OMG! I’ve Been Scheduling My Body Out of My Life!
Only a week into the My Body is My Temple self-love practice I’ve come upon the most disturbing realization…. I’ve been scheduling my body out of my life for years. No wonder I don’t ever feel like I have ‘time’ to do the things I need to take care of my body… it’s only when she acts up or doesn’t perform that I pay any attention to her at all.
WOW! Sitting here with this realization of my self-created self-love sabotage, how I wish that I could blame the fact that I never have time for my body on some all-powerful Calendar God who has taken control of my calendar, making it impossible for me to find me time… and making it inconvenient at best to find time to take care of this thing called a body. But the fact is that it is I, me, Christine, who over and over again seems to schedule myself right out of my own life.
That became crystal clear to me last weekend when I found myself at my acupuncturist office on a Saturday morning. I really needed to be in that office four days prior, on Wednesday when the immense pressure and tight stress that had been sitting in my shoulders for days, suddenly moved its way into the entire right side of my body, from my finger to my toe, causing my arm and leg to feel like dead weights vs. healthy active limbs. But when I looked at my schedule and compared it to the open office hours, there was no space for me. My calendar was full of commitments to other people… all great stuff, and all things I love, but all things that meant there would be no time for my body until Saturday.
So my temple and I did the best we could, asking my generous guy Noah to give us spontaneous massages before bedtime, just to do something with the stuck energy sitting in our body. And on Saturday, I made it to see Dr. Feng, After many needles, he said what he often says to me, wise man that he is, “Christine, you must take care of yourself too. When you give and give to everyone else you will have nothing left for yourself.’ “Yes, Dr. Feng,” I thought, “I have heard that before.” But this time I went on to think, “Well, why is it that those words never make it past the Taoist zen of his office?”
And then the Calendar God spoke… or maybe it was my Inner Wisdom that responded, “Uh, because you never schedule yourself into your life. You schedule yourself out of your life, by scheduling everyone and everything else in first.” Ahhh! Ancient Chinese Secret! Yes, I get it.
Seeing my life through this new self love lens of “My Body As My Temple” suddenly I got something that I had been missing about this sage advice from Dr Feng. While I was vastly improved on taking me time to do something I enjoyed, I hardly ever took time explicitly for my temple.
taking time for ME wasn’t enough, i have to take ME Temple Time too!
The 40-day self love practice of “Taking Care of ME” that I did from January through Feb 13th had made an impact: I improved at taking ME TIME when it came to ‘doing’ something I want to do. I could read a book, or start work a little later without guilt.
So much so that on Friday, I went on ABC-TV to share how I take and find ME-TIME. From Tiara time, to Narnia time, to The World Is MY Oyster time, we shared a lot… check out the clip here, and see the real results of what I got from that previous self-love practice.
Scheduling time to take care of my body, to do the things SHE wants and needs, hmmm, that hardly ever makes the list. In fact it only seems to make the list when my body and her needs have reached the place of dire straights. Like, my toenail polish is currently half missing… my dentist appointment rescheduled twice…. my refrigerator on it’s way to barren… and don’t get me started on the underwear again…
And wait, the self-sabotage becomes even more clear… when I walked out of the treatment room at Dr. Fengs on Saturday… I approached the receptionist and said with pride, “I would like to schedule my next appointment with Dr. Feng” (thinking to myself, okay Calendar God, we are going to schedule this temple first!)…
“In fact,” I went on to say with pride, “I would like to schedule my WEEKLY appointments for the next month to support My Body as My Temple self love practice.”
Her face smiled, my face smiled, both full of happy at the thought of my body receiving such love. And then… my Iphone emerged with news that announced, “You can’t do Tuesday, you can’t do Thursday, you can’t even do next Saturday… you have no body time availability to see Dr. Feng for a week and a half!”
How can that be I thought as I looked again and again at the days and times, asking that poor receptionist at least 10 times, so when again are your office hours? Again and again I searched, and there was nothing. And that is when it struck me…
Christine, you have scheduled yourself right out of your life!
And you know, as much as I hate to admit it, that statement is true. If I am honest, then I have to admit that I have never made my body a priority. It has always been a “thing” I needed to take care of…. And usually only after it acted up in some way. You think I would have gotten to see Dr. Feng if she hadn’t started acting up this week. Honestly, no.
And that makes me sad.
1. That I would think of my body as a thing vs a temple.
2. That I would call her an ‘it’. And
3. That I haven’t made her ME TIME a priority.
Well thank goodness for this 40-day self-love practice, My Body is My Temple!!! Because now I am actually aware of a pattern I didn’t really understand. Yes, I am much better at taking ME TIME, but wow, I still have some shifts to make in ME TEMPLE TIME.
So you know what my first action was after I sat their frantically trying to find ‘time’ on my Iphone calendar while the very very kind receptionist watched me, “I surrendered. I said, okay, next week is what it is. And, the week after I start my ME TEMPLE TIME with Dr. Feng weekly. And I scheduled my body right into my calendar for the entire month of April! And then, wait, I went one step further, I came home and instead of picking up my computer and going right to work, I laid in bed and let the magic of Dr. Feng Temple Time soak in. I am shifting… more self-love on the scene!
I love this 40-day practice, and I invite each of you to find your own epiphanies and share them on our Madly in Love with ME Facebook Fan Page. We are in this together!
Here is to each one of us knowing that our temples need ME TIME that isn’t about “doing” anything but taking care of her…
And may we always remember to take care of her, before she has to get ornery and draw our attention to the fact she’s been neglected.