Open Heart Adventure

Greetings blog-readers (and so much more)!  You may be wondering what “Wet Elbows” is all about.  First, it’s about a blog title that rocks!  Seriously, I’m a dork, but yesterday I had wet elbows.  On the inside.  And I thought – what a great title for my next, long-overdue blog post!

So a quick recap as it relates to my wet elbows.  Okay, and it’s an in-depth recap as well.  As you may know I spent last year working hard at financial planning and spent a little bit of time coaching (love the coaching!).  In fact, a lot of the coaching was self-coaching, which, turns out led to some good stuff and me feeling better in general.   One of that good stuff was my old employer calling me about a new opportunity.  Long story short, I am back with said old employer and am very happy with my decision to return.  But… there was some serious soul-searching about the decision.

A big part of me wondered if I could be happy there.  I mean, I’ve started meditating, coaching, and not really teaching yoga.  So how would a corporate financial job fit in with all of that?  Weighing more heavily on my mind were memories of feeling trapped when I was last there as a partner.  At the time I thought being there meant giving up on my France plans, giving up on my freedom, and ultimately the adventurous life I’d envisioned.  In a way I felt like I was giving up on myself.

The way I interpreted my situation back then caused some serious side effects, namely insomnia, hip pain, and intense anxiety.  Actually, they were more like primary effects.  It was my body’s way of saying, HELLO!  What are you doing?  You are not happy – please make some changes!  And of course I didn’t listen, until I couldn’t not listen.  Ultimately I resigned, went to France, meditated a lot, and came home much more relaxed.

But looking back with a new perspective, it’s clear that my body was responding to the thoughts and beliefs I was telling myself.  Thoughts like – I’m trapped, I’ll never be happy here, I have to do this forever, etc…  My body literally began to shut down as though it was trapped.  And in fact, my outlook was so rigid, that most of the tightness happened around my joints.  Hips, jaws, ELBOWS.  Perfectly reflecting how rigid I had become in my thinking.

Today I still have a good amount of tightness, but it seems to be loosening up day by day.  When I meditate I often feel a cool wet sensation in the tight spots – a sign that trapped energy is escaping and moving more freely.  Yesterday this same sensation drifted to my elbows.  At one point I actually checked my shirt sleeves to make sure I hadn’t stuck both my elbows in water.  Not sure how I would have done that… But nope, dry as a bone.  They were just wet on the inside.

So how could I go back to my old employer after all the stress I’d experienced before?  Turns out the stories in my head created the vast majority of my stress.  I fully believed that I was trapped and stuck.  Until I quit, that is.  Duh.  I’m learning that any job, relationship, experience is what we make of it.  It’s a moment-by-moment thing.  Whenever we cover a situation or a person with a blanket label, we no longer see clearly.  It literally separates us from reality.  From what’s actually going on.  I’ve found that things are much more workable, and even enjoyable when we take them as they are, directly, without all the labels and unpleasant stories.

So I’m definitely checking in with my body more often these days.  It’s wicked smart and a great tool for detecting crappy stories.  That’s not to say that we as individuals don’t do better in some environments than others – I completely believe our strengths and interests make us more suited for some vocations than others.  But it sure is hard to know when your “story” drowns out a direct relationship with reality.  Point being, clean up the stories first and then your read on what’s a good fit (or not) becomes much more clear.

In my experience the body is an amazing, wise, and sensitive organism that has all sorts of insights to share.  Please listen.  Your body and your life will thank you.