Your Body Knew Before You Did

From The Situation

It is Sunday evening. The week ahead is planned, the obligations are clear and nothing is technically wrong. And yet something has settled into your chest that you cannot logic your way out of. You have learned to call it the Sunday scaries and leave it at that.What if it is not anxiety about the week ahead. What if it is information about the life you are living. What if you don’t have to report to work tomorrow and you still have that feeling?

From the Book

InFinding Your Own North StarMartha Beck introduces four internal compasses that she argues come standard with every human life. Body, emotional, mental and spiritual. Most of us have been trained to listen almost exclusively to the mental compass. The other three keep sending signals anyway. Beck’s central teaching is that when you are living out of alignment with who you actually are,the body registers it first.Tension, dread, a low hum of wrongness with no specific cause. Calm and joy are not rewards for getting everything right. They are signals that you are on the right track.

From My Experience

I studied these four compasses directly with Martha Beck through her Wayfarer teacher training. What she teaches is not theoretical. It is practical and it is precise. I have worked with professionals who could not explain why a successful life felt vaguely wrong until we stopped consulting only the mind and started listening to the other three.The body in particular is an honest witness. It has never once told me a convenient lie.

When my own life was off course my body was the first to know. I just was not listening yet.

Something to Consider

We can always tune into the body. On a scale of one to ten, how calm and how joyful do you feel in your life right now. Not in a single moment. In your life overall. If that number surprises you, it is worth paying attention to. Reach out.

Ellen MZLife Strategist, www.emzlifedesign.com

I help leaders and seekers get honest about what they actually want and rechart their course from there.Graduate, CoachVille | Member, ICF Connecticut