Follow Your Joy

Following your joy is the simple recipe for health and well-being. We all know how much better we feel after a relaxing holiday or a fun night out with friends, eating a fabulous freshly prepared meal or spending an afternoon bathing in the sun.

Simple ways to experience pleasure and relaxation bring great rewards for our health and a sense of balance to our lives. To create a daily routine that is based on this premise is a life changing choice. The culture we live in, however, doesn't particularly support this philosophy as a way of life. We are taught to work hard and rest little. When we do have leisure time it is often in front of the TV or using alcohol/cigarettes to soothe the stresses away. We are often taught to put obligation and duty before a deep knowing of what is good for us. in the end we lose touch with our bodies and in doing this our health and happiness can suffer.

A life spent rushing from A to B trying to keep on top of the to-do list doesn't lead to ease in the body/mind. We are a nation of stressed out people with health problems rising along with the pace of life, addicted to our screens and often ignoring the subtle voice of our animal bodies. When i say follow your joy I am encouraging a reversal of this. I'm not suggesting abandoning our responsibilities and becoming lazy or unmotivated to get things done. What i am advocating is learning how to balance work and play, rest and "doing". And even when we are working we can learn how to do it in a way that is filled with ease and relaxation.

Following your joy means listening to the messages from your heart and body that naturally tell us how to live in this way. It means getting out of a head dominated existence and into one which honours our whole selves...body, mind, heart and spirit.

We are not machines that can keep running on empty. We are human beings who need time to replenish and recharge each day and throughout the day. Following your joy is about learning to live differently as an individual and as a population. Slowing down, relaxing more, consuming less and having more time to enjoy leisure and nature. As we become more balanced our ability to listen to our deeper selves naturally arises and as it does so we reach for different activities, foods, drinks, routines, entertainments. We automatically take more care of ourselves, and see an improvement in our relationships and how we treat our planet. It is all connected. How we treat our bodies is how we treat our earth and vice versa.

Following your joy also means becoming more honest about your feelings and needs and learning to articulate them so that relationships improve and thrive and greater intimacy becomes possible.

I am a huge advocate of this approach as a direct result of my own life journey. After being raised in a dysfunctional family where balance did not exist, i developed an inability to relax which exhausted my nervous system and later i became extremely unwell with ME as a result. Through an intense 12 year illness i came to learn that the roots of illness came from being out of touch with the deeper messages from the body.

As i learned to hear them and respond i healed rapidly, changing my way of life in the process. As i returned to a more authentic expression of myself my health grew along with my happiness.

I now help others to learn the same process of recovering their health and well-being. I call this Body-Wisdom Coaching. If you are interested in learning more about it please get in touch.