Finding Your Truth: Can Your Body Tell You the Truth About Every Decision?

[fayt]

Can your body tell you the truth about every decision? According to Martha Beck in Finding Your North Star: Claiming the Life You Were Meant To Live, it really can. Beck's book is a 101 guide to steering your life with your soul and therefore a personal favourite. Her fundamental technique? Connecting with the feelings in your body to see whether something is right or wrong for you, and making this practise so habitual that you only navigate to those things which resonate as right. Sounds promising, yes?

Her aim is to have a daily to-do list filled with things you'd rate 8/10 or more on the joy scale. Conveniently, this is something we can teach ourselves! In her signature style, Beck breaks it down to something so digestible that there's no excuse not to learn immediately. Here's a beginner's guide.

The body doesn't lie - it navigates us to true north

Beck believes that our bodies try to tell us the truth - but we don't always listen. We're sent gifts of information: feelings of dread or joy. Too often we override these messages with our social programming. We have goals and plans. We think we know better. If you're like me, you have advanced degrees in "Knowing Better". Weeks, months or years later we find our best laid plans falling apart. We wonder why we've sabotage the life we've planned.

Is it possible that instead of being right, we're trying to live a life that have nothing to do with us? Is getting lost a sign that we've ignored our inner compass? Are we forcing ourselves into something that our body could have warned us against to begin with? 'Our body is like a faithful horse that knows the way home," Beck explains.

How can our bodies be so clever? Can our intuition and inner 'knowings' really be relied upon? The only way to know is to test it for yourself and see if it works.

Translating your body's messages

I was relieved to discover that Beck has a very clever method for translating the feelings our body sends us, using a scale from -10 to +10. It's impressive in its simplicity and ease of use.

Step one? She takes us somewhere very scary. Her first instruction is for her client to conjure their worst memory. It's important to let the feeling become as big as possible: filling your entire body and the room around you. Pinpoint where the feeling hurts most in your body. Perhaps it feels like a noose around your neck? Or a clench in the solar plexus? She gets her clients to give the feeling a particular name so they can recognise it more rapidly. For me it's the clenching solar plexus - and so I've called it "The Clench". Beck describes her feeling like that of being buried in gravel, and thus called her worst feeling "The Gravel". That horrible, destroying feeling becomes your guidepost for what makes a -10. Next, and very importantly, she has her clients run the opposite memory: a memory of falling in love, of purest elation. She instructs you to feel where that resonates in the body and give it a name too. That becomes +10. This is something I feel in my heart and specifically in my left arm. I know it well.

With this scale in place, Beck asks clients to start ranking every item on their to-do lists on the scale. Every meal and every chore is up for ranking. Anything that rates negatively on the scale can then be treated in one of three ways: bag it, barter it, or better it. Let me consider my aversion to routine housework. Bag it means you find a way to ditch it. Could I perhaps simply let the house get filthy? That's a no. If that isn't possible, you can try to trade it with someone else. Perhaps I could pay someone to clean up after me, or tutor someone in writing in exchange for their doing my housework. Now that's an idea! If that doesn't work, perhaps you can find a way to make it palatable. For me it's listening to audio books and podcasts while I hang up yesterday's jacket, stack the dishwasher and hang out a load of washing. This becomes something I really look forward to in a way that surprises even me. By adding a special treat to the task, you might find you can push it up into the positive scale.

How this habit can change your world

Beck believes we can spend our days filled with +8, 9 and 10 tasks. Years of practise means she lives her life on 8s, 9s and 10s. This is how we can align with our "true north" - something our bodies have wanted all along.

Test it out - is something true... for you?

Next time you are reading something, particularly spiritual and self-growth material, stop and ask: does this feel good in my body? How good? If something isn't ranking at a nine or ten level, consider whether it's really going to direct you to your personal north star. Use this technique on itself. Go into your body and ask the question: does listening to my body feel good? How good? See what response you get, and then make your choice from there. For me it feels like a resounding +10.

credit to Jessica McOmish

[Pinoymasterp]

Thanks tol, your posts are really good and interesting. Cheers

[jatet]

Nice suggestions. Now if only I can follow them.

[fayt]

Thanks tol, your posts are really good and interesting. Cheers

salamat po sir sa pagbisita po sa thread..... 

[fayt]

Nice suggestions. Now if only I can follow them.

yeah tama po.... kung masusunod lang po yan malaki po ang effect po sa atin hehe

[EagleEye]

this is true. dito na derive ang "body language"

[fayt]

this is true. dito na derive ang "body language"

Yeah... That's it... Body language.

Sent from my Yahoo using Google

[fayt]

"Nice post..... Interesting Topic' Keep it up"

salamat din po sa pagdalaw dito sa thread