Why practice at all?

Because it’s so much fun and so amazing to hear your intuitive inner wisdom. And it’s even more fun to hear it loud and clear. The more you practice (playfully!), the louder your intuitive voice speaks to you. It makes daily decisions much simpler and the path to your right life much more efficient. Whether you want to re-align with your body and feel healthy and comfortable in your own skin or you long to have a successful and fulfilling coaching practice, your intuitive voice is the ultimate guide. Your soul steers you perfectly. All you have to do is tune in!

On my birthday in December, 2010, I did a meditation and tuned in to my soul. It told me it was time to start down the path to motherhood. Prior to that, I wasn’t sure whether or not I wanted to be a mom. After that, I knew I was meant to be one. A little soul wanted to come hang out with my husband and me. Even though it sounded terrifying and exciting and life-changing and mind-blowing all at once, I knew it was the right next step.

Now I’m going to write something I had no idea I’d write today. I’m going to tell you the whole story that led up to this moment, today, where I’m having fun announcing if baby is a boy or girl. (I’ll tell you, I promise!)

When I miscarried last year, it was too early to know whether or not we were having a boy or a girl. However, from going through the experience, I felt that it was twins, and my doctor thought that was probably the case. I knew it was a boy and a girl. After the miscarriage, whenever I meditated and tuned in to my soul, I felt like I was also in touch with the little girl’s soul. She began to send me loving messages every time I connected to my own soul.

She told me that she wanted to be with me, to be my child, but that the first attempt wasn’t quite right – there were reasons we had to wait and start over again. Some were physical, some were spiritual, and some were emotional – I had things I needed to work through. She told me I would grow and learn and be ready soon. She said she and her brother were just fine, even though they didn’t finish their journey to be here in little baby bodies. I could feel the truth of this. Even as I grieved, even as I felt the loss of what was to be, I could feel that they were truly okay.

The baby girl soul told me she was coming back. She’d even already told us what her name was, but asked us to keep it to ourselves until she was born.

After this, I felt really excited to get pregnant again. Yet, my soul kept telling me to wait. I had healing to do, on every single level possible. So, though I was impatient and sometimes argumentative, I listened to that intuitive voice and waited.

I’m not really good at waiting. It was hard. Then, one night I had a dream. In the dream, I was far along in a pregnancy, and really happy. The dream was so vivid that it stuck with me for days. You see, in the past, I’d had a recurring dream that I was pregnant. In that recurring dream, I’d be very excited, but then I’d go stand in front of the mirror only to discover that I didn’t look pregnant anymore, and there was no baby. Three days before my miscarriage, I was standing in front of the mirror in my bathroom, and I noticed something looked different, as though I wasn’t pregnant anymore. It was the moment from the dream, happening in real life. (I’ve always had eerily accurate dreams like this, about myself and other people.)

To finally dream about being happily pregnant, for the first time in my life, felt like a deeply joyous message. I took it as a good sign. I thanked my soul.

Then, finally, the waiting was over. It was time to embark on the journey again. Exactly one year after my birthday meditation, I got the news – I was pregnant. It was the perfect birthday present.

Over the next two months, I had six dreams. In the first five, I was holding a little baby girl. I could see every feature of her face. In the dreams, I kissed her face and told her how adorable she was. I nursed her and snuggled with her. It was as though she was already here, in my arms. In the sixth dream, she was a little girl, laughing and playing. She seemed so absolutely real that I could hardly imagine anyone else but her inside my womb.

So I have to say, when the doctor looked at the ultrasound screen, smiled and said, “It’s a girl!” I wasn’t exactly surprised. Filled with joy? Yes. Deliriously happy? Yes. Filled with love? Yes.

I can’t wait to hold you in my arms, little baby girl!

Last year, I thought I would be pregnant and then give birth to a baby.

Instead, I miscarried. Then I ended up being pregnant with my life’s work and giving birth to that instead.

Of course I mourned the loss of my baby. I grieved. I healed. But I’ve also had enough experience with my mind-body-soul connection to know that there was infinite wisdom in the experience, somewhere. I would just have to wait to see it.

Sure enough, I can see it now.

I needed to spend time writing and creating this new material. It brought me clarity. It connected me more deeply to my life’s mission: To facilitate the mind-body connection for anyone who needs it. To teach other coaches how to do the same. To help those who are suffering return to their inner wisdom, gain strength and confidence, and trust their own soul once again.

To do all that, I needed to connect with my own soul on a whole new level. Losing the baby and reassessing my whole life made me do that. It was the path I needed to take this past year.

Many years ago, a similar thing happened. I suffered mightily at the hands of chronic pain and mental panic. I went through hell. At that time, I didn’t trust my soul. I didn’t think it was happening to help me grow as a person. I just thought I was being tortured.

And yet…that experience forced me to take charge of my inner life. It forced me to stop playing the victim role and to dig deep into my own power. It forced me to learn how to heal myself, and to learn that was even possible. It forced me to look at where I was unwittingly creating stress in my body and imbalance in my psyche.

In the end, I became a totally new me. I became the real me, the Abigail who lets her soul sing, every day. Who no longer hides, hates her body, or uses achievement as her only way to self-worth. I became intimately aware and connected with my own soul, my spiritual beliefs, and the energy that keeps me alive, every day. I became a person who listens to her body, lets her emotions flow, and doesn’t criticize herself constantly.

I didn’t become perfect. I learned how to forgive myself for not being perfect, and how to know that I’m already perfect, just as I am.

I also found my life’s work, my passion, my calling – whatever you want to call it.

All that from suffering and pain.

Of course, I’d love to learn my big life lessons from joy instead of pain. And I actually think that’s possible, now. But I do know myself, and I know my stubborn streak. I needed a good whap upside the head to awaken to my true life path.

In just a couple weeks, anamsong will be officially born. I’ll be the proud mother of a baby I really do love, even if she’s not the one I thought I’d be holding in my arms. So maybe this post is my birth announcement. I’m so deliriously in love with everything that’s associated with anamsong. I love the Irish word “anam” in the name. I love that I’m finally finding a way to incorporate all of me into what I do – my musician self, my coach self, my writer self, and my teacher self. I love that I’ll be able to clearly serve three different groups of people: people in physical pain, people fighting mental stress, and coaches looking to grow amazing businesses.

You know what?

In a lot of ways, this birth announcement is really the rebirth of me. I feel whole and complete. I feel good in my own skin. I like who I am. I love who I am. I love what I do. Finally, all of me gets to come out and play.

When we fall off the shelf and shatter to pieces, we aren’t broken. Instead, we discover the amazing work of art that was inside all along.

I’ve fallen and shattered many times. I’ll probably do it again. But I’ll be reborn, just that much more whole, each time.

Let’s have a party to celebrate rebirth. I’m creating a new Facebook page for anamsong, and when it’s ready, I’ll let you know. You’re invited to come celebrate launch week there, with me. I don’t know what we’ll do at the party yet, but it will be virtual, fun, and whatever we want it to be. Share your party ideas with me! I might be sweaty, exhausted, and a proud new mama, but I’ll be ready to celebrate.

During this time, I went through an emergency surgery for kidney stones. The stones started to pass (agonizing!) but got lodged outside my bladder. This created a kidney infection and was heading toward sepsis. In a morphine haze, I was rolled into the operating room.

When I woke up from the surgery, I was in even more agony than usual. At that point and time, I didn’t know my body at all. I didn’t understand that I held constant tension in my pelvic floor muscles, causing them to be weak and somewhat out of my control. I really had to pee, but try as I might, I couldn’t relax my muscles enough to go. It was a strange and terrifying experience to have the absolute inability to relax those muscles. After several hours, I begged the nurses to give me a catheter. They looked askance at me, but finally heeded my request. (Of course everything took forever, as things do in hospitals.)

When they at last inserted the catheter, they gave me horrified looks and immediately called the doctor. My bladder had been so full that I was again in danger of severe kidney issues. Luckily, we had caught it just in time, and the antibiotics kept infection at bay. I did have to undergo two more surgeries, however, because of the complications. In the end, it took me six months to regain the ability to completely empty my bladder (with the help of self-inserted catheters – gack).

Meanwhile, I still had interstitial cystitis and vulvodynia.

Had somebody told me at the time that I couldn’t relax my pelvic floor because I continually stored emotion there and was basically walking around in full Kegel contraction all the time, I would have thought them crazy. Yet, that was exactly what was happening. Once I finally understood that the pain in my body was a result of not feeling emotions and not understanding my mind-body connection, I was able to learn how to relax my pelvic floor muscles. Over time, I was able to let go of the tension and return to health. No vulvodynia, no interstitial cystitis. I’d have the occasional symptom, but I knew it just meant I’d fallen back into old habits and needed a refresh. Every time, it only took a few days to find relief again.

This March, when I miscarried, I was able to take my mind-body techniques and knowledge and apply it yet again. The actual miscarriage was very painful, and, of course, involved the pelvic region. I had some moments of fear that it would make all the old pain rush back. So I kept using the mind-body skills I’ve learned. Three days passed and my body was still having strong, painful contractions. My body told me I needed help. When I finally got to the doctor’s office (because don’t all things like this happen in the night, over the weekend?), I learned that I’d need a D&C to help my body finish the process.

As I was rolled into the operating room, I flashed back to the last time I’d been in one – the good old kidney experience. I remembered the horror, the confusion, and the agony. I breathed, reviewed my mind-body skills, and went under.

When I awoke, all was well. My bladder functioned fine. My muscles, despite all those days of contractions, were fine and able to relax. The vulvodynia and interstitial cystitis didn’t come roaring back. I remained confident in my self-healing abilities, handling the doubts, fears, and flashbacks from the past.

Though the miscarriage and the operation were difficult emotionally, and I was grieving, I still felt supremely grateful for my mind-body healing tools. They got put to the test in a big way. They worked. It was all a huge confirmation that my pelvic floor (which was formerly diagnosed with pelvic floor dysfunction) is doing just fine now, and I’m no longer at war with my body.

I know how to handle my emotions now. I know how to listen to my body. I know how to follow my inner wisdom. I’m healthy. My body can go through something physically traumatic and recover quickly. And I know that the mind-body tools (which I use all the time) are always there for me. It’s a good feeling. My life, right now, is so incredibly good that words don’t do it justice. I love myself. I love my body. My body and I work together through experiences like miscarriage and surgery, and hopefully, someday, childbirth. I feel like we’re really intimate friends who can talk about anything to each other.

It took me a while to process through all the emotions from this experience to be able to write about it. I had a lot of grief to go through, first. All the while, though, I was planning to eventually tell you this story, because it really illustrates the power of mind-body healing. I hope that it gives you hope, whether you’re wanting pain relief, weight loss, or just a better relationship with your body. In the end, developing mind-body skills will serve you well on all fronts. And thus ends my ode to mind-body healing, at least for now.

This post is dedicated to Kathleen Barratt, who taught me how to breathe.

What a pain!

Wouldn’t it be nice to block out ten minutes on the calendar for “Have a Good Cry/Beat on a Few Pillows” and have emotions fit perfectly into your day? Many of my clients have remarked that they long for this. Me too.

Well, here’s how much luck I’ve had scheduling my emotions during the grieving process: 0%.

I’m kind of a grief newbie, because I’ve only been through it once before, when I was twelve. My aunt passed away, and I had no clue how to grieve. Being me, I just went ahead and stuffed all of that grief down and charged forward with my life.

No, that didn’t really work.

So, in the last seven months since my miscarriage, I’ve been learning how to grieve. This week, I find that it’s hard. Yesterday was the baby’s due date. I keep thinking about what it would have been like to be giving birth, to be experiencing that major life change, to be holding my child. It’s unimaginable. Somehow, even after seven months, my mind cannot believe it’s not happening. And, at the same time, my mind cannot believe I was really pregnant.

My mind is very confused about this whole grief experience. It can’t understand it. I felt so different during the weeks I was pregnant, and then WHAM, I was back to feeling just like me again. My body was no longer taken over by strange symptoms and sudden changes. There was no baby to nurse, no end product of what was started. My mind doesn’t know what to do with that.

As a result, it does things like criticize me to death. Here’s the short list:

You should be done grieving by now.

It was just a miscarriage – other people have had much worse losses.

People will think you’re weak for still being sad/mad/whatever.

Maybe you’re not really supposed to be a mom, anyway.

Yeeek. As you can see, my mind is not helping with the grieving process. I have to rely on my emotions, instead. They help me stay healthy on all levels. So, I’ve turned everything over to them and am letting them lead me. As a result, my schedule sometimes (admittedly, thankfully, not EVERY day) looks like this:

9:00 am – Coach Client

10:00 am – Have crying attack

10:15 am – Write blog post

11:00 am – Have angry pillow-punching attack

11:10 am – Put on makeup and fix hair

Noon – Eat lunch

12:30 pm – Teach class

2:00 pm – Feel depressed. Mope around.

2:15 pm – Realize I’m pretending not to be sad. Cry.

2:35 pm – Feel sudden rush of love and joy

3:00 pm – Coach Client

Etc.

What I’ve noticed is, if I let my emotions happen, I can work around them. I can be okay with my clients because I’m having crying attacks randomly during the day. I can write a coherent blog post because I let the anger come out when it needed to.

The result of this practice? My mind pretty much throws up its hands and gives up. It quiets down and leaves me in peace.  I feel. I heal. I repeat that process.

So maybe we can’t schedule our emotions. But that doesn’t mean we can’t feel them. In fact, my hunch is that things are designed pretty darn well, after all. These emotions – they’re meant to help us stay connected to our inner wisdom. We need them. Feeling them helps us stay sane, physically healthy, and even emotionally peaceful. I notice that when I feel them, they pass quickly and I spend more time feeling calm and peaceful. It’s only ignoring them that creates buildup, stress, tension, and anxiety.

Whether it’s a quick break in the public restroom at work or a few moments in the car, time can be found to feel emotions. Even if you’re not grieving, it’s every bit as important, especially if you want your body to be healthy and pain-free. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to feel.

I got out my trusty mind-body journal (which is just a spiral bound notebook where I use all my own tools on myself). I went outside to sit quietly and be with myself. In Wyoming, that means sitting in a clump of sagebrush. I picked a spot with a great view of a beautiful valley, breathed in the scent of sage, and got quiet. I asked my soul to help me understand what is going on in my life right now.

Soon after I asked, I heard my soul’s answer. It said, “You’re in the In-Between.”

The In-Between is a place the mind doesn’t fully grasp. The In-Between requires the wisdom of the body and emotions and soul. Otherwise, the mind just gets confused.

My soul helped me to understand the In-Between. As I sat, I saw images of my life this year like pictures on a movie screen.

Getting pregnant for the first time in my life

Celebrating the pregnancy with my husband

Working on my coaching business

Having a miscarriage

Grieving with my husband

Grieving, in general

Discovering new things about myself

Finding out I wasn’t saying everything I wanted to say – to readers, to clients

Getting new ideas for my business

Being in the process of starting new projects

Considering getting pregnant again

Waiting for my body to feel like getting pregnant again

Waiting for my soul to feel like getting pregnant again

Being in the process of renovating and redecorating my house

Being in the process of creating a new website and new material

Doing new work, with new people

Not having the end vision yet, for anything

Right now, everything is started. Nothing is done. I don’t have a full vision of what everything will look like. I’m not totally sure what I want, yet. I’m exploring. I’m not deciding. I’m looking at all the different flavors. I’m tasting them. I’m not sure yet which ones I’ll choose.

My soul explained that the In-Between is necessary. It is, in fact, more important than the Not In-Between. Nothing, and I mean nothing, can happen without the In-Between. Nothing can be born without the space from which to be born. Healing happens in the In-Between. The In-Between is about discovery. It’s the thing that happens before gestation. Even before a seed is planted.

In music, there’s a thing called a rest. It’s a notation on the music score that tells you to not make any sound for a certain number of beats. Most beginning musicians ignore the rests. Their eyes skip over them and see the next music note on the page. As a teacher, I used to have to explain, over and over again, that the rest was just as important as the note. That it was more important, because if you played in the rest, the music no longer worked. Playing in one rest could mess up an entire symphony. It could cause cacophony and dissonance. It could bring the entire orchestra to a grinding halt. Now I’m explaining to myself that the rest is just as important as the note.

The In-Between is a rest between two notes. It’s the murky, not-clearly-defined place between imagining and creating. I am imagining a lot right now. I imagine different colors of home décor in different rooms in my house. I imagine giving birth in different months of the year. I imagine different images on my website.

I don’t decide. Yet.  I don’t start.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll know more. In fact, this week I did choose some colors for the living room. They feel right. But the living room is still in process.

I pick one little thing at a time. I imagine some more. I listen to my body.

And, I grieve. Still.

In my opinion, we think the grieving process is a lot shorter than it really is. At first, grief is like a flood. It consumes everything we do. Later in the process, it becomes like summer thunderstorms. It arrives suddenly and passes quickly, several times a week.

I’m learning to let grief be a part of my life. I’m learning that it’s okay to be in the middle, half this and half that, undecided, in and out – In-Between.  The In-Between allows me time to process and assimilate the changes necessary right now to make my life an authentic representation of me.

My living room wasn’t quite me

My business wasn’t quite me

My website wasn’t quite me

I wasn’t quite me in my relationships

I wasn’t quite me in many ways.

I need a solid foundation of authenticity in my life before I race forward into What’s Next. I’m building it. I’m course-correcting where I need to – where I got off track due to not listening to my soul. Where I forgot to check in to see who I am, right NOW.

Course-correcting is just part of living. Sometimes I make little course corrections in a day, an hour, a minute. Other times I make a giant course correction that includes every aspect of my life.

The last time I made a giant course correction was when I stepped onto the mind-body path and decided to learn how to heal my body by bringing my mind, body, emotions, and soul into harmony. It was a major life change. It led to me being more authentic, to following my true dreams, to becoming a coach, and to giving myself permission to be me.

Then, I grew. I changed. I learned. It is time to catch up with myself again, and to really look closely at everything in my life.  Last summer, I had a garage sale. I spent two weeks picking up objects and saying – does this fit into my life? Is this really me?

That process is still going on, in every aspect of my life. I’m in the In-Between.

It’s a place of discomfort, for me, and at the same time, I think I’m starting to get the hang of it. I love where everything is going. I love how much more me I’m being. I love all the new in my life. And at the same time, I grieve what I’m releasing. I let myself feel sad when the living room couch leaves. I let it go. I let myself love the new chairs that took its place.

Now I see that thanks to the In-Between, I’ll know the right moment to start anew with the motherhood project. I’ll know what feels right to put on my website. I’ll know what feels right to create for my clients. I’ll know what feels right to add to my home.

I asked my soul how long the In-Between would last. It just smiled.

There was just one, tiny problem.

I wasn’t listening to my soul. Oops. I am really, really good at suppressing my true feelings and not listening to my inner-most guidance. This is why I focus on the practice of trusting and following my own inner wisdom so much. I can so easily forget this and barrel forward, ignoring important signals from inside myself.

I’ve been down this road before, of course. Many years ago, my body had to wake me up to this pattern of ignoring myself by literally immobilizing me with physical pain. I grudgingly began to listen to its messages and actually tune in to myself. Searing pain in one’s privates is most definitely motivational. Once I realized what my body was trying to get me to do, I started down the arduous and yet incredibly rewarding path of learning to like and love both myself and my body.

Yet, like any relationship, my relationship with my body and self is always evolving. Just when I think I’m pretty darn tuned in, I find a whole new layer of awareness I had no idea was there. To be honest, I think this actually delights me. How endlessly fascinating it is to never be done discovering new truths, depths, and information about one’s self! It’s not always comfortable. It’s not always a walk in the park. However, the rewards of going deeper, being willing to surrender to new levels of personal truth, and being ridiculously honest with yourself are absolutely worth it.

As usual, my body helped me out last year. It took on the miraculous and amazing project of nurturing a child inside it. As soon as I became pregnant, I became a mother. Wild hormones raced through my body, and I felt the urge to act like a grizzly bear with her cub, even though said cub was not even born yet. One day I took my niece to a movie and nearly murdered a woman who spoke rudely to her.  Quite suddenly, a new me was born. Mother Bear was awakened.

When I miscarried, the mother inside me did not go away. She remained. And something really spectacular took place. She nurtured me. She taught me even more about being compassionate with myself, setting boundaries, saying no, and treating myself with the same kind of honest, powerful mother-bear energy I would use for my child.

I got really honest with myself. I changed everything that wasn’t feeling right. I made new business decisions and decided to focus on my individual business and do less collaboration. I hired help in my business. I got inspired to create a whole new body of mind-body tools to use with my clients, my coach trainees, and myself. (I’d road tested them during my grieving process, and they really helped.)

Why am I telling you all of this? Because it just goes to show – this process of tuning in to your body, emotions, and soul is never done. It’s okay to be on this journey for a lifetime and never be perfect at all of this. Because you just can’t underestimate the power of taking a few moments to check in with your body, emotions, and soul. There is always something new to learn. There is always a new layer of deep peace awaiting you, right across the swamp of discomfort.

So, here I am again, one year later, sitting at my desk and preparing the new Mind-Body Coach Training.  I was seriously kidding myself when I thought I wouldn’t do another one. I love training coaches. I love watching them go out and use mind-body tools with their clients. I love watching them transform their own lives as they go through the training. It’s probably my favorite thing to do, above all else.

I’m also writing a new audio/visual product that will allow you to deepen your own mind-body process. I’m getting a whole new website built, and it’s completely different from what I thought it would be. I’ve also been hired to run Martha Beck’s Life Coach Training.

Nothing – not ONE little thing – looks like I thought it would when I envisioned this year. Everything – every SINGLE little thing – feels fabulous and perfect now. What if I hadn’t trusted myself? What if I hadn’t listened when my body asked me to?

I might not be in this moment, doing all these things I love. I might not know myself this much more. I might not have let my soul really sing, like it is now.

But I did it. I did listen. I paid attention to discomfort. I tuned in, even though there was pain, grief, sadness, anger, and fear. And now I AM here, in this moment. This is why it’s all worth it. This is what my soul was guiding me toward. Every time I go through this process in a big way, it turns out like this. Every time I tune in to myself in little ways, throughout the day, it turns out like this. It’s better than good. It’s more delicious than any delicacy. It’s challenging, engaging, and interesting, to be willing to live wide-awake like this. What can you learn from yourself, today, for you?

Last week, I invited you along on my surrendering journey.  My question was this: what are you surrendering to right now? I’m surrendering to not knowing what will happen if I give pregnancy and motherhood another shot, post miscarriage. Which led me to ponder this familiar question: Do I really know anything?

There’s a doozy for my inner brainiac! What? Not know stuff?

She and I have had this discussion before, but she’s still a big fan of knowing stuff. Yet, truly, I cannot know what will happen in the next moment, much less the next day, week, month, or year. I can plan. I can intend. I can imagine. I can dream.

But I can’t know.

Aghhhhhhhh! (Inner brainiac screaming. Poor thing.)

I was trained in school to learn, study, analyze, and know. My intellect was honed and my intuition buried. Which is odd, because what I actually need, to navigate my life successfully, is a lot less intellect and lot more intuition. Because intuition actually does KNOW. It knows in a deeper, less verbal, more visceral, somewhat indescribable way. I need to lead my life with intuition, and apply my intellect to intuitive information.

I don’t know anything with my intellect. But I KNOW lots of things with my intuition. Listening to it is a little like walking a tightrope, but being willing to fall into the big, safe net below. I can be willing to let go of the need to know with my mind. I can walk this motherhood tightrope – heck, I might even attempt a little fancy flip or something. My intuition will guide me, and I will know what I need to know, when I need to know it.

Would you like to walk the tightrope with me? Maybe you’re already a mother, but maybe there’s something new you’d like to do – your version of the tightrope. Possibly your intellect would like to know everything and see how it all works out before you take the first/next step. I hear ya, sister! What would it be like to let go of the need to know, together? I have a feeling that some group energy around this might serve all of us who are open to not knowing and ready to trust our intuition more and more. What are you ready to not know?

In March, when I knew in my heart that I was about to miscarry, I felt angry at my intuition. Why tell me something like that in advance? I didn’t want to KNOW.

Except that I did want to know. I’ve spent years opening back up to my intuition, being willing to listen to that deeper voice within, and learning to trust it. I’ve opened that can of worms, and now I KNOW a lot more than I used to. It can be disconcerting, but at the same time, there’s a sense of preparedness that comes with intuitive knowing. It helped me to know I was miscarrying, even if I did have a little fight with it at first. It made it easier to surrender. In general, I trust myself a lot more now that I KNOW things.

I trust that whatever is happening, it is actually serving me, even if it’s painful or uncomfortable. I learned that big lesson from dealing with vulvodynia and interstitial cysititis. Even though I argued against those experiences for a while, in the end I saw why I needed to have them to become the person I truly wanted to be. After I saw that, I was able to trust that new painful experiences were not there to beat me down, but to help me return to myself in some way.

I’m pretty sure I’ll be returning to myself in some form or another for the rest of my life. The difference is, now I am willing to walk that humble path and trust the KNOWING rather than try to steer clear of pain by intellectually choosing my route. (I said willing, mind you. I didn’t say I do it all the time, or perfectly!) I’m willing to not know, and to KNOW. I’m willing to trust the sense of visceral understanding that sometimes cannot be put into words.

To embark on the pregnancy and motherhood path again, (though I don’t think I’ve actually veered off the path, come to think of it) I have to love my intellect, be kind to it, and then remind it that it just can’t know. Then I have to look into my heart, trust my inner guidance, and take the next step on the tightrope. Yes, I am afraid. I allow the fear to surface as I step into the unknown. I feel it. I get guidance from it. And I keep stepping.

It’s been a couple weeks of endings. I find sadness welling up in my throat, because though I know we’ll interact and meet again in different ways, these platforms of connection are now coming to an end. Though I’d love to sit around and be a part of amazing growth and transformation with groups of brilliant coaches all the time, I also recognize that it wouldn’t really be great for them. They’d never get to go out and embark on their own journey, or lead their own groups. So with each experience, an end must come to create a new beginning.

It’s been a year of beginnings and endings already, for me. In January, it was the beginning of pregnancy and motherhood. In March it was the end of the pregnancy, much sooner than I had expected. Then it was the beginning of opening up to the messages in that experience and the changes I needed to make within myself before moving forward again. Shortly after that, there were a few endings within my coaching business, followed abruptly by new beginnings I could not have foreseen. (Such as being hired to be the Life Coach Training Coordinator for Martha Beck Inc.)

I feel a bit as though I have beginning/ending whiplash. Change has come so fast this year, in so many ways. I’ve had to really perfect the art of surrendering, which is no easy feat, I must say. So, in this moment, I am sad that this year’s group of mind-body coach trainees is leaving the nest. But I surrender to the experience and am letting go.

I first learned the art of surrendering when I was in physical agony. I was tortured by interstitial cystitis for years, and then wound up with vulvodynia as well. I hated my body, wanted all the pain to just leave, and fought like mad against the experience. Until I simply couldn’t fight anymore. I often say that the universe had to wonk me over the head before I would surrender and allow myself to have the experience I was already having – in that case, pain. That’s the funny thing about surrendering; it’s about laying down the weapons in the battle against what is.

I remember literally lying down on the couch and saying, “Okay, I give up.” But I wasn’t giving up on everything. I was just giving up the fight. I knew I had to stop trying so hard and just let the experience teach me what it was teaching me.

If this sounds hard, it’s because it kind of is. Yet, it’s also easy, in a strange way. It’s so much easier to surrender than to fight. It’s easier to say, “Okay, I am willing to have this experience that I am having right now” than to clench every muscle in combative argument against it.

If you’re dealing with anything stressful or hard in your life right now, don’t forget that surrendering is an option. You can set down your boxing gloves and say, “Okay, I allow this to happen right now.” It doesn’t mean you’ll suffer forever. In fact, your suffering will end much sooner. As soon as I stopped fighting the pelvic pain syndromes, the way out arrived in the form of mind-body healing.

On the day that I miscarried, I knew something was wrong. All day, I fought that knowledge. I avoided the knowing. I tried so hard to not have the experience that I knew was coming. Finally, as the evening wore on, I remembered the surrender option. I told my husband we had to talk about the possibility that I was going to miscarry. So we did. And we knew, in that moment, that we could handle it, no matter how painful it would be. As soon as we aired that, I was able to say, in my heart, “I surrender. I allow myself to have this experience.” Ten minutes later, the miscarriage happened. I let go. I let the universe take over, and I trusted.

Sure enough, we did survive. We could handle the grief, the pain, and the loss. That’s the thing; that which we fight, even though it is painful, is always something we can handle. Yes, it’s hard. Yes, it’s painful. But it’s ever so much more painful to fight than to surrender.

Though I often write my blog posts with a particular client question in mind, today’s post is written for me. I am the client today. Because now that my body, mind, and spirit are healed from this experience, I arrive at a new doorway. A new beginning. A place to start anew. But to embark on this motherhood journey again, there’s something I have to do. I have to surrender. I have to say, “Okay, I am willing to have this experience, whatever it may be, and I trust that what is right will happen.” Coming on the heels of the miscarriage, a new pregnancy sounds a little scary. Maybe difficult. Maybe not such a good idea. Yet, when I really look inside, it’s not the experiences that could happen that scare me. It’s the pain of not trusting, not surrendering, and not letting go that is terrifying.

It’s time to surrender to my own inner wisdom, to the wisdom of mother nature and the universe, and to life itself. I can’t know anything with my human mind about what will come, but I can trust my soul to guide me somewhere good. Yes, there were endings this year, but they made way for beginnings. There is innate wisdom in this process that I could never have seen in advance, but for which I am now grateful. So, if you, like me, are standing on the edge, peeking through a new doorway, or are just plain tired of fighting, here’s your invitation to surrender. I surrender to the experience of pregnancy again, whatever it brings. Would you like to join me in this surrendering experience? What are you surrendering to? I would welcome the company.

I was reading fellow coach Jeannette Maw’s blog post about her belly spell this week (The belly spell really cracked me up! Soooo funny! I love Jeannette!) and it inspired this post. I have struggled for many years – my entire life, actually – with body image issues. I can remember clearly when I first started disliking my body. I was ten years old, just beginning those pre-teen, puberty-ridden years, and I saw a video of myself. I was horrified. From that day on, I fought with my body.

I do not have a traditional model body. I am not tall and thin. I am of medium height and muscular build. I tend to look fit and athletic when my body and I are getting along, but I do not weigh in at a featherweight number, ever. When I was struggling with overeating, emotional eating, and severe body dislike, my weight went up near the two-hundred pound mark.

I’ve since returned to my body’s natural weight, but even after the experience of actually being overweight, I struggled to like my body. I kept thinking it should look like the “ideal.” Yet, even when I went on strict diets, my body would drop maybe two to five pounds below my natural weight and then I would get sick. It was clearly a fight that simply didn’t need to be fought. My body is perfectly happy weighing 143 pounds. It is my mind that argues with that.

Much of my personal mind-body work has been directed at this body image issue. I longed to love my body instead of fight my body. For many years, I thought this meant I had to change my body. Then I realized I had to change my relationship with it instead. I had to connect to it, learn to live in it, learn to listen to it, learn to feel my emotions, and recognize mind-stories that weren’t serving me. (Like “I should look like a model.”)

I started to see that stressing about my weight and body was one of my biggest ways to run from my emotions and avoid facing feeling them. It was what I call a decoy – something that successfully occupies me so I simply have no attention left for my emotions. All of this self-awareness combined started to help me love my body more and more. I didn’t love it every day, but I was tipping the balance way more to the love side.

Then, something happened. In January this year, I got pregnant. I was so excited, and so very ready to embark on the motherhood journey. I was excited to experience the changes in my body and the magic of growing a baby in my belly. Like Jeannette, I’ve often wished for a flatter belly, but I was willing to let it expand to hold a new little one inside me.

It was a little disconcerting to notice my jeans fitting more snugly. At only six weeks pregnant, I started to feel somewhat puffy. Then at eight weeks, there were some clothing items that were downright stretched. At nine weeks, I was pretty sure I’d need some new clothes soon, and the waistband of my favorite jeans was uncomfortably tight.  I could feel my backside expanding, too. While I understood it was necessary, I admit to a wince or two after glancing over my shoulder into the mirror.

At nine and half weeks, I miscarried.

The shock was unbelievable. The grief was overwhelming. The physical pain was tiring. I felt empty in my belly, lost in my heart, and just…sad. I was so ready to be a mom. It felt like there was a hole in that mom-space I’d created, both internally and externally. My body was tired and aching, my mind confused, and my emotions strong.

Even as I grieved, I could see the power in my body’s wisdom. It was aware of things I couldn’t know, and it knew this pregnancy wasn’t a go, for whatever reason. I didn’t have to know the details in my mind to feel that my body knew best. I let it do what it needed – sleep, rest, and cry.

After a few weeks, I started going back to my normal routine. Letting the grief flow allowed me to start healing, allowed my body to start regaining energy, and I began to feel like I was almost alive again. I had moments of joy shine through the fog of grief.

One day, I put on my jeans to run an errand. I’d mostly been wearing yoga pants for my resting, sleeping, and grieving phase. I slipped the jeans on, threw on a shirt, and started for the door, purse in hand. Something in that movement caught my attention. My jeans weren’t tight. The waistband wasn’t cutting into my belly anymore. There was room to move in them.

I felt the loose jeans from my belly straight to my heart – a visceral, shocking, upside-down moment.

I set down my purse and cried.  I ached for that tight-jeans feeling. I wanted it back. I wanted my belly to still be expanding. I wanted my backside to be popping seams. I wanted to be shopping for maternity clothes. I didn’t want my jeans to be loose at all. Once of my lifelong desires simply vanished in that instant. I could have cared less how I looked, how thin I was or wasn’t, or what anyone in the world thought of my body. I could have cared less for fashion or the shape of my waist, or any of it. It all paled in comparison to the longing for what was lost.

I never thought I’d be sad because my jeans were loose. I never thought I’d see my body from that vantage point. But because I did, I have something powerful to hold in my mind. Because life goes on, you know. I now have the same old thoughts pop up about how I look in my pants, whether I’ve gained a pound or lost a pound, why my belly can’t just magically transform itself to something much cuter, what dreadful fashion designer cooked up the latest non-flattering style on purpose just to torture me. They come into my mind. And sometimes they bug me for a day or two.

But then I can simply remember. I can drop back into that moment when I was heartbroken that my jeans were loose. I am grateful for that moment, because it gave me a new relationship with my body. I saw what my body can do – it can grow life in it! How amazing! It can heal from loss. It can serve me, every day, even if I’m angry with it. It doesn’t have to look like any prescribed ideal to be completely, totally perfect. Yes, it changed even from a short pregnancy. Yes, I am a little older these days than in my teen years. Yes, I have a wrinkle or two.

But in the end, my body is healthy. We’ve been through chronic pain together, she and I, and now we’ve been through this, too. She’s a war-horse. She’s strong. She still takes to the jogging path and the hiking trail with energy and enjoyment, even after all she’s experienced. I’m impressed. She bounces back. She brings me daily enjoyment in so many different ways. Without her, I’d have no home for my soul. I wouldn’t have a voice, a mind, a heart. I need her. She needs me.

So we’re working together, my body and me. We’re on the same team. Even if we have the occasional disagreement, our relationship is much improved. The war is over. I love her. She’s always loved me. We’re friends.  And she hasn’t dropped a single pound or shed an ounce of fat for me to come to this place of connection, love, and peace. She carried a baby for me. She took care of me. She was there. And truly, that is all I need.