I believe in this simple equation: You + (trusting) your body’s deepest wisdom = self-health

What Words Do You Use To Describe Your Beauty?

Dove Real Beauty Sketches

You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe deserve your love and affection. ~ Buddha

Today I came across this video. It is so incredibly poignant and touching and it got me thinking about the words I use to describe myself. Words have such intention and power, they can uplift and support and they can just as easily put down and hurt. We often choose our words carefully in describing others but do we take as much care about what we say to and about ourselves?

 

 

Begin Again

Just Breathe

New beginnings are a natural for January. It’s the time to formally start – resolutions, diets, the breaking old habits and the beginning shiny new ones. At my local gym, there tends to be a fitness spike and the place is brimming with good intentions as new (or returning) members make a New Year’s resolution to exercise. I have certainly followed that impulse to let January 1st be the day to begin anew.

There are tons of online articles and resources to be found that can help you make and keep sensible New Year’s resolutions but let’s face the fact that we may stumble. Even with the best of intentions, inevitably our resolve falters, we slip and miss a day which turns into two which turns into falling back into the old habitual patterns that we wanted to leave in the old year. The reason why this happens varies from person to person but we aren’t perfect and we stumble. We struggle to stay motivated when the “new” gets challenging and our commitment to it and more importantly to ourselves and our well being waivers. Then what do you do?

Begin again (and again and again and again)

Over the years, one of my favorite sessions to have with clients centers around giving themselves permission to begin again. The first step is always to just breathe and to come back to your body. The part of you that shows up when you stumble can be your best friend or worst enemy and it is up to you who you let in the door.

The critical, harsh voice is not your friend but is instead all about pushing down the part of you that wanted to make change in the first place.

In it’s own perverse way, it is trying to protect you from the unknown and from potential disappointment, heartache, and pain but it is keeping you from your best life by keeping you small.

After you come back to your body through your breath, your second step is to give yourself 100% full credit for showing up in your life by simply beginning.

That’s right, 100% full, standing ovation, credit!

And, if you do happen to miss a day (or a week or a month or even a year) then you get to move to the third important step which is to begin again (and again and again and again).

At first, when I introduce the idea of beginning again, it is met with a lot of resistance. It is a challenge because we are conditioned to believe that we have to get it right the first time, we have to be the very best from the start or else we are a complete and total failure. We jump into comparison mode when we notice that someone else (who almost always has been at it longer) is so much better and we completely skip over the part where we give ourselves a break because we are a beginner.

Within you, there is a nurturing, supportive, loving part. It is the part of you that set the resolution in the first place.It is the part that wants you to lose weight or eat healthier or quit smoking or exercise more all so that you can live longer and stronger and happier.

That voice is your best friend and is the part to listen for – the voice that gently reminds you of your beginner’s status and can remind you that no matter what happens, no matter how long it has been that in the very next moment you always have the opportunity to begin again.

So as you take the first steps into 2013, I encourage you to allow yourself to be filled with sheer excitement and anticipation.

If resolutions are your thing then make some. If choosing a word for the year begins your year with hope, clarity and focus then choose one. (My word for 2013 is permission.) Give yourself 100% full credit for committing both to your well being and to becoming the best version of yourself that you can be and remember that no matter what the next moment brings, you can always take a deep breath, give your credit for what you have done and begin again (and again and again).

 

 

Why Do You Go Away?

 

Because I Have Traveled

To be able to leave home and to travel, to see places far from home, for me, is a gift. Recently, I left my home in California, gathered up my Mom in Florida, and together we set off on a 10 day adventure in Venice, Florence and Rome.

 

Like everything one encounters in a life, travel can be a doorway which will lead to a unique kind of growth, if you allow it to transform you.

 

It is a place where all of you shows up, amplified, (including the good, the bad and the ugly) and as I return to my regular life this week, the things that I carry with me are life lessons I have learned because I travel.

 

Sunset in Rome from Valerie Tookes on Vimeo.

Because I have traveled I:

  • can more easily let go of the “plan” and simply surrender to the moment.
  • know what it means to be not be perfect.
  • respect each of us as an individual in this global community.
  • know the power of a smile. It can open a heart, a door, a world.
  • understand the value of being able to say please, thank you and I am sorry.
  • believe in the goodness of others and have faith that the world is a friendly place.
  • trust in my ability to figure it out.
  • know that I don’t know it all, and
  • am willing to be humbled by that fact in order to learn and experience new things.

Watch What You Make It Mean

Several weeks ago, after two cancelled dates with a fella I very much wanted to see, I had a very rare sleepless night. I found my mind doing battle with some very old voices – gremlins who were trying to convince me that I am “not enough” to sustain this new relationship. The night was unsettling and it caught me by surprise because I have worked hard to fight those gremlins of insecurity and they had all but disappeared from view.

I had forgotten to watch what I make things mean.

The title of this post is a phrase I picked up at a workshop and it has become a mantra that grounds me. It is a reminder that the meaning I assign to every single event in my life is an individual choice that I make. Meaning lies in that intersection between “truth” and “story” and once chosen is filed away as a memory. I often joke that I have the memory of a gnat. I readily admit that I really am not good at remembering the details of events, the punch lines to jokes, the plots to books I have read or movies I have seen or who said what to whom. What I do remember are impressions and feelings for all of those things. I store in my body the way that I feel when I meet someone rather than the specifics of what they said that they did for a living.

I was at a dinner party recently where the conversation turned to this idea that someday, we may be able to record and replay all of the moments of our life. We could always go back and use those recordings as evidence of what “really” happened.

Most would probably assume that I would be all on board for a technology that would allow me to remember everything in high definition but instead I was disturbed by the idea. I don’t believe that we are built for that level of total recall. Memory’s edges are soft and imperfect. There are studies that show that different people who witness the exact same event will each recall it differently. Siblings who grow up in the same house can have vastly different memories of childhood. The events are seen through their particular lens of history. Memories become the stories that we tell ourselves about life and about love and about our very existence.

We often unconsciously project on to others a “story” that is filtered through our lens of history, through our past heartaches and let downs.

We manage to miss seeing the present for what it is, the opportunity to tell new tales.

When something or someone joyful comes into our life how often do we miss that things are good because we become trapped in, what Dr. Brene Brown refers to as, a perpetual state of disappointment – that place where our gremlins gain a foothold as we jump to the bleakest worst-case scenario? This can often happen when a moment is so overflowing with joy that the vulnerability that is required to embrace it scares us.

Fear actually tries to convince us that it is easier to live waiting for disappointment, to live waiting for the other shoe to drop than it is to live the joy of the moment.

Since my long night of battling gremlins, I am back to the idea of watching what I make things mean.

I have gotten myself back to the idea that I am the author and I can choose to write my story as seen through fresh eyes rather than the lens of my past relationship history.

Those two missed connections were about bad timing and understandable circumstances and they were not a covert sign telling me that I am not enough.  I am choosing to tell myself the version of my story that empowers and uplifts me and that leaves plenty of room for being happy. I am choosing to see the joy and to sit in it as my tender heart continues to open and my arms widen to actively embrace my life.

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