Your body will always give you feedback to let you know if you are on path, if you are living in alignment with your highest values and if you are doing what you love. The key is we need to learn to listen to our business partner and to the feedback he or she gives us.
According to my mentor and teacher Dr. John Demartini, there are 4 feedback systems that are working on our behalf to ensure we are living with mission and purpose.
Intuitive Feedback
Our intuition is that little voice within us whispering a yes or no, letting us know if we should or shouldn’t do something. It is subtle and often quiet, but it is our greatest guide. Our intuition is leading us back to our soul – our authentic self. If we ignore this primary feedback system, we get the secondary feedback, our social feedback.
Social Feedback
This is when we seek advice from others or others give us their feedback. We ask our friends, family, colleagues their opinion or what they think we should do or not do, or they may tell us their opinion even if we don’t ask! Although our intuition, our business partner, has already told us the answer, we ignore it or don’t trust it and seek our social feedback. If we ignore the social feedback we receive the next feedback system, our physical feedback.
Physical Feedback
Our body gives us symptoms letting us know if we’re on path or not, if we are doing what is in alignment or not. Often when we are not doing what we would really love to be doing, we experience symptoms. We may experience tension headaches, anxiety, depression, insomnia, fatigue, aches and pains, digestive stress, IBS, hormonal imbalances, irritability, moodiness, stress eating, emotional eating, binge eating and weight gain. That’s right, all these symptoms are your body’s feedback trying to tell you something. Your symptoms have a purpose and a meaning. Most often they are trying to get you back to listening to your intuition and ultimately to your most authentic self.
If we ignore these subtle and loud symptoms, then we get the universal smackdown!
Universal Smackdown
This is the big wake up call – the health crisis, the cancer, the heart attack, the divorce, the “you’re fired!” or even the car accident. The universe steps in to get your attention so loudly to get you back on path. These are the wake-up calls that often force us to re-evaluate our lives, to get our priorities in order and to live our lives with meaning and purpose.
It is so important to listen to our business partner, our body, our intuition to help us make our best business and life decisions. The more time we ignore our intuition, our inner knowing, the more emotional, volatile, stressed, we become. We lose sleep, emotionally eat, and even gain weight. We think, believe, and perceive that the hardest thing to do is to speak our truth, to let something go that doesn’t feel right, to say no and to surrender and trust our intuition. Yet, speaking our truth is the easiest thing to do! It doesn’t come without vulnerability, but it is so much easier and takes up less time and space in our energy field than if we let it linger.
The hardest part of making a decision is not making it! Is ignoring our body wisdom. The longer we mull over something and stay in inaction, the more symptoms we have and emotional eating we do. That has a far greater impact on our health and wellbeing long term, than if we ripped off the band aid and did what we know our soul is calling for. As soon as we live in alignment with our soul’s calling, everything regulates. We relax, we sleep, we stop craving and we feel light and in flow.
When we do what we choose to do, like to do and love to do, we are living in alignment, we are inspired from within and motivated. We are radiational, we have energy, vitality, longevity, fulfillment and we feel great, and our eating is on path.
When we do what we think we need to do, should do, must do or if our ego is overriding our intuition, we are gravitational, we have low energy, fatigue, and feel mentally scattered. We procrastinate, stagnate, feel terrible and have many off path eating moments.
When we are not fulfilling our purpose, we self-destruct!
As for emotional eating, it is another feedback system letting us know something is challenging our values, or we are not doing what we love, or we are not living in alignment or with purpose. Anytime you can not live your inspiration it will fill up with compensation – compulsions, addictions, emotional eating, and food cravings.
Instead of feeling guilt and shame about your off path eating moments, ask your business partner, “what is really going on.” “What do you want to do more of?” “What do you want to do less of?” “What’s not feeling right in my life right now?” Every emotional eating moment is letting you know that you are ignoring your intuition and it is a doorway, an opportunity to get you to live more authentically.
As Gabor Mate says, “what is your body saying no to that you are not saying no to?” The more we ignore our business partner, the more symptoms we are going to get, the more unwanted eating behaviors we are going to have and the more weight we are going to carry.
Excess weight has many symbolic meanings. One of them is untapped potential. When we’re not living in alignment, when we’re not living with purpose, our untapped potential can feel like stagnation, heaviness, fatigue, burden, and excess weight. When we do what we are most meant to do, our body finds its rightful weight. When we are working and living in alignment with our soul’s true calling, our eating is in alignment too.
As you move forward in your days always remember:
Your body is your best business partner
Your body is working on your behalf to ensure you are doing what you are most meant to do
Trust your business partner
Listen to the subtle and loud messages he or she is trying to give you
Thank your body every day for helping you to fulfill your mission and purpose.
Yours in health & vitality,
Amy