Live in the body you deserve

This has been a hard week for me. I have pressure coming from all angles, things happening that I don’t want to be happening, changes that I wasn’t prepared for, and a lot of balls up in the air.

I’m sure you can relate.

With the baby and just returning to work, I’m still trying to find my groove. I haven’t had time to myself in months. My meditation practice is spotty at best. I haven’t slept through the night in over six months. The last week and a half I’ve been in pure survival mode.

I notice I’m falling into a horrible trap… living for the weekends, counting down the hours to the day, always feeling rushed, feeling tired.

I feel the stress in my body making my heart beat a little bit faster, my breath shallow, my shoulders slowly creeping up by my ears (not a good look).

My mind tried to convince me to feel ashamed about this. “You teach your clients how to live a stress-free, peaceful, healthy life. Why are you not following your advice?”

I knew I needed some guidance.

I know this next statement is going to make you completely jealous of me, but I have the best mother-in-law in the world. I know, I’m supposed to have an annoying, overprotective, nosey mother-in-law who judges my cooking and makes passive aggressive comments about my parenting while showering her son with constant accolades. Instead, I have a wise, spiritual, loving, and cool mother-in-law that I enjoy spending time with.

I reached out to her to hear her calming voice, and as always, she wound up giving me the best advice.

“Step into your faith," she said. “The Universe has its divine timing. It’s so easy to forget that and want it on our time. You have to trust that it’s happening in the perfect sequence of events.”

She reminded me of my favorite quote from A Course in Miracles:

“The presence of fear is a sure sign that you are trusting in your own strength. The awareness that there is nothing to fear shows that somewhere in your mind, though not necessarily in a place you recognize as yet, you have remembered God, and let His strength take the place of your weakness. The instant you are willing to do this there is indeed nothing to fear.”

When I surrender to what is not in my control and step into the faith of trusting that everything is unfolding exactly as it should, the stress melts from my body. I feel a deep sense of peace, and I become a magnet for the very thing I want to create in my life.

This is the first deep breath I’ve taken all day.

I trust that you needed to hear this too, in whatever capacity fear and stress is showing up in your life. How would you feel if you just surrendered what you could not control and instead had faith in something bigger than you (call it god, call it divine love, call it the Universe... use the word that feels good to you) that it will work out better than you could have imagined it?

Remember, health is not just about looking good. I would argue that mental health is by far more important. When you shift your thinking to create better feeling emotions, you gain clarity and motivation to go after what you really want. This is how it becomes easier to eat the right foods and move your body in the right ways.

I’m committing to you that starting with this moment, I’m releasing all fear around all my current “problems” and unknowns. I’m going to step back into my faith and trust that it will all work out, as it always has and always will.

Your logical mind might ask, “How do you know that this is true? How can you be so sure that it will work out?” Faith isn’t about proof. It’s a choice for how I live my life in the healthiest mental state possible. You can choose fear or you can choose faith. If you choose fear, you can always step right back into faith.

Lastly, please remember that we are all human, all imperfect, and we all need reminding of our highest truth from time to time.