Hello friends,

This month I sat down with Travia Steward for an episode of her podcast Breakthrough. Her podcast focuses on a moment where people reach clarity and found the motivation to change their lives, so I told her about the first moment I heard my body speaking to me. I've written about it on the blog, but it's not a pretty story. It involves getting deep into my medical history, trauma and disability, confronting my own failings, sharing really vulnerable moments. During our pre-show discussions Travia, a kind and caring host, asked me if I was sure I wanted to be so open about such personal information and I forgot that this stuff feels personal to most people. To me it just feels like fact. :shrug:

There is a weird freedom in things being so dire that you can't pretend they're not. Dropping the pretense of having things together means you have a lot more energy to try and get things together. There's a perspective shift that is so valuable it makes some of the horrible stuff you have to live with a little more bearable. You see things differently and things that used to matter a whole lot suddenly seem so silly and meaningless. I no longer feel any desire to put energy into crafting an image that looks better than I am. This is how bodies work. They get sick, and it's scary, and we're all afraid of how mysterious this human experience is and how little control we have. There is no amount of money or influence that will prevent a body from breaking down. The best we can do is delay it. These are just the facts we're dealing with, and denial doesn't change that.

Once I accepted that reality, I could take all that energy I was putting into denial and spiritual bypassing and put it towards the things that were actually in my power to control. Small actions of self care built up into the kind of health habits that actually make a difference, and I got healthier than I dared to hope I would. My health conditions mean that I can count on getting sick again. I will always have bad days and good days. But now I also have the support networks and the health habits to ensure that I'll get the care I need on those days, and that means that I don't have anything to be afraid of.

The values I was operating with before didn't get me anywhere good, so I needed to come up with new values for myself. I no longer value being seen as a polished person. I value being honest. I value not having to betray myself by pretending things were different. I value letting people see me for who I am so that I'm surrounded by people who choose me for who I am.  It doesn't feel hard to share what's in line with those values.

This month I wanted to drill down deep into the values that undergird the Body Loyalty philosophy. I had to let go of a lot of inherited beliefs to figure out how I was going to build a life I found worth living, and I had to do a lot of examination to decide what values were going to be the foundation for my future. Any system that didn't value Atticus was not something I wanted to use as a system to value myself. I had to find a new way to value myself, and I had to find a new way to value my fellow human beings. 

If you haven't made it over to TikTok, don't worry about it. We'll come to you! We're loading TikTok compilations up to the YouTube channel. The first one is live and features videos on the topic of self love.

Why is self care so darn hard? What is it that is really preventing us from doing all the things we know are good for us? How can we solve these problems when we're already burnt out and stretched thin? We'll talk about that in May!