The theme of my life in the last couple of weeks is "prioritizing time to just Be."
There is so much social programming on Doing and so little on Being. There's so much judgment and confusion around Being. The Being just seems too lazy, too selfish, too uncomfortable, too against the grain, too aloof, too entitled, too threatening, too anxious.
It’s true, there can be anxiousness in spaciousness.. for grown ups. We want it and then when we get it we get anxious. It’s so unfamiliar the primal brain codes it as unsafe. This is information we can work with.
I see my kids bonking as we need to get them to the next thing. Us adults have learned coping mechanisms to power through but kids are so transparently honest about communicating through their words and body language that they're over-stimulated, over-scheduled, under-able to just Be with time to rejuvenate their system with uninterrupted play, with being able to get lost in the act of whatever they're doing... it's refreshing.
Lately, I feel like I've had to schedule in prioritizing time to just Be. What an irony. It's working though. Time to Be with the Earth without thinking or not thinking about something. Time to Be with my kids without teaching or correcting, but just enjoying. Time to Be with my self - observing my tendencies, habitual thinking, pace. Being to me is really about being the observer and enough observing often leads to me asking deeper questions.
Ask Questions | Self-Inquiry
I find that in the Being, when I am out of my head and into my heart, I can connect with the bigger questions like "Says who? Why? Who's voice is that? Where did I learn that? Is that true? If that was once true or useful, is it still?"
Over the past 18 months, I've been doing a deep dive into Be-ing. Being is at the crux of so much of my massage and coaching work as well as my own personal deep change work.
At any time, I can ask myself:
"Who am I Being right now?"
"What if I could just Be With this as an observer without emotion?"
"Is this in alignment with the things that I'm dreaming of having/doing/becoming?"
"If I was watching the greatest version of myself on a movie screen, how would she handle this situation? How would she Be?"
I ask myself questions like this 3,000 times a day. "Only always" as I heard one brilliant coach say.
When I'm distracted with my kids or tasking away on my phone and I find myself shooing them off or answering really curtly, I stop and ask myself "Is this the mother I used to dream of Being? Who would I need to Be to Be her? What would she do or say?"
You know, authentically. Not a "fake it til you make it" kind of thing. Because you can tell when someone's faking it and you can tell when someone just IS IT. It's an energy, it's a vibe, it's a embodied feeling. It takes practice becoming more of who we want to Be. What's the alternative?
What I hear the most is, "Yeah but I don't know how." That's where mental rehearsal comes in, that's where making time to be with yourself, learning and teaching yourself comes in, that's where prioritizing being with the part of you that does know how but forgot comes in, that's where working with someone who can help comes in, that's where emulating someone who is embodying that very thing comes in.
This happened just today. I was up late writing last night, my daughter couldn't sleep, I didn't get enough sleep, my son had a nightmare, my daughter didn't feel well this morning, I had to cancel a client. Life was happening. Perfect opportunities for stress to dominate. Instead, I turned my attention to "What can I do to shift this?"
When I was conscious enough to realize that
#1. I was tired. So a little extra grace was in order. Do I want to be how I always am when I'm tired or try something different?
#2. Who do I want to be? What can I do to align with that?
#3. I can start again now. I can interrupt the freight train and cascade of stress hormones and biochemicals and change my energy using my HeartMath® tools and techniques.
The point of power is always in the present moment.
So I sat on the couch, closed my eyes, and breathed the feeling of Being Loving, Patient and Joyful into my heart, into my body. I connected with the spark in me that knows how.
Making a Decision with a Clear Intention is Powerful
Did I want to get up? Sure, I get restless and the programming comes in that I need to be Doing, but I decided that this is the most important thing I can be Doing - managing my Being. I decided I was going to work with my body-mind (our subconscious programming is stored in our bodies). I decided I was going to work with my body, interrupt the automatic knee jerk reactions and behaviors and teach it how to Be more of what I would like to experience, just like I'd teach one of my children.
And so I did. I prioritized the time to just Be. If not now, when? What's more important?
I sat down and I began to breathe into my heart, slower and deeper than usual.
And then I breathed in the feeling of appreciation for this moment to sit and start again. And then I breathed in the feelings of the greatest mom version of me until I could feel it in my toes. Sometimes I find it helpful to do a body scan, like water rising from the ground or like I'm under a waterfall or shower; I make sure every part of my body is immersed in this feeling.
And then I expand beyond the boundaries of my body to the field of energy around my body that has now been created by this elevated heart feeling - appreciation, love, patience, joy.
I recently learned in my HeartMath® Certified Mentor training that Squid magnetometers can detect and measure the electromagnetic bio-field of a human being and that the heart's electromagnetic energy is more powerful than any other organ, up to 100 times greater in strength than the brain. You can read more about this here. They're finding the measurable electromagnetic field can be detected up to 3 meters around the body, like you're own wifi signal.
So, I'm imaging this feeling of Appreciation, Love and Patience radiating out from my heart into the room all around me and I just sit in it. I steep in it. I'm at my charging station. I'm plugged in and getting a software update. Again, this is the most important thing I can be doing for who I want to be in my life.
Because when I'm back online, all I want to do is give. I have a full battery so I have energy. Giving from a depleted battery leads to resentment, agitation, and other depleting emotions. Giving from a full battery is joyful and genuine. It's our natural state.
When I feel more whole, I feel more generous. Is that selfish and lazy? Or was it worth it to prioritize the time to change my energy?
I find the more I do this, the more naturally the next insight or direction comes without working so hard. In that instance, I just stopped tasking and played legos without a timer with my kids and we had so much fun. I start to trust myself more when I'm just Being. I start to trust that the answer comes in a much more elevated and easy way when I'm Being rather than trying to figure something out intellectually.
Asking, Connecting, Teaching by Way of the Heart
The other day, my daughter had a cut on the corner of her mouth. I asked her to let me put some salve on it to keep it from drying out and cracking. She recoiled, shaking her head and said, "My body just says I don't want it." I said, "Ok. Well, what does your heart say?"
Her eyes glazed over a bit as she refocused her attention and her muscles in her face, neck and shoulders softened. She looked at me then and said, "Oh, it says that could be helpful. Thank you."
This is why I wanted to create this themed video that I attached to the top of this post. To remind me to Be. To sit, stand, walk and connect with something deeper than my personality - with my heart. To inspire others to zoom out a bit and remember to open their focus to a field of energy that surrounds them, that they can draw from, that they can connect to with their hearts for greater resilience, emotional self-regulation, greater well-being.
I love doing the coaching, mentoring, body work, writing work because I get so much value out of hearing other people's stories, experiences, challenges and triumphs. I get the experience that it's in the sharing with one another, in the communing that we might discover something about ourselves that we didn't know yet or maybe how someone else's story of challenge and their way of navigating it takes the self-imposed pressure off of our own similar situation leading to new ideas and insights, new possibilities.
In all of it, there's an overarching feeling of support , of connection, of safety, of "It's okay to be me, maybe I'm not screwing this all up as bad as I thought. Maybe I can be loved as I am. Maybe I can spend some time appreciating my efforts."
We're meant to commune and learn from one another. Instead of me versus the world, when we live life by way of the heart, it's me and the world - there's more inclusivity, there's more equality, more safety, more belonging.
If your heart is saying one thing and your body is saying another, recognize that your body is working on an old and outdated program. We can give it the software update that it needs to be more in alignment with a truer version of ourselves.
Our bodies are temporary learning and teaching devices. They're communication devices.
We can work with them.
We can take them for a walk, we can talk to them like we're teaching a child something new, we can care for them, love, learn from and listen to what they're communicating to us with our hearts. We can teach them new ways of Being. We can get past the emotional and genetic conditioning and supply them with new information, new energy, a greater frequency. We can de-program and re-condition them to a new mind. We can create our own field of energy by way of the heart to re-charge and re-balance them.
The way out is through and the way through is in. Go within or go without. It only takes a minute or 2 to shift and reset, albeit 3,000 times a day. Like any new skill, we are gifted with neuroplasticity and can learn to do anything. Only always.
The hardest part is making the time, prioritizing the time to Be With yourself, to get to know yourself, to teach yourself, to cultivate and create a way of Being in your life that is aligned with who you truly are. The intelligence of your heart is the door to freedom, wholeness, health, happiness and aligned self expression. The days of summer are a great time to connect with just Being.
Loving you,
Sarah 💗
*I'm now offering a 4 session program for Building Personal Resilience as a HeartMath® Certified Mentor. In these sessions I share multiple Coherence techniques you can do on demand for emotional regulation so you can be more of who you truly are in your day to day life. You can learn more here.
*I'm taking July 1st to August 18th off from bodywork to Just Be and create in new and different ways from home. Coaching and HeartMath® Mentoring is still available. Bodywork is on hold until August 19th.
*Thanks to my friend Rob Martin for the co-creation of this video. I so appreciate you.
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