How are you, really?

My world was turned upside down last year. There were several life events that happened at the same time and all I remember is doing what I needed to then to live to the next day. I wasn’t comprehending what was happening. There was no room for thinking. What was so beautiful during this challenging time, was that I lived it. I was fully in it, experiencing all of the emotions and sensations in every moment.

At a point, I felt my thinking brain come back online. Being in my thinking brain is so natural and comfortable for me. There was this beautiful moment where just enough of my thinking brain was online and I was still connected to my body, my emotions, my sensations. The balance was beautiful. You see, my thinking brain is strong. When it comes fully online, I override anything that is happening in my body. Sometimes I don’t even feel what’s going on until it starts to cause significant changes in my daily functioning.

In the last few months, I’ve been consciously focused on connecting more with my body. Feeling it and being in it. My mind still overrides several times a day, but I could say that I’m living from my body 60-75% of the time. I wanted to honour and celebrate my progress here. Living more from my body has changed my life in many ways.

What I wanted to share with you is the question that I asked myself when my mind first started to come back online in that beautiful phase of what felt like complete balance. The question I sat with was ‘How am I? No really, how am I? How am I doing right now? How am I feeling right now?’ And of course I journaled about it.

When I first asked this question, I deflected. I said ‘yea, I’m good, things are fine’. That wasn’t the actual answer though - that wasn’t the truth. When I got down to the truth, it amazed me at all that was going on within me. All that I glazed over, all that I wasn’t looking at, all that I felt.

I found the exercise and inquiry so insightful, I continued this almost on a daily basis for months. I kept finding things that I was ignoring and suppressing and not looking at, not acknowledging.

I finally understood the benefit of journaling, on a deep level. The value that comes with looking inward and being honest about what is actually going on with me. So it’s not the journaling that actually matters, it’s the checking in with myself that made the difference. Sometimes I would record how I felt in a voice memo or video tape it, sometimes even just say it out loud for it to be out in the open.

So, in my opinion, it doesn’t matter what medium you use, the value is in the exercise of checking in with yourself and being in total honesty of ALL that is going on for you.

With love <3

PS: if you’d like to share what shows up for you when you ask yourself this question with me, email me here.

Disclaimer: I welcome any and all writing and expression of your experience. If you’re hesitating to write to me, do it.