What are you NOT doing that you love?

Hi and how are you faring during this late-stage pandemic period? It's been a few weeks since I've written or posted. Like many of my friends, colleagues, and clients, I am both fine and not fine at the same time. And I've been participating in a polyvagal theory training that is rocking my world and awakening my awareness to the constant shifts within my nervous system. You can expect to hear much more about this approach to working with the mind and body in the near future because it has countless connections with meditation, Buddhist philosophy, body image, trauma, and Intuitive Eating.

In the meanwhile, one of the things I've become aware of while bubbling in the pressure cooker that is being an eating disorders dietitian, entrepreneur, and mom during the pandemic is that there are things that I LOVE to do, things that make my nervous system happy, that make my brain smile that I simply don't allow myself to do for various reasons. Whether time limitations, lack of awareness, or not feeling deserving, not doing the things that I love alters my experience of myself and of my life in significant ways.

Painting, dancing, meditating, listening to music, singing, napping, speaking with friends, and trying new recipes are some of the things in my own life that I just struggle to find the space for. They make me feel alive and full of hope yet the crush of the Groundhog Day makes them scarce these days. One thing that I have found incredibly useful is simply acknowledging this: having a mental inventory of the things that make me feel whole and well, keeping them close in mind, trying to bring in even one of them in a tiny way like playing a song while I'm making lunch for my son...again. I find this to be a gentle way of reconnecting with myself, what I love, my very life-force.

Perhaps it is something to consider. What makes you feel full, satisfied, connected, and alive?

What are you NOT doing that you LOVE?