Many people believe their fitness challenges or body dissatisfaction have a specific cause. They’ll share it when we first meet, and then they’ll tell me what they believe their solution is:

• “if I just could make myself do the right kind of exercise to be rid of this belly.” or 
• “if I only had the self-control to not snack so much” or
• “I just haven’t been given the right diet to follow. If I had the right one that would work for me, I know I could lose the weight for good.” 
• or my personal favorite: “I just need someone to MAKE ME do what I should be doing.”

I’d pay attention to what they were telling me, because these were their truths as they’d come to believe them and were important in their own right, but I’d be paying closer attention to the things they didn’t realize they were telling when they weren’t aware they were telling anything at all but I was being shown what was beyond what they’d been conditioned to know to get clued in as to their individually inherent unconscious “knowing”.

This comes so easily to me with others- for myself, not so much.

But as a recovering disordered eater, I’ve had to learn to do the same looking beyond my words for myself, especially when I realize that I’ve unconsciously become blocked by misguided beliefs that are often not my own.

Not that I’m aware of that fact in the moment.

Again. Continually. Often. Currently.

And I require a reminder thwack that while I may know we all can see things in ourselves FOR ourselves when we make it our business to dig deeper within to search for our truths,

I’M NOT DOING IT.

And even though I believe wholeheartedly that we’re each equipped with this inner divine guide that aids us in finding the blocks preventing our free flow in every area of our body/being/life,

I’M NOT USING IT.

Instead I’m letting my dark shadow voice take precedence over my inner coaching voice, resulting in my moving too fast, falling into old codependent habits, putting my own care on the back burner and forgetting the one thing I rarely let others forget about themselves:

You are equipped with all you need to get what you’re seeking. 

I need to hear this mantra repeatedly to repeatedly MOVE IN ITS ENERGY and not go searching outside myself for what can only be found within.

It’s a job that will never reach completion because completion is not the goal- enlightenment is. This enlightenment journey requires the constant inner coaching that you must take responsibility for giving to yourself.

Uncovering insights about yourself that will lead to your answers is just another soul workout to add to your repertoire. Begin by:

• slowing down and paying attention to yourself, acknowledging what you’re being shown.
• practicing mindfulness as you go about your day with open-minded flexibility toward what you see.
• affording yourself the same interest you would give a stranger you desire getting to know.
• paying attention to anything: incidents, music, films, art, people, etc… that triggers a reaction (happiness, anger, sadness, empathy, indifference, etc…) within you and consider, rather than judge or automatically label them as good or bad.
• replacing a good/bad and right/wrong judgmental mentality with one of curious open mindedness.

As you continue to seek answers, have faith that you’ll be shown what you need to know as you need to know it without attempting to rush any “answer” before its intended time.

Whenever you find yourself log-jammed (it happens to all of us) stop yourself in your tracks, slow down, and repeat your beginner steps (above) to get you back in free flow.

Above all, remember that you don’t need to know how this “magic” works. You just need to believe it does and then LET IT by mindfully focusing on finding your own answers within yourself, FOR YOURSELF.

And when you inevitably find that once again you have somehow slipped away and become disengaged from your own self, as I have numerous times and will undoubtedly continue to do numerous more, pick yourself up and begin again.

We’re off the clock.