Inhale. Exhale.
Next time you catch yourself and your self-limiting story…
Silently blaming that person the way you always do
Beating up on yourself the way you always do
Justifying your decision the way you always do
….stop mid-thought.
Focus just for a moment on those thoughts, that quiet self-talk that runs the same way every time.
Become present to what your little voice is saying. Take a breath, and let the thought soften its grip on you. Ask yourself quietly…what if I didn’t blame them this time. What if I didn’t tell that same old story this time. What if I didn’t resort to self-criticism this time.
What you’ll find, underneath that same old track you run, is a raw and powerful feeling you’ve been busy running from.
When you allow yourself to feel it, it will take your breath away.
Missing someone you once loved.
Feeling distant from someone who was important to you, and maybe still is.
Wishing you could say what’s in your heart and trust that it would be heard in the way you mean it.
Desperately wanting to let yourself just be you.
We’ve learned to layer over these excruciatingly vulnerable feelings like an Alaskan woman’s winter outfit, stuffing them down in an effort to guard and protect.
And it works for us, and our preference to distance ourselves from what hurts. The problem is that we’re left with such little sense of who we really are, and instead default to doing everything for everyone else first.
It leaves us so numb to our feelings that the drama in our mind feels like the truth.
As women, listening to what we feel, feeling it and allowing the feelings to move through our body, rather than keeping them stuck because of our fear, is our most powerful source of expansion and contribution. As leaders, partners, mothers, role models and human beings.
All you need to do to begin unlocking this rich and infinite well of guidance, is take a simple, conscious breath.
And then choose to listen to the truth of who you are, rather than the story you use to keep safe.
Inhale. Exhale.
