Welcome to Day 5 of the
Introduction to Fully Embodied Living

Fully Embodied Living is based on 4 Pillars:

Connection to Body
Connection to Nourishment
Connection to Presence
Connection to Growth

Each day of this introduction has 3 gifts:

• a guided meditation,

• a video of accessible stretches or body practices,

• writing on healthy nourishment.

  Please enjoy all 3 gifts, or just check out the ones that resonate with you.
  This page will always be here for you to come back to whenever you need.

  Day 5: Connection to Growth

  Wise aspiration honors where we are now, the journey towards our goals, and the evolution that we make.
  Wise aspiration focuses on how we want to feel within, regardless of the outward circumstances.

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Connection to Growth & Aspiration

Personal growth is, hopefully, something that we will be practicing for our whole lives.
Always learning more about ourselves, about how to live & love well, and about how to challenge ourselves kindly, is enough to comprise a life’s work.
There is no finish line, no point at which we are ‘done’ growing. So, hopefully, this means that we can enjoy the process of growing just as much, or even more, than any ‘gains’ we might make. Personally I think that the biggest amount of growth comes  when we recognise that it is not about achieving, but rather about enjoying the process of becoming. 

In the guided meditation for today, I talk about aspiration as a vow to nurture qualities that are already within us, and to open up to our most radiant nature. When we aspire to become our ‘best’ selves, it’s like we are acknowledging that, on the one hand, we have so much power to make positive change, and on the other hand, that we need to open ourselves to the grace of the universe for support. 
As one wise meditation teacher once said “We are all perfect just the way we are, and yet there’s always room for improvement!”

When we aspire, we can put our full energy into working towards our goals, while also practcing letting go of the results we want or expectations that we may have, realising that it is not entirely up to us - or our thoughts, in any case. A good example of this is remembering a time when we wanted something to happen, and it didn’t turn out how we wanted in the moment, but later it led to an even better outcome - something that we could not have predicted or imagined. This doesn’t mean that we don’t aspire - we do - but we keep in mind that sometimes we don’t always know what outcome is meant for us. This way, we can let ourselves be surprised by what our aspirations bring.

I am also SO happy to report that it has been shown that the more we practice compassion as we work towards personal growth, the better the outcomes are.
It is very common to think that we need to be hard on ourselves in order to make positive changes in our lives - but in fact, that kind of attitude actually makes us believe less in ourselves, and so we are more likely to give up on ourselves. When we work towards personal growth or transformation WITH compassion, we support ourselves through the hard days, we get back up on the horse if we fell off, we support and believe in ourselves and therefore are more likely to persist through the challenging times and achieve what we desire.

And so, I would like to propose a few aspirations for personal growth, and how they might be of benefit in the immediate moment, and in the long term. 

1. Aspiring to feel comfortable and ‘at home’  in one’s own body - regardless of how it looks or works. 

I am starting with perhaps the most challenging aspiration, but I think it is the one that is screaming out to be made. Feeling good in our own body is hard, in large part, because many people make a lot of money convincing us that we shouldn’t feel good in our body - unless we buy their magic product. Society has really latched on to this belief, and so it can take a huge amount of personal effort to drown out the many messages that we get each day about what kind of body is worthy of being comfortable in, and about what we need to do or to buy in order to feel worthy.  But we can see that the effects of us ‘buying into’ this belief system can be quite awful. When we make our bodies our enemies, or a ‘thing’ to control or  manipulate, we can’t listen to our bodies and to what they truly need, making any desired outcomes that we hope for even further out of reach. 

One simple practice we can take on right now, is to take 1 moment each day to practice listening to the body with loving kindness.   We might wake up and the body says “I feels stiff” - and so we do 5 minutes of stretching and notice how that feels. At night we might hear the body say “I am tired”, and so we turn off the TV, and go to sleep early. The body might tell us, “My butt is sore from so much sitting!” - so we take it for a short walk in the fresh air. It can be even smaller things - like just taking a few slow, deep breaths, sending the breath through the whole body, or doing 1 minute of neck and shoulder stretches in our office chair. Every moment of connecting to the body counts - no matter how big or small the moment is. 

2. Aspiring to have a healthy relationship with food

This aspiration is not necessarily any easier, but is just  as important and rewarding to make. Striking the perfect balance of enjoying our food, and eating healthily, can be tricky to achieve. Again, our culture loves to overanalyze what new food or diet is going to miraculously change our lives, while still tempting us towards sugary or fried food. It takes effort to NOT listen to the latest, shiny news about food or diet trends, and instead trust the tried & true science that eating whole, real food while sitting down in a relaxed setting, is the best for us, AND can be so delightful to our senses. Mindful eating, as described in day 4, can be a very transformational & rewarding practice, both emotionally AND physically, and is something we can rely upon for the rest of our lives. 

1 simple practice we can do is notice how we feel in our bodies after we eat. This can be in the form of a ‘food & mood journal’, where we write down how food affects our emotions and our sense of ourselves in our bodies, or it can less formal, where we just make the intention to be aware of how we feel during the day - mentally, physically, emotionally - and notice how our food choices may have influenced that. We might notice that, the day after eating lots of white flour-based foods, we are groggy and sluggish. We might notice that after eating fresh fruit we feel lighter in spirit and full of good humor. This is a great way to notice which foods agree with us more than others, as everyone’s system has it’s unique sensitivities. It is interesting to note that, on a parallel level, becoming more aware of how we feel, has been shown to be the most effective technique, by far, in quitting bad habits, such as smoking.
Mindful awareness is a powerful tool in our aspiration toolbox.

3. Aspiring to move our bodies in healthy, sustainable ways

The type of movement that each person feels drawn to, can vary greatly, as can the type of movement that is suitable for each body. Some people are very drawn to social dance, others to competitive sports, others to yoga. And then of course connecting to a specific type of dance, sport or yoga practice is something to be considered - 1 person may love hot yoga while another cannot stand it, and instead is a fan of hatha yoga, AND in the way that a particular teacher teaches it.
We must be patient with ourselves and with the process as we search for the form of movement (and possibly the teacher) that lights us up, AND that is safe for our body to practice. For example, we may love running, but because of a knee issue, it’s not healthy for us ,and we need to find another activity that is more suitable. We may love weight lifting, but a chronic pain issue means that we need to find something more gentle. It is important that we keep moving for so many reasons: for maintaining our muscle mass & bone density,  for managing our weight, for our cardiovascular, capacity, for our mental & emotional health, and for sustaining our cognitive abilities (exercise has shown to be the most effective practice in preventing or reducing cognitive decline with age), to name just a few examples.

Walking is one of the most effective and accessible forms of exercise, and contains all of these positive health attributes.
1 simple practice is to aspire to make walking, even a short distance, a consistent part of our day, and if it’s in nature, all the better.

4. Aspiring to make the journey the destination

When we are more present in each moment, we realise that there is no where to go, we realise that we have already arrived. This life is not about getting somewhere, it’s about living. What’s interesting is that when we can really drop into this idea, we realise how important self-compassion is, and self-forgiveness. We realise that instead of waiting to love ourselves, when we reach some goal, we can, and we must, love ourselves right now. We can still challenge ourselves, and even push ourselves at times, but we don’t wait to love ourselves. We don’t need to wait to find the joy in this moment right now.

I sincerely hope that you have enjoyed this 5 Day Introduction,
and that I have helped you to discover how much you have to give
- to yourself & others - when you are profoundly
healthy, vibrant, resilient, & connected to your inner source
of joy, wisdom & purpose

Please enjoy all the resources on my website to continue to take good care of yourself.

Wishing you well.