THE DEEP DISH

What are the words that described you for 2023? My words would have to be tough and proud! 2023 was the year that I laid it all out there, and gave my full trust to believing I could be my "authentic self", and putting it all on the line, that it would return the same energy back to me. And boy did it ever!!

It is not lost on me though that the two most used words of 2023 were "authentic self" lol. <eyeroll>

2023, I felt my marriage fortify, I became more secure with who I am, I started to shed the idea that I needed to comprise my wellbeing in order to help others with theirs. I learned, that I didn't have to make compromises for the things I desired. I felt a lot of positive things, and it all stemmed from being brave enough to accept that I needed help. Not one of these things came easily for me. The first part of 2023 freaking tough.

Toughness has long been held as the key to overcoming challenges and achieving greatness. This prevailing model does nothing but promote a mentality based on fear, false bravado, and hiding any signs of weakness. This old model of "toughness" failed me. I believed my toughness, meant that I had strength, power, and control. I had thick skin, feared nothing, constrained my emotions and hid my vulnerabilities.

Toughness I learned, is about responding, and not reacting. Real toughness is quiet, and it comes from within. It is about me making the right choices while I am under stress, uncertainty and fatigue. This requires a tremendous amount of emotional control; something I failed at miserably those first 6 months of 2023. It's amazing how our past follows us into the present. If you are like me, you have learned that feelings are the enemy. Don't show emotion. Ignore what you feel.

For "real toughness" I needed to find "self-security", and I was told by my Pyschologist, that this can only be achieved, if I can find my confidence, and learn to listen to my body. Tough people are experts at listening to their bodies. So, I went to work on becoming tough. I worked on leaning into my discomfort, paying attention to what my body was trying to tell me, and creating space to take thoughtful action. Through all of this, I slowly began to find a inner strength, that I did not even know I possessed.

When my Psychologist fist told me I needed to learn to listen to my body, I was like, "What does that even mean? To what kinds of feelings was I even suppose to be listening too? lol Was it physical feelings, like stomach pain and tired feet, or emotional feelings, like worry, doubt, or indecision?

Then I learned that there are two layers of feeling at work here. One is the feeling in my body, in my core, my nature. The other is my surface psychology on top of it all. Let me explain......

Have you ever heard of "trusting your gut"? It's good advice. But how do we know when our gut is talking to us? Well....we need to get quiet. We need to get sensitive, to ourselves. That feeling in our body is where we will find our intuition, and our capability to act. Our body sends us messages, core, gut feelings all the time. We don't need to reason them, logic them, or intellectualize them. We just need to listen to them.

When I told my Psychologist that I had been feeling overwhelmed, she asked me, "what does that "feel" like?" We are trained to use adjectives like "overwhelmed" to describe how we are feeling; we are not trained to listen to how our body "feels" when we are overwhelmed. 6 months ago, I could not answer my Psychologist's question. Today I can tell you, that when I am feeling overwhelmed, my body feels heavy, like it weighs 300lbs, I struggle to think rationally, I experience paralysis, and even the easiest of tasks feel impossible for me to complete; my joints ache, I feel tired, and I have cognitive fatigue.

Our bodies pay attention to us. They actually think we are important. If like me, you have spent a whole lot of time ignoring how you feel, just bulldozing along, your body has probably decided you're not interested in listening to the lines of communication. It hits the mute button. I am here to tell us both, "that's okay, we can turn our volume back on".

How do we get ourselves listening and moving easily in our body and life? We must slow it down, relax and breathe deep, pause and feel the sensations of our body. What is our body telling us and how is our body feeling. Our bodies know when something is wrong, even before we do. Listening to our bodies mean becoming mindfully aware of how they usually feel, and how they feel when things feel different. When we become hyper aware of how our bodies feel, things our bodies do, every twitch, ache or itch; we can identify how our body is feeling, and then the "tough" work begins. Honor your needs by paying attention to how your body "feels", then respond to it with care and compassion.

We, as women, are especially prone to acts of self-betrayal, because we have been conditioned to prioritize our and the needs of others, over our own well-being. Because it has become a virtue to be selfless, we often endure things that we don't necessarily want to endure, and we ignore our gut feelings or the little voice in our head that tells us, "Hey, something isn't right".

I feel really proud of the inner work I did in 2023. I am proud of the person I was. I am so grateful for all of the parts of 2023 that have carved out what 2024 will be. Rewarding!

My word for 2024, Intention! I have intentions moving through this year. Intentions in love, in my health, in work, in everything I plan to do.