I said a difficult No this week.
Some of my StoryBrand Guide friends are putting on a free workshop about Thought Leadership and invited me to present.
I love the people, I love the audience, I love the topic.
But something in my heart and belly kept feeling resistant and drained whenever I thought about working on my part.
I tried to make sense of why.
Maybe I need to focus on other things?
Maybe it’s nerves or imposter syndrome kicking up?
Maybe I’m lazy? (No, I don’t think that’s it.)
Here’s the thing: I don’t need to understand WHY my body is saying No in order to trust it and take action.
See, I practice the 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership.
And Commitment 6 is all about Integrity.
One aspect of Integrity (as we define it) is only making agreements to which we have a Whole Body Yes.
And I didn’t have a Whole Body Yes.
I renegotiated the agreement, and am cheering my Guide friends on from the sidelines now.
So what is a Whole Body Yes?
It’s when your head, your heart, and your gut are all in enthusiastic alignment about the direction you’re going.
No nagging resistance.
No energy drain.
It’s the feeling of WHEEE and YUMM and LET’S DO IT all wrapped into one sunshine-y bundle inside your soul.
The exact sensations of Whole Body Yes are different for everyone.
But Whole Body Yes is decisively a sensory experience.
It’s not an idea; it’s a feeling.
And an important distinction: a Whole Body Yes doesn’t necessarily mean no fear or discomfort.
Sometimes the thing you most deeply want is also terrifying.
The practice is learning to distinguish the contraction of this isn’t right for me from the activation of holy shit, I really want this.
Learning to recognize the difference is actually quite simple.
My mentor Diana Chapman recorded a simple meditation about it that I recommend to EVERYONE forever and always.
(Seriously, her guiding me through this meditation in 2018 may be the single most impactful 10 minutes I experienced in the last decade. She recorded it because I asked her to, so we could share it more widely.)
Once you know what a Whole Body Yes feels like, the next step is to practice honoring it.
Diana explains this is in the audio, but it’s best to start small, with stuff that seriously doesn’t matter.
What pen will I write with? What shampoo will I buy? What shirt will I wear today? Which route will I take from here to there?
Once you hone your ability to sense the difference between Whole Body Yes and Anything Else, you can start trusting it in more and more situations.
Should I keep dating this person? Should I take this job? Should I sign the offer on this house? Etc.
You can start saying, with even more confidence, That Doesn’t Work for Me.
And you can stop trying to think your way into certainty about questions your mind may never be able to solve.
This is a big part of what I help people practice in coaching: getting underneath the arguments, shoulds, fear, and endless mental pros-and-cons lists so you can actually hear what you know.
When you live from a Whole Body Yes, you unlock aliveness. That much is sure.
I believe (though I certainly can’t prove) that I’ve learned to unlock much more than that.
Magic, you could call it. Magnetism. Divine guidance. Synchronicity. The whispers of my soul.
Your mileage may vary, but I highly recommend you at least begin to explore what Whole Body Yes can do for you.
Here’s the link to that meditation again, and to a whole page I helped Diana create about the concept of Whole Body Yes.
Are you ready to start standing for yours?
Enthusiastically,
Rachel
PS – If there’s a question in your life you’ve been thinking in circles about, this is exactly the kind of territory I love working in. Book a free consultation and we’ll explore what becomes clear when you stop trying to solve it with your head alone.
