Nothing Perfect

I've been listening to Glennon Doyle's podcast, We Can Do Hard Things. In a recent episode, she shares this anecdote of asking her son and his friends if they were hungry for afternoon snacks. All of the boys in the room immediately and loudly said yes, without taking their eyes off of the TV. All of the girls looked to each other and by silent consensus elected one girl to speak for all of them: "No, thank you, we're fine."

The girls, in order to answer the question "am I hungry?", did not go inside of themselves but instead looked outward to each other to find the answer to that question. The boys also did not go inside of themselves to answer the question. Boys are told to always be certain and hungry.

Many of us were not raised with the skill of going inside ourselves to answer the questions of our lives. Instead, we are conditioned by our own family dynamics, coping patterns, and social pressures. But that often leaves us looking outside of ourselves to find out what we should do, how we should live our lives, and seeking external validation for our choices.

Think of the moments in your life where time slows down. Where in your life does that happen for you? For me, it's the moments where I'm connecting to the living, to my breath coming hard and fast as I finish a run, to the plants in my garden as I notice new growth poking through the earth, to my loved ones as I listen intently to the sounds of their hearts - this is where time slows down and I'm so in the moment that I can accept who I am, where I am, and how I am without wanting to change a thing. Where there is nothing perfect. There is only life.

When we practice embodiment, being inside of our bodies in the present moment, we are learning how to look to ourselves for the answers to life's deeper questions. We are practicing trusting ourselves.

This week's quote "There is nothing perfect. There is only life" comes from my reading of The Secret Life of Bees, which I did enjoy and also found highly saccharine and problematic for its perpetuation of the mammy stereotype. If you'd like to check out the podcast episode where Glennon and her sister talk about meeting our own needs through embodiment, you can find it below.