I have learned to listen to my body when it is telling me things.

In my younger years, I didn’t listen much at all, and didn’t even know this might be a good thing to do.

I had non stop energy and the ability to run at a very fast speed and Get A Lot Done, and so I didn’t understand or hear my body when it was talking to me. It may have tried to communicate with me quietly and politely at first, I don’t know, because I wasn’t present to hear it. I just kept doing all the things and telling my body ‘this is what we’re doing today’. I was Type A+, I mean, I had it all under control!

Consciously choosing to heal yourself helps you create healing within.

You make choices every day of your life. At a certain age, you learned to choose what you would wear each day, and to dress yourself. You became more self sufficient, not needing anyone else to tell you that you needed shoes and socks on your feet. You began to have an opinion about what clothing you put on your body every day.

When you were old enough, you may have helped your family to prepare food. Being able to feed yourself was seen as a good skill to develop, one that you'd certainly need when you became an adult and had to take care of yourself.

If you asked your body right now to give you a status update, what would it say?

Would you hear something along the lines of ‘Happy today, feeling good with pretty toes!’, or perhaps more like ‘Tired sluggish blah want some more coffee or a nap’? If you haven’t given this matter much thought recently, or have the idea that it isn’t up to you, that it’s out of your control, you may want to sit up and take notice of your body.

Your body’s attitude and energy at any given moment has a lot to do with you, and you have enormous power to help and heal your own body.

Do you see your body as a ‘frienemy’?

You may have believed a lie about your body. Perhaps the lie is that it’s flawed, too thin, too fat, or just not right somehow. You may not fit into the perfect ideal presented constantly in our culture, everywhere you look. You may believe that your body is wrong, and so you fight with it, every day.

You may believe that the spirit is superior to the body, and so you leave your body to fend for itself, without listening to its cries for attention.

Do you sit still and simply listen, not so much to the many sounds and noises out in the world, but to the sounds within you?

If you meditate, you may already do this, simply because you take the time to sit still, to engage yourself in the art of listening.

Stillness is the first part of the art of listening, going within yourself to listen is the next. It’s a simple activity, one that will give you bountiful insights into the most valuable resource you have, namely yourself.

Did you know that beauty is your birthright?

You live on a gorgeous planet, after all. You are fully equipped to experience the earth's beauty through all of your senses: sight, sound, smell, taste, touch. The earth is only too happy to indulge you; this earth is a cornucopia of delights, a paradise.

If you’re in the midst of a busy day, hitting stress and challenges along the way, getting your daily dose of beauty can make all the difference in how you feel. You can take a few minutes to slow down and look, listen, taste, touch, and smell. An added bonus is that your senses will remind you that you are a human being, with a body.

The choice you make in any situation will depend on the choices you see before you.

Yes, you do have free will, and are free to choose what you want, but what choices are on your menu? Sometimes you might believe you have no choice because none of the available options you see appeal to you. Remember that not choosing is also a choice.

What about the choices you can’t see?

Do you pay attention to how fast you are expected to move through your daily life?

Depending on what is happening in your life right now, you are faced with demands to get more done in your day, every day. This means you're expected to move faster, never slow down or stop moving, and produce produce produce.

You are the one making some of those demands on yourself, and it could be that you're used to doing things this way. It is a positive thing to get a lot of stuff done, and some days it's the right answer.

You have the power to heal yourself.

Healing yourself happens when you consciously choose, every day, how you'll spend your own energy.

This includes making choices about how you treat your body, which foods you eat, how much stress you hold onto, and what kinds of relationships you have in your life.

Deep listening is an art.

The ability to listen deeply is more than simply hearing the noises of the city or your office or home. When you take the time to listen to yourself, your body, the earth, nature, spirit, other people, you receive information that helps you understand and grow. Listening deeply brings awareness.