Have you ever spent an entire day lost in your head, only to arrive back home in your body after dinner, and wonder, "where the hell did that day go?"  I find my mind amazing.  It is smart, intelligent, amusing, and it plays tricks on me constantly.  I have had to learn that what my mind says, is often not the truth or fact and even writing this my head is arguing with me (which is quite amusing) saying, "nooooo I'm always right!"  It is an arduous and difficult task to differentiate between the mind and the body.  And for some of us (raises hand) it takes some time to first build up the courage to battle with our mind, and then more time to sit with the emotions in the body to figure out what the true message is here.

I often struggle with this like I did today.  My brain has been on triple warp speed asking every possible question it can ask and doubting just about every action I make.  Am I doing the "right" thing, am I making a mistake, am I eating the right things, drinking at the right time, involving myself with the right people, in the right jobs....blahblahblah goes my brain.  And finally I asked my brain this afternoon (as I have realized I often have to engage myself in conversation to stop the yaddayaddayadda of my mind) why is being "right" so important.  I had an ah-hah moment.  I was so lost in the questions in my head that it was difficult to see and hear the underlying rock blocking my way.  I have found that usually fear is underlying most mental rants.  In my case, engaging in "right" action means I am not failing and that my life has purpose (something I often fear-losing my purpose or not even living up to it at all here on earth).

The monkey mind is a protective mechanism, hiding us from our deep core wounds from childhood, from family, from relationships.  We all have them.  One of my favorite yoga teachers constantly talks about how we're are all broken and to embrace the shattered broken pieces because they are truly beautiful.  She asks each one of her students to share their broken pieces because she has been just as broken before as well.  It is a beautiful thing when we can finally get out of our heads and accept ourselves even with all our fears.  With tears rolling down my face in the arms of someone who truly cares about me this evening I realized that I can share my own broken pieces with others and be truly accepted and actually appreciated for sharing the fact that I do not have it all together.

It is quite a conundrum how often we accept others with their insecurities, fears, worries, tears, rants, etc. and yet we fear revealing our own.  This blocks us from self acceptance and has us heading into the fridge/cupboard/restaurant/grocery store to stuff down our fears.  Perhaps if we could breath into our fear and face it with total acceptance that we would not try and stuff our emotions down.  I have noticed in my own life the more I speak my truth and let myself be truly seen for who I am instead of who I feel I should be, the less I feel like being up in my head, off some place else, and reaching for food to comfort some emotion that I am not allowing myself to feel.  Let yourself be seen.  For even just one minute a day get out of your head, breath into your body, and speak your truth, even if it is just to yourself.

I don't always make the best choices for myself.  Some where I got the notion that there was a right and a wrong way to make a decision instead of a spectrum of grey.  As I have grown older so many questions have popped up.  I muse now around how so many things in life are both.  I want to be in school and I don't.  I want to be my own boss and I don't.  I want to be in a loving committed relationship.....and I don't.  I want to sit on my couch and do absolutely nothing but eat and watch movies all day and I don't.  Life is a series of yes and no's all happening at the same time.  Yet often when we are experiencing conflicting emotions we judge, push away, eat, exercise, have sex, all to avoid the inevitable contrast living within our body.

The interesting thing is that when we are experiencing the push and pull of life and feeling overwhelmed with our current situation, when we can come very close to ourselves the stress and anguish disappears.  When we actually allow ourselves to slowwwwww downnnnn, that is when we can touch out heart and open up to our experience.  It is alright to say yes and no at the same time.  It is when we try and alter or take control or push ourselves to make a decision before we are ready that anxiety arises.  That pressure in your body, the felt sensations of anxiety are merely a manifestation of the thoughts in your head trying to push away what is.  I experienced a profound moment today when I allowed myself to slow down with one hand on my heart and one hand on my belly and to breath into the darkness of confusion of life that I was able to release any anxiety I was feeling over needing to figure my life out right now (an impossible feat) and allow myself to just be in the space of yes and no.

We often do this with our food as well.  When we have supposedly gotten "off track" in our "diet" there is the tendency to say, "well the whole day is ruined might as well just go off the deep end and eat a whole pizza."  Life is not black or white.  We make the best decisions we can for ourselves every moment.  If in a moment of desperation you reached our for a bag of chips, a piece of cake, a box of cookies, it was one moment in your life that all you were doing was trying to take care of yourself the best way you knew how.  And the wonderful thing is, you get another moment right after that one to try again and make different choices.  We want the cookies, the cake, the pie....and we also don't.  We want happiness, smiles, sweetness in our life and when that is missing, yes we want the sweet foods to fill a void that is missing elsewhere.  Come out of the judgement of the choices you make and stick with curiosity of what you can learn from yourself in every moment.  Ask yourself with each situation that you feel torn why is it a yes and why is it a no.

Sit with how complex life truly is.  Life is so short and so long at the same time.  When I remind myself of this I remember, I can let go of tension in my body and ask myself what would be a better thought right now, which helps me to move away from the confusion in my head and come back to cultivating a feeling within my body that helps me to open to my human experience and sit in all that beautiful grey area.