Snow Days and Opportunities
Today is a "Snow Day", maybe not officially because I am not sure if they closed the schools in our county or not, but there was enough blowing snow to make the roads treacherous this afternoon and even my dog Angus was not whining to get out.
In the deep midwinter, days like this can be relished for the opportunity they provide, if one is not already off at work or school before the snow starts, to perhaps have a small respite from the doing-ness of life, curl up with a book, a cup of tea, a cat on the couch, and maybe even have a nap.
What, are you CRAZY?! A nap?? On a Tuesday afternoon, when I have reports to write and courses to plan and more studying to do and a cat box to clean and emails to answer and emails to initiate and the fire to stoke and and and....
How did it get so hard to give myself permission to nap, or even just to sit on the couch with a blanket and no book and consider the possibility that if I should actually doze off it would be okay, and may be even necessary to my well-being?
I am very tired today, not sure why, partly just midwinter in a winter with not quite enough sunshine. Maybe it's those darn peri-menopausal hormones at it again! Maybe it's all the energy I have been putting into mapping my possible future (for the next few months anyway), planning workshops, doing more reading and preparation for things I feel I need to know.
Maybe it's due to the tight muscles from the way my body tends to contract in the cold of winter, and in the cautious stepping outside on icy driveways, in narrow trails in knee-deep snow where I walk the dog, and on the treacherous slope down to the chicken coop.
Or maybe, just maybe, it's my resistance. "My resistance?" she asked her Higher Self. "Yes, your resistance", Higher Self replied, "your resistance to taking a time-out, resistance to your own self-care, resistance to just being and not doing."
As you may know if you receive my newsletter, I have this big theme for me of "walking my talk", which means modelling what I wish to help others achieve, namely living a life of possibility and creativity, making choices, listening to my Higher Self and acting on that inner wisdom and guidance. I think I have been doing pretty well creating the life I want lately.
But the part where I fall short is in just plain old being and resting. Even my consultations with Higher Self, while that might seem quiet and contemplative, and can be, are often done in an active state, talking to Grandfather Hemlock while walking the dog, speaking with Otter while in a drum journey, or feeling directed to write in my journal on an issue I am trying to resolve. It is all very active really.
My "downtime" is still busy, gaining insight, searching for answers. It never really stops ‘til the day's chores and clients are done, research put to rest, dinner and dishes over with, blog written, a few pages read and we go crashing onto bed. Thunk!
I forget sometimes that my inner wisdom is not only discovered in the verbalised "communications" I get here and there, but it is also expressed through my body. Sometimes, actually most of the time, my body expresses what is going on with me emotionally, as it does for most people, although not everyone has learned to recognise the signs.
When I need to express something that is nagging me or that I have built up emotion around, I get a lump in my throat. When I feel overburdened by too much on my to-do list or by something I don't really want to do but agreed to do, my body will usually speak up before my verbal wisdom comes through (or when I fail to listen to that inner voice!), and my shoulders will get tight or I'll feel weighed down. When I have fear of moving forward with a plan of action on something I have experienced pains in the hip and leg, literally resisting the moving forward before I am ready to acknowledge the fear that is there.
And sometimes my body just says, "Stop! I am reeeeally tired, and I just need a day to recuperate and I'll be fine." And it's just my physical body needing rest, plain and simple. And the more I resist, the more fatigued I get, until things start to hurt.
I think that's what happened today, and as I write this I am acknowledging to my chagrin that I did not listen. Just one more email had to be sent about a talk I'm giving, and another about a question I have about my coaching case studies, and then before I knew it it was time to feed the cats, make dinner and find inspiration for a new blog post.
I guess I found it.
Now that a client has cancelled her afternoon session with me, and if I manage to get to and from the appointment I have out in the morning (snowy roads permitting), I hereby vow, before all my readers, that I will honour my inner wisdom, my body's wisdom, and rest tomorrow afternoon.
Are you listening to your inner wisdom? Not only that which comes through in a "knowing" or in words or pictures or that sense of what you must do (or not do!), but also the wisdom of your body, expressing it's needs either for your physical or emotional self?
Make time this week, in the the "going within" time of winter, or on the next "snow day", to take time to listen to the wisdom of your body and attend to your self-care.
And after you've rested, there's a great book on the relationship between your physical health and your emotional life, called "When The Body Says No - The Cost of Hidden Stress", by Gabor Mate M.D. It is one of many fine books on the mind-body relationship, another favourite being "Anatomy of the Spirit" by Carolyn Myss, which takes a very different, but equally informative, perspective.
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