This Caused Me to Smack into a Window
I was recently attending a conference led by uber-inspiring coach, author and speaker, Robert Holden. I had the privilege of participating in two workshops with him lasting a total of 11 days—lucky me! I’ll be sharing more about my learnings from him in a later post.
Before I dive in, a little back story…
One of the things I’ve been working with over the last year is embracing my ever-changing body. Due to some hormonal and lifestyle changes, my body looks different than she did a year ago. Definitely different than what she looked like five years ago! I know this is ok—even to be expected—AND, if I’m completely honest, it’s been quite challenging at times, causing me to pause and look at my work with new eyes.
I get that this is a beautiful opportunity for me to deepen in the healing I’ve done with my body and to take this work to the next level, and there’s a part of me that just doesn’t want to! (Can’t I just be done with this already? – begs my inner voice.)
An action I decided to take to celebrate this “new” physique was hiring a stylist and having my colors done. (You can see some pics of that process here and here.)
As much as I would like to say this adventure was joyful and amazing—it wasn’t. Well, it was and it wasn’t. It forced me to come up against the part of me that is so attached to looking a certain way. The part of me that believes my worth and value comes from what I look like.
This is an aspect I haven’t spent much time with in a while…and, I guess she missed me because she came back with a vengeance!
Fast forward to Robert Holden’s event…
We were doing an exercise on courage where we were asked to think of a courageous act we could take that would support us in moving forward with our goals. The act that was present for me was to wear one of my new dresses. The one that was a beautiful color, but made of thin jersey cotton and didn’t hide any of my lumps and bumps.
I woke up the next morning full of anxiety and thoughts about whether to stand in my courage and wear the dress or shrink. I chose to rise and wear it. I was really proud of myself until about lunch when it was time to take off my comfy sweater (the room was cold) that covered my most concerning areas.
I was walking from the lobby to the pool area to sit with friends and eat when I got lost in my head. I felt fully exposed. There was nothing covering my dress and only a thin layer between the eyes of others and my cellulite. I was so consumed with what they were thinking of me. Were they judging me as fat and unattractive? I even tried to compensate by walking a little taller, with a bit of a strut.
And…BAM.
I didn’t even know what happened. It took me a moment to recover.
I was aware of about five people coming up to me asking me if I was okay. “Ok? Ok from what?”
The awareness hit—OMG! I just slammed into a glass window thinking it was an open door to the pool area!
I SLAMMED into a GLASS WINDOW—leaving a full on face print and all.
Wow. The Universe certainly has a sense of humor! Luckily, I wasn’t hurt. That glass was double-paned. But, I was a bit frazzled.
I realized how NOT present I was. And, I wondered how often that happened. How much of my life was I missing because I was lost in my thoughts about my body?
I was so grateful for that Divine Intervention. It literally woke me up and shattered my priorities. My life was happening and I wasn’t showing up for it.
Right then and there I set my intention to see clearly. To get out of my head and into the world around me. To connect with Life.
It’s funny, this year for me is about letting Life lead and surrendering to the Grace that already is. Well, it’s kinda hard to do that when I’m not present.
How often are you lost in your head and missing the beautiful moments Life is trying to gift you?
Allow this post to be your wake up call and save yourself from running into a glass window!
By the way, here’s a picture of the dress!
With loving,
Amber