Tag Archive for: somatic

Do you believe that it can get better? 

This was one of the best questions I’ve heard in my life! It stomped me by how simple and yet revealing it is. In my 40+ years, I’ve seen plenty of health practitioners and no one, NOT ONE, asked me this question. And here I was, talking to my acupuncturist and she asked me: do you think it [i.e. my health] can get better? 😳 I paused and thought “Holy crap!” 

How we think about life is what we get out of life. No, none of us asked for difficult things to happen, and yet, how do we look at them? Is it something that happened to us or something that defines us? 

Think about it. Have you ever talked to someone who’s always overworked, over scheduled, who’s always responding to things because “it’s always something” as if they can’t do anything about it? Why do you think that is? Let me share a short story with you.

Some time ago, I was talking to a potential client and they knew more than I could possibly ever know about their condition. They’ve done their research, they’ve been living with it since childhood so they had all the information they needed. Even more than they needed. They came to me for help, and yet every suggestion I made was met with a variation of “that’s never going to work for me”. And you know what? They were right and I told them that. It was never going to work because they didn’t believe that it could get better. And that’s fine. At that time they were not ready for it to get better or they did not need it to get better. What they needed was someone to listen, to empathize. So I did just that, because that’s what they needed.

The point of the story is that when we are ready for things to change, they can change. The first step is in our conscious mind. Then the subconscious will make it happen. So what do you say? Do you believe that “it” can get better? Whatever your “it” is…

This has been coming up a lot recently in my sessions. Across the board, whether my clients are dealing with burnout, auto-immune issues, sleep disturbance, or anger, we are discovering together in our sessions that even though it is needed “now“, daily resourcing is rarely on people’s radar. 

Someone was recently grieving the loss of their dreams about renewed family connections so I asked:

Me: What would you need right now?

Client: Comfort and nurture.

Me: And what would bring that sense of comfort and nurture to you?

Client: Spending some time at the beach with my partner and kids.

Me: Can you do that?

Client: Yes, we talked about doing that next Friday.

Me: When do you need the comfort and sense of nurture?

Client: Today.

Me: So what is preventing you from going to the beach today?

Client: “…”

So now I am asking you. If you were thirsty now and I asked you to wait until next Friday to drink, you would think I am crazy, right? The difference is that we don’t think about resourcing as vital as food and water. The invitation is to reflect whether it is different though? 

If your answer is “no”, then think about little things that you can do each day to resource yourself. Something that brings you joy and takes 3-5 minutes. It can be longer if you have the time. There is a saying actually (and I am paraphrasing) about the need to be outside in nature for 30 min daily, unless you are too busy. In that case, you need 60 minutes! 🙂 When we don’t have time for something, what we are actually saying is that it is not a priority. So let’s make daily resourcing a priority!