crazy-making Catch 22: I’m not doing enough, so I better do more, which still won’t be enough, so I can either continue doing more in an increasing frenzy or get stuck and avoid thinking, feeling, and acting because it all seems like just too much – at the same time it’s not enough. Just perfect. (Pardon the expression).

When I think I’m not doing enough, I often do less. When I believe I’m not doing enough volunteering/donating/ paperwork/exercising/de-cluttering/flossing/?, I can become immobilized or unmotivated. Or I do the opposite: way too much. I overhelp from an anxious, pleaser place, which doesn’t feel good. It’s also annoying to most and under-appreciated by the rest…of those whom I am trying to do more for.

Why do we do this? In my case, I think it goes back to basic human fears: I am not safe; I am not enough. The irony is that self-judgment and perfectionism create conditions for the perfect (!) storm of the fight/flight/freeze response. This creates feelings of being even less safe and less adequate. Closely related to its cousins, “I should be doing more,” “I should be doing it better,” and “I’m not doing it right,” it’s also a setup for distraction and procrastination. Nothing happens, except we get to beat ourselves up for not doing enough (or anything.) Those of us who experience mind/body pain, anxiety, emotional eating, and other symptoms courtesy of the stress trifecta also get an excuse to view our disconnection through the same self-critical lens, and the “beat” goes on.

How to free one’s self from this loop? Here’s the thought I am playing with: maybe it’s all true. Rationally, I know that sometimes what I’m doing is enough and I just need to hold that thought. It may also be true that sometimes doing more would be better, and I’m not doing as much as I could be doing and it’s still enough. It might be what my body, energy, time, and sanity have to give right now, so it’s actually perfect. And some days, doing more is taking a nap.

Wishing you sweet days and dreams,
Ann

Years ago I received this excellent advice from one of the wisest and most practical people I know. At the time I was attempting some version of trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, relying on my mechanical style statement of jamming the stubborn item (drawer, door, key, trunk lid, you name it) into its “proper” place.

His advice, that the most important information was 1)not that it didn’t fit, but 2)why and how it didn’t, and 3) how to make it work with ease, it was a lightbulb moment for me. It led to noticing what what was stuck – and to non-violent household solutions.

For awhile “Don’t Force It” was my DIY mantra. Eventually I realized its truth as a more global philosophy. Force leads to struggle, which leads to a fight/flight/flee stress response, which leads to a host of mind/body pain, from IC, back pain, and fibromyalgia, to weight gain, anxiety and beyond. When I started listening to my body, it all fell into place.“Don’t Force It” replaced my previous all-purpose motto, the old Nike slogan, “Just Do It.”

One of my “do’s” had been to drag myself to the running trail whether it sounded like fun or flogging. I eventually started to notice that when my body’s need was to heal, my muscles and joints weren’t happy, the endorphins didn’t kick in, and the experience was more ordeal than exercise. Coincidentally (or not), I started reading about the concept of over-training, which provided scientific evidence for what I was experiencing. The gods of “should,” OCD, and habit didn’t strike me down for taking a day or week off. My physical being thanked me with energy and lifted spirits. I began to focus on my body’s messages and expanded my awareness to other areas of my life.

Additionally, as I played with listening to my body, I realized that at times she wanted something (physical activity, completion of a task, protein) and had difficulty being heard because of whiny thoughts: “It’s too much work, I don’t feel like it, I deserve six cookies.” That’s when my logic mind and my meta-consciousness (Compassionate Witness, Wise Guide) entered my awareness as helpful detective and observer. They have also become guides to what my being really desires: whether it’s doing, not doing, doing something else, or choosing to do/not do it this time, or file the info for the future.

My To-Do or Not To-Do Steps:

1) Notice the physical sensations and emotions from a situation/decision, especially heavy or light

2) Notice thoughts attached to emotions/sensations, if thoughts arise

3) Ask yourself what message is being sent

4) Act accordingly

5) When values, uncertain boundaries, or practicalities lead to actions that don’t feel body-centered (i.e. attend the meeting, change the litter box, pay the bills) give self a hug for awareness and file as “good to know for the future/what did I learn from this?”

The Quick Version:

I encourage you to experiment with ways of hearing what your body is telling you. I’m still learning and I would love to hear your own listening techniques. There are multiple benefits and no down side to getting your body’s opinion – and letting go of unaware force.

May the Ease be with you!

Ann

Some people call this skill “acceptance.”  However, I’ve decided that word has too much of a charge for many people.  My clients often react to it with dread, because they misinterpret it to mean “resigning one’s self to this fate forevermore.”  Yuck.  That’s not what we’re doing here!  So, I’ve decided to call this skill “allowing.”

First, here’s a quick definition of allowing: letting this moment be exactly as it is.

Why is allowing such a powerful healing skill?  Get ready for a slight mind-bender here.  With a couple minutes of review and attention, I think you’ll see what I’m saying, but you might need to take those couple minutes to really play with this idea.

If, in this moment, you are experiencing something you dislike (such as pain, overweight, etc.), your natural tendency is probably to push against this unwanted thing and want it to go away.  You are likely doing this with all your might, in the back of your mind, all day long.  Take a moment right now to pay attention to this pushing against sensation.  Notice what it feels like mentally.  Notice what it feels like emotionally.  Notice what it feels like physically.  Meet me back here when you’re done noticing.

What did you feel?  My guess is you felt some kind of mental tension, stress, worry, or fix-it mode.  You probably felt some kind of emotional heaviness or stuck-ness consisting of hopelessness, fear, or anger (or a mix).  You might have felt physical tension and a bit of a fight or flight response.  All of these feelings lumped together becomes what we call “resistance.”  This is the feeling you get when you fight something that is currently present in your life.

When you drop the fight and start allowing, you release this resistance.  Your body relaxes.  Your mind is able to function creatively again.  Your emotions are able to flow freely and be released from your body.  In other words, you drop into healing/weight loss/love mode.  Your body is able to heal itself, your metabolism is able to function properly, and you are able to connect to your inner intuitive genius, which helps with every part of your life.

This is why allowing the pain, the extra weight, the body part you don’t like, or whatever it is you’re resisting right now is the most powerful skill you can learn.  Allowing doesn’t mean thinking that this thing you don’t want will be here forever.  It means dropping the fight and allowing it to be here right now.  Ready for the mind-bender?  As soon as you allow, you actually facilitate change.  When you resist, you create a pattern that repeats itself, meaning you’ll end up continuing to experience pain, overweight, etc.

By now, you’re probably wondering how to allow, seeing as it’s such a powerful skill.  Allowing is something that takes a little practice, because it’s not something you can do in three easy steps.  It’s more of a feeling, a visceral sense, and a dropping into a place you didn’t know you knew existed within yourself.  You’ll get it, I promise.  It just may take a few tries.

Here’s how I do it.  I ask myself the question, “Can I allow this right now?”  Then I say to myself, “I’d like to drop the fight.”  Then, I do nothing for a few moments and just wait.  There’s a feeling of release and relief in my mind, emotions, and body when the allowing kicks in, so I simply wait for that.  Sometimes it takes a few days.  Sometimes it only takes a few minutes.

Remember that you have NOTHING to lose.  In this moment, if you are in pain, you are already in pain.  Fighting it is utterly useless.  Why not just allow it?  If you are overweight in this moment, you are overweight.  There’s no changing it this instant.  So why not allow it?  Why not allow yourself to have those thighs, that butt, that job, or whatever else it might be?  Stop fighting and you’ll find the secret to releasing stress. You’ll find that it allows love to sneak back into your life.  You have everything to gain by playing with this powerful healing skill.

For the past five weeks, my family and I had a surprise Guest stay with us.   Guest arrived without warning and with no communication when Guest would depart.  Why had Guest decided to visit at this time and what was Guest trying to teach us?

Our questions were left unanswered until around day 21 of Guest’s visit I went for a run and the answer came to the surface.  Guest would stay as long as necessary and not a moment longer.

What the heck did that mean?

I dug deeper into the question.  I asked Guest, “Why would you stay for so long when we are really not very fond of you?  And to top it off we didn’t invite you.”

To which Guest replied, “Oh, but you DID invite me.  You ALL invited me, welcomed me into your bodies, each one of you.”

Allow me to blow Guest’s cover.

Guest started as a little cough and sore throat for a few days then progressed into a chest-rattling, gunk-producing, smoker-hack-sounding cough and none of us ever smoked.  I don’t recall in my life ever having such a cough.  No fever, no aches, no chills.  This Guest set up residence in each one of our lungs and got comfortable.

After using some mind-body tools, I discovered Guest’s purpose was to clean out years of toxins built up in the lungs.  I recently wrote another post about my son Ian, Ian’s Message About Toxins, where I began to put it all together.  He is my nine-year-old son with autism and one of my greatest teachers.

For the past six weeks, I’ve done a TON of work to clean out the toxic thoughts in my mind; clearing out painful, stressful thoughts using The Work by Byron Katie and Abigail’s mind-body tools.

What I’ve learned through my training as a mind-body coach and working with clients struggling with physical pain is that when you shift your mind, the body follows.  Sometimes that means there is quite a mess and that is just as much a part of the process of healing as any other part.  In my case, a four-week Guest setting up camp in my lungs.

Here are two additional golden nuggets.  Your thoughts create your reality meaning your view of life all begins with thought and according to quantum physics and string theory we are all connected on an energetic level.  Check out physicist Brian Greene’s TedTalk from 2005 on string theory.

So, it made perfect sense to me that as I cleaned out a Mack-truck load of toxic thoughts, my body would follow and rid itself of toxins as well as my family to whom I’m deeply connected.

I put out the welcome mat.

For my final week of “clearing”, rather than curse Guest I welcomed Guest with open arms and accepted the gift that my body invited.  My oldest son welcomed Guest two weeks after me so he continues to rattle and cough but I find it so fascinating that he’s not unhappy about it.  When he has trouble breathing, we do a breathing treatment and then he’s back to being happy.  He lives in the present moment, unencumbered by stressful thoughts about the past or the future.  And as I let go of the painful thoughts and release them from my body something amazing happens.  Not only does MY body heal but HIS body heals.  His healing has actually accelerated over the past year.

I share this story with you to invite you to consider the power of your thoughts and how they are connected to the health and healing of your body and even possibly your loved ones near you.  The power of thought continues to amaze and awe me.

I leave you with this thought.  At the core of every human being is love.  Some of us just have thicker layers of painful, stressful thoughts shrouding the view.  Let love and acceptance blow the view wide open.

Intuition is most definitely not a bogus, woo-woo concept. If you’ve ever read The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker, you know just how powerful our intuition really is. If you haven’t read his book, put it on this year’s must-read list. It will improve your sense of confidence and well-being, and keep you safer.

When we try to logic through everything without our intuitive genius, life is much harder. This is because our intuitive genius is always collecting and gathering personalized, useful information and trying to share it with us. Unfortunately, because we sometimes discount this due to its communication process, we miss out on incredibly important information about our lives.

Intuition speaks to us through physical sensation and emotional experience. This is why mind-body work brings us much closer to our own intuition. The more connected you are to your emotions and body, the easier it is to hear the messages delivered from your intuitive genius.

You’ve probably had plenty of experiences where you realized, after the fact, that your gut feeling was accurate. You’ve probably kicked yourself for not listening to it. Now, it’s time to purposefully ask your gut feelings, day in and day out, what they’re trying to tell you. The amazing thing about intuition is that all it requires is your curiosity. You don’t have to know how to access intuitive information. Once you start asking your intuition for information, the intuitive answers just start showing up. It may take some time, but stick with it.

Practice with anything; your health, your finances, your relationships, your job…or, if those things feel too big, start small. Ask your intuition to help you pick out the tastiest apple at the grocery store. Ask it to help you choose the shortest route to your destination. Play with it. Think of it as a wise little person, sitting inside you, and actually have conversations with it.

Pretty soon, you’ll learn to speak its language, which will include body sensations, random ideas, and a sense of just knowing what to do. Eventually, you’ll find yourself hearing and trusting all kinds of little tidbits. You’ll be more efficient, everything will start going your way, and you’ll find most things are suddenly surprisingly easy.

It’s time to be as smart as you really are. Mind plus intuition equals true genius.

Though, to be clear, I’m not talking about “curing” whatever ails you through physical means only.  Not at all!  I’m talking about a well-rounded approach to wellness that takes into account every aspect of who you are.

I’ve just started another round of Mind-Body Coach Training, so I’m teaching a new group of coaches how to use mind-body tools with clients.  In their very first class, I told them what we are trying to help our clients do is return to their bodies.  That’s the basic definition, in my opinion, of “mind-body connection” – being aware and conscious of what is going on in one’s body.

I spent years not paying attention to my body’s signals.  I ignored discomfort, pushed through exhaustion, didn’t eat when I was hungry, over-ate when I wasn’t hungry, stayed awake when I was tired, didn’t rest, over-exercised, and never checked in with my body at all.  I had no idea I was holding pelvic floor tension or abdominal tension or lower back tension until screaming pain woke me up to what was happening in my body.

I was what we call dissociated from my body.  I had learned how to take my conscious awareness away from my body the minute stress arose, as a quick escape.  Unconsciously, I overused this dissociation technique.  It’s a healthy technique that serves us well in moments of severe stress or trauma, but it’s not a healthy daily practice.

Your body needs your conscious awareness like a plant needs water.  Without it, it begins to wither.  Your body is constantly giving you important feedback about yourself.  It’s saying, “I’m hungry, tired, thirsty, sleepy, worn out, exhausted, energized, over-caffeinated, under-fed, over-fed…etc.”  It’s also telling you more subtle things, like, “You’re holding onto emotional energy here in this hamstring…”  It’s even telling you what to do with your life.  “Hey, you up there.  I’d love to change careers!”  Those are just examples, but they represent different types of information your body is trying to share with you, all day, every day.  Important information that will help you live a healthy, enjoyable life.

All you have to do is listen.

There’s only one catch.  To listen, you’re going to have to spend most of your time mentally aware of your body.  And when you do that, you might discover some discomfort.  Maybe there’s a tight muscle.  Some nausea.  Emotional discomfort.  Welcome home!  That’s what our bodies are holding onto while we’re up in our minds, busily planning, organizing, worrying, analyzing, and generally ignoring our poor bodies.

Discomfort is not a bad thing.  Yes, I realize it is uncomfortable.  But, if you set your hand on a hot stove, would you rather be notified, so you can remove it, or suffer permanent skin damage?  Most of us would like to know that we need to move our hand!  Pain is just a messenger, telling us that something needs attention.  So is tension.  So is emotional discomfort.

Discomfort is a messenger, and if you embrace it, you will no longer need the loud shouts of pain to get your attention.  It may take some time to develop (or re-develop) the skill of listening to what your body has to say and interpreting it/translating it into everyday life action/nonaction, but it is time well spent.

Here’s how you can get started:

Get a watch with a timer, use a phone app, or purchase a Motivaider.

Set your device to alert you once an hour, 3 times a day, or whatever frequency you choose.

Every time it alerts you, stop what you’re doing for a second.  Take a breath.  Notice your body.  See if you can feel your feet, the palms of your hands, your belly button.  Look at your nose.  (Not in a mirror – look at the tip of it.  This is a quick way to become aware of your body.)  Do a quick body scan and see if there is tension anywhere, or any other discomfort.  Move your body a little bit.  If you feel pain, just notice that it’s there, but notice the rest of your body, too.

After several weeks of this, you’ll start to intuit what your body wants, needs, or is telling you throughout the day.  You don’t have to actively try to change anything, like try to get rid of pain or tension.  By just becoming aware of what’s going on in your body, you’ll develop the ability to hear what it’s saying, over time.   You are cultivating a whole new relationship with your body, so that you can stop warring.  No more arguing with it over weight loss, pain relief, or other such issues.  Instead, the two of you will be communicating as mother nature intended – regularly and amicably.

So it makes sense that when you decide to heal yourself using mind-body tools, you apply the same approach.  I sure did.  I gave myself rules.  I created unrealistic structure.  I worked hard.

The paradox here is that working hard on mind-body tools doesn’t work. Why not?  Because mind-body tools are all about listening to your body’s wisdom, calming your nervous system, and unraveling tension in your mind and body.  Naturally, it’s difficult to do those things if you are creating more tension with a “work hard” attitude.

It’s one of the most trusted and cherished beliefs in our culture – hard work will get you where you want to go.  It’s oddly reassuring.  Which is why many people get confused or stuck in mental circles when they start working hard, efforting, and trying with mind-body healing.  It’s kind of scary to let go of that old favorite, the hard work mindset.  It means relying on something else – something that feels an awful lot like not controlling the situation.  Eeeek!

The good news is that if you can learn how to release hard work, effort, and trying with the mind-body tools, you will have learned a new skill that extrapolates into the rest of your life. You’ll discover that you can actually work easy, drop effort, and stop trying.  When you do that in other areas of your life besides just healing, you’ll hold the secret to health in your hands.  Your body will be perpetually delighted.

Are you scratching your head right now, asking yourself, “Is she saying what I think she’s saying?”  Yes!  I am saying that all the things you want, be they health, wealth, fitness, relationships, etc., will come to you more easily if you stop working hard, efforting, and trying.

Before you dismiss this crazy notion, use the old scientific process and evaluate it in your own life.  Keep a little observation journal for a month and actually track your efforting/non-efforting and the results you get.  I have a feeling you’ll be amazed.

However, shifting away from efforting can be one of the trickiest things you’ve ever done.  I’ve been learning how to stop efforting for years, and each time I get a little clearer about it, I find a new level of relaxation in my body, mind, and spirit.  And – stuff happens without me trying at all.  It’s truly amazing!  But the old habit can creep back in at a moment’s notice, so I have to be aware of my body.  It tells me immediately with tension and discomfort any time I slip into hard work, effort, or trying.

How exactly does one stop hard work or effort or trying? Well, not by trying!  (Yes, it is a mind-bender!)  Here’s the easiest method:

Abigail’s Non-Effort Recipe

Set aside ten minutes in your daily schedule.  Get in a comfortable position, with whatever setting you enjoy.  I personally love a cozy blanket, soothing music, and an eye pillow.  Sometimes I also use aromatherapy.  The point is to feel deliciously comfy and cozy.  Focus your attention on your low belly, and invite your breath to fill this area of your body.  Don’t pooch out your stomach and force the air there – just allow it to flow in and out.  If it doesn’t go into your low belly, don’t worry.  Just breathe.  You can spend the entire time paying relaxed attention to the breath, or you can also lightly scan your body and notice how it feels.  No effort.  No goal.  Nothing.  If your mind starts to head off into worry, just notice that it’s doing so.  Notice your breath and body again.  Don’t try to change anything.  Literally do nothing.

Though this is the easiest method, you may find yourself slipping a little of the old hard work, efforting, and trying into it.  Any time you notice stress around your non-efforting practice, you can be sure one of those three elements is present.  This exercise does not have to be done right, perfectly, or with any sort of elbow grease.  It’s simply about practicing non-effort.

After doing this for several days, you will begin to notice changes.  You’ll most likely notice a bit of relaxation in your body.  You’ll probably find your mind seems less worried.  You’ll notice cravings for less-than-helpful habits dissipating.

Eventually, you might want to keep a notebook handy for post-un-efforting.  Why?  Because you’ll probably discover that your mind has solved problems, created things, and otherwise effortlessly organized parts of your life that needed attention.  This is where non-efforting begins to truly show its power.

For example, I have a weekly schedule in which I write blog posts on Tuesdays and publish them on Thursdays.  If I have been non-efforting, when I sit down to write on Tuesdays, it is possibly the easiest thing I’ve ever done.  This is because the blog post has already been written during my non-efforting minutes in days prior, and I have already jotted down the outline on a post-it.  Because I have given it no effort and no thought, have not worried for one minute, and am quite sure it will be fine, when I sit down to write, everything that came to me during my non-efforting session reappears in my mind.  In about fifteen minutes, my fingers have typed the post, effortlessly.

I love this so much that I am applying it everywhere.  If I haven’t yet had a creative idea for a project through a non-efforting session, I don’t force the issue.  Instead, I do some non-efforting.  (There are definitely times where the old work hard habit sneaks in, and every time, I end up with physical tension, less satisfaction in my work, and irritability.)  I’m not trying to be perfect in my not trying, but I am enjoying applying this concept to different areas of my life.  The difference between this and the old force-it method is truly astonishing.

Whether you are wanting to heal your body through mind-body techniques, lose weight, create more ease in your work life, I’m telling you…you’ve gotta try not-trying.  Or maybe I should say, not-try not-trying.

What comes to mind when you think about emotional suppression?

Being a mind body coach trained by our very own Abigail Steidley and a long-time master at emotional suppression*, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about, discussing and experiencing emotional suppression. But I didn’t realize until today that when I think about emotional suppression, I only think about suppressing the…shall we say, slightly less comfortable emotions…

I’m guessing you know exactly what I mean by slightly less comfortable emotions, but just in case you need to be hit on the head (gently, of course, with a silk pillow or an oh so soft stuffed pig named Twinkletoes), here’s what I mean:

Slightly less comfortable emotions = anger, sadness, rage, frustration, shame, irritability, fear, boredom, anxiety, desperation, loneliness, fill in your favorite here ___________

While you may derive a sort of dark pleasure from referring to these emotions as crappy, yucky, sucky, or anything your creative self wants to dream up, they in fact, like all emotions, are energy in the body and are inherently neither positive nor negative. However, the story we tell about our emotions and the way that we express them will create experiences that may feel pleasurable, highly unpleasant, and anything in between.

Most of us come to mind body healing not purely for the joy of feeling emotions that we may have worked hard (albeit subconsciously) to suppress since Lincoln was in office, but rather to find relief from our pain. We embark on this journey with the hope that if we do this challenging, unappealing (at least at first), often unfamiliar work, we’ll get a result we dearly want.

If we stay with the work—which may involve stopping and starting, moving forward and backward, and innumerable retreats into the comfort of our familiar patterns and habits—we eventually find what we’ve really been looking for all along. We find ourselves.

If you’d told me a few years ago—heck, maybe even a few months ago—that taking this path would lead me to more of the self I already was, I might have run screaming in the other direction. I didn’t want to be more of myself unless it involved being a happier, fitter, more together, cellulite free, incredibly stylish, and professionally successful version of me (just for starters).

But along the way something started to change. I’m still undergoing this process, but I’m at the point where more of me doesn’t sound like such a bad idea anymore, and I can definitely see how more of you would definitely be a welcome addition to this world. I used to hate it when other people wrote things like that. How could they know that I had a light inside me if I sure as heck couldn’t see it? They didn’t know me. And I may or may not have met you. But I do know that everyone, including you, whether you believe me or not, is welcome and wanted in this world. And I’m talking about the you that you are today—high energy or low energy, natural weight or more or less, disconnected or connected—you name it.

So what does this have to do with emotional suppression?

As my coach friend lovingly helped me to realize yesterday, when we suppress, it’s not only the so-called negative emotions that we’re suppressing. We suppress the whole kit and caboodle, including laughter, playfulness, joy, power and more. Our emotions come as a package deal.

And when we suppress emotion, we’re containing the expression of ourselves: our innate wisdom, energy, vitality, the expression of our individual uniqueness and brilliance and so much more. Whether we know it consciously or not, there is something within all of us that’s yearning to be expressed. As we learn to allow our emotions to move through us in the moment, we learn to experience and express the grace of who we are.

Suppression is most definitely not “bad”—we learn to contain our emotions as a creative response to what’s happening in our environment. And unlearning suppression, if we choose to do so, takes time and commitment. But if you ever need some extra motivation or inspiration when you’re feeling discouraged, remember that when you’re ready, in your time, the universe is waiting with open arms for more you.

* Here’s the short story of emotional suppression in case you’re new to mind body healing…because you’re human (at least I’m assuming you are if you’re reading this), you feel. It just happens, the way rain falls and the wind blows. But sometimes for a wide variety of reasons, we learn that some, or even most, emotions are not okay to feel. So we work very hard to keep from feeling these emotions—or even knowing that we have them at all—by tensing our muscles and creating distractions in our minds and in our lives. This is the short story of emotional suppression—if you’d like to learn more, you’ll find lots of great tools and resources on Abigail’s blog.