I once believed that as I moved along my spiritual path I would become a less emotional Being.  It was my belief that as I moved towards enlightenment I would not be negatively affected by the human world.  The days of sadness, anxiety, and fear would be behind me, and I would be in a constant state of calmness and bliss.  In my mind the path to spiritual mastery was all rainbows and sunshine.  Well, meditation has taught me one valuable tool.  You can never have expectations, and there are no rainbows without rain showers.  What I have learned through my meditation practice is to sit, to experience, and to let go.  When I go into meditation I have no expectations.  Experiences come in all shapes and sizes and one is no better then the other.  It is the same with my emotions.  They are all different and all have a purpose in my life.  Joy and bliss make my life bright and bring me laughter and smiles.  Fear, anxiety, and sadness are my teachers.  These emotions expose the traumas I need to heal so I can become a more whole individual.

Not too long ago I had a surprising lesson in the power of the more “uncomfortable” emotions.  I was away with some of my girlfriends.  The ladies were all going out to the big city, and we had all been looking forward to it.  On the day before we were to return home I was feeling very anxious and a little on edge.  At first I blamed it on the morning coffee, but as the day wore on I knew that it was something deeper because the edginess was not ebbing.  By evening the anxiety turned to sadness.  I was very gentle with myself, not trying to force the emotion away.  I knew the emotions I was experiencing, though uncomfortable, where there for a reason, and I had to let them run their course.  As the sadness grew the deep rooted issue came to the surface, and I saw where the emotions where coming from.  I looked at the trauma and saw that it was just a part of me that needed to be healed.  Now I have to admit it was not the best timing for this trauma to come out and reveal itself.  I was on vacation with my girlfriends.  I wanted days of laughter and late nights filled with music and dancing.  I was not expecting this trip to involve emotional processing too, but in life we can have no expectations.  When wounds want to heal all we can do is just give them the room to do so.  I gave myself the space I needed and let the natural process just happen without holding onto any feelings or judging any moments of the experience.  By the next morning I felt like my old self, but with a much greater awareness.  I came back home a little more whole.

Meditation has made me a Witness.  I see myself for who I truly am.  I am a spiritual Being having a human experience.  There are dark parts to my nature that are sometimes suppressed.  My emotions are valuable tools to help me see the dark parts so I can bring them to light.  My emotions flow through me, and I watch my emotions without interpreting, interfering or analyzing them.  Emotions can be expressions of the experience I am having, or they can be the key to opening the blockages in my soul.  I am not my emotions; they are just a part of this experience.  Now as I grow as a spiritual Being I know that there will always be a place for emotions in my life.  Joy, bliss, sadness, fear, and anxiety will all pass through me, and with every moment I witness this I become a little more complete.

To say my life is busy would be a severe understatement.  I have three young children, and more then enough responsibilities.  Most of my days are spent moving through the long list of things to do.  I am a Mom, so my list is very long.  This will not change while my kids are young.  It is my job to nurture them as they grow.  I will love them and provide for them so when it is their turn at this whole adult thing, they will be well-rounded individuals.

As of late I had gotten myself in a rut.  I have been suffering from what I call Super Woman syndrome.  The obvious characteristics from this syndrome are being delusional enough to think you can do it all, and save the world at the same time.  I have been riding high, living this delusion.  When asked to do something I always seem to say yes.  I believed if someone came to me seeking my help then it was my responsibility as a conscious being to provide that person with the help that they sought.  What I began to notice is there was a lot that needed to be done.  It seemed like everyone needed help everywhere.  Well about one week ago my body said, ‘enough is enough girl’, and it shut down.  I spent three days crying and sleeping.  At the end of the third day I stopped sleeping, I stopped crying, and I began listening.  That is the biggest problem when you suffer from Super Woman syndrome.  You stop listening.

My body had been sending me signals for a while that I was doing too much.  I had insomnia, and my weight was creeping up.  I didn’t notice these signs because I was too busy forcing myself through my long list of things to do.  I believed that I could accomplish everything I set out to do.  In a way I was partially right.  I am capable of doing whatever I set my mind to, but I didn’t notice what I was losing by forcing everything to be accomplished.  By becoming Super Woman I forgot my one truth, and that is to live my life as one long meditation.

In meditation you do not force an experience.  You just let it happen.  You become the ultimate witness.  When a thought pops up in your head you just witness it and let it float on by.  There is no force to meditation, only allowing.  You do not attach yourself to your thoughts, nor do you judge them.  In meditation you learn just as much from witnessing as you do from silence.  So if you try to force your thoughts away during meditation you lose the whole experience.

By forcing my way through life I was in many ways missing the experience of my life.  I was just doing doing doing, but never taking the moments in.  My body could only handle it for so long before it just had to turn itself off.  Once it did that I had no other option but to listen.  I looked at my life, and at who I am, and then I asked myself this one question.  “What is it that I want out of this life, this experience?”  I looked at my life at the current moment.  Was this what I really wanted, a life so crammed full of things to do that I missed the whole experience.  Did I want to live a life where I am so consumed with helping others that I never take the moment to care for myself?  The answer of coarse was no.

Having come to that conclusion, then came the hard part.  I had to let it all go.  I had to let go of Super Woman.  I had to let go of the person who said yes to everything.  By letting go of Super Woman I had enough room left to be just me.  There is no force in being me.  I do what I can, and I try to be there for my fellow man.  The difference now is that if something is asked of me now that will prevent me from being me, well then I have to say no thank you.  My one job on this planet is to fully experience life as me.

So who is Kristen?  Well at this moment I am a Mother, a yogi, an artist, a wife, and a conscious being.  Who I am will evolve from day to day, but in every moment I will be me with no force to it.

When I was younger, in my teens and twenties, eating was only about survival.  I ate healthy to stay thin, and when I ate out of pleasure it came along with the guilt of possible weight gain.  Eating had nothing to do with nourishing my body and enjoying the wonderful foods that our planet provides.  Eating was about the end result, and for me that was to have a cute little body.  I had forgotten how to eat intuitively.  After more then one health scare I had to rethink my motivation behind eating.  A light bulb went off in my busy little brain, and for the first time I realized that my body had a voice.  My body was screaming to me its unhappiness, but I was too caught up in the mental world to listen.  I had to stop doing and start listening, and by doing this I found my way to becoming an intuitive eater.

Becoming an intuitive eater takes just one small step, and that step is developing your inner sensitivity or inner listening.  When you are present your body will tell you exactly what it needs.  There is no diet plan for an intuitive eater.  Once you put a definition on your eating style you shut off your ability to listen.  I am not a vegetarian, vegan, or carnivore.  I am Kristen and I eat what my body needs.  Do not ever define your eating, just listen and eat.

When listening to our bodies we must find the difference between the voice of our mental body and the actual voice of our physical body.  The mental body has a way of playing little tricks on us.  It is very good at its job, and usually that job is to make us stop listening and just start acting.  The mental body tells you that this pizza is so good that you really need another piece.  Your body may be full, but oh that gooey cheese tastes so good.  The mental body takes us away from the present, it speeds things up.  Makes things confusing, makes you rush.  So to decipher the difference you need to access how you feel.

The voice of your body is an entirely different language then your mental body.  The mental body is all about chatter, while the physical body is all about feelings.  When I have a craving for a certain food I always step back and center myself.  I take a deep breath to calm my mind, and I access how I feel about the food I am craving.  If the craving is still there after I have calmed my mind then I go ahead and eat what I am craving.  Eating should never be about denying and all about allowing.  You may get some strange cravings, but eating is an adventure so just go with it.  Remember to eat slowly and enjoy.  Enjoy the experience of eating!  No need to rush.  Eating slowly not only helps you savor your food, but by doing this you also aid digestion and give your body the time send you the cues that your body has had enough food.  When the meal is through the listening does not end there.  The way you feel after you eat is the end conversation between you and your body.  You should feel light and energized after eating a meal.  If you feel sluggish, have bloating, or have heartburn then your body is telling you that it is not happy.  When you experience negative symptoms form eating then you just need to reassess your cravings.  Sometimes cravings are actually food addictions and by listening to your body and viewing your reactions to your food you can figure the difference.

Food addictions happen.  We live in a world with a myriad of food choices, and we have to eat to live.  By listening to your body and seeing the reaction you get to certain cravings you will figure the difference between your body telling you what it needs and your mental body telling you what it wants.  Food addictions feed the mental body.  They stir up emotions.  There is a big difference between a feeling and an emotion.  Happiness, sadness, depression, anxiety these are all emotions.  Food should not provide emotional responses.  Yes you should enjoy your food.  Make food delicious and exciting, but always remember that happiness comes from within.  When you receive an emotional response from a food there is a good chance you have a food addiction.  Do you ever hear people say that they are monsters in the morning until they have their first cup of coffee?  That is a prime example of a food addiction.  You need something for a certain emotional response.  If that person listen to the language of their body they would get and entirely new perspective.  Your body should be able to naturally wake up without feeling groggy.  More then likely your body is saying that it needs more sleep, but instead of listening we feed it stimulants so we can accomplish all the things on our agenda.  Now I am not saying it is bad to drink coffee, no not at all.  Nothing is off limits in my food world.  What is important is to listen to the language of your body and go from their.

So on your journey to being an intuitive eater be gentle with yourself as you learn the language of your body.  Over time you will learn to read the signals.  We all fall many times over, but our mistakes are our greatest teachers.  You will never learn what your body doesn’t want unless you listen.  Never deny yourself, never criticize yourself, just listen and eat.  A meal is an offering to your body.

Give your body love and be happy!

My morning started out like any other ordinary morning.  My kids had their breakfast, and I was on my yoga mat doing my morning practice.  Gentle music played in the background, the kids were happy and quiet, and one would think I would be in a state of utter bliss.

One look at my face and you would know that it was the complete opposite.  My face was tense as I struggled in Trikonasana (also known as Triangle posture).  I looked up at my hand, grimacing as I tried to hold the posture.  My breath was forced, but I was determined to hold this posture in its full expression.  As I struggled, it dawned on me: why am I doing yoga?  Struggling in a posture is not terribly meditative.  So I stood up, aligned myself properly to go into the posture, and stretched my arms out only as far as they would comfortably go while feeling the stretch of the posture.  I smiled slightly and held the posture.  I felt my body release the tension it was holding onto and in that moment I realized that for me, this was the full expression of this posture.  I felt the strength of my body in the posture with gratitude as I became the posture instead of forcing the posture.  In that moment my practice became my meditation.

This experience made me think about movement.  Why do we move?  How does movement become our meditation?  Osho stated that Meditation is the absence of effort.  In Meditation we let go of our thoughts and we just allow the experience.  That seems so contradictory to movement, which is all about the effort: putting forth something for a result – at least, this is what I have always believed.  Making my movement my meditation made me rethink my old thoughts on movement.   I realized that the whole point of movement should not be about the end result.  Movement should just be about movement, plain and simple.  We should move to experience our physical bodies.  To experience all that they are capable of doing.  We should be rejoicing in the ability to be able to move.  Isn’t that the reason we are here on this planet anyway? To have an experience?

I started to incorporate this thought process in my everyday movements – on my walks outside, in my yoga practice, and in my everyday household chores.  When I walked I walked.  It was not about the end destination, it was about the journey I was taking in every step.  I observed my body and my surroundings, and I breathed in the fresh Mountain air filling my lungs until they were content.  When I did yoga I flowed with my body.  I had no plan on what postures I would be doing.  Instead I just listened to my body and followed suit.  My body told me where it needed to be opened and what needed to be released.  When I did my household chores I did not think about the amount of work I needed to get done.  I just did my chore, staying present in the moment and enjoying my work.  When I was tired I rested.  I allowed my body the time it needed to restore itself, and what I finished in the day was perfect for that day.

In doing this practice I began to notice some things.  I moved so much more during the day.  By not forcing and just enjoying my everyday movements I flowed through my day with perfect ease.  At night I felt the reward of rest.  I went to bed with no regrets about what I did not accomplish because when you surrender to the flow of the Universe you accomplish just what you are suppose to.   With every gesture and every step I am present in that movement.  I let go of the effort of the movement and made movement my meditation.