I know better than this

This is so alive.

And yet, why do I keep repeating habits that feel so far from life? Habits that deprive me of what is essential to living, to feeling alive. I mean the simplest things, straight out of the rule book:

• 8+ hours of deep rest, of sleep, of doing nothing
• time outside with no screen, nothing in my ears
• moving my body, sometimes to the edge of tiredness, sometimes softly
• three nourishing meals a day
• 1.5 litres of water

Listening to my body's need to move, to eat, to pee, to sleep.
Simply.

The basics.

This is where I catch myself rolling back into old habits.
I say old because I've seen them, I've moved past them, I've chosen differently again and again.
I know what that feels like - it feels AMAZING!

And yet, here I am again. Going without every one of those essentials.

And the best old habit of all:
shaming and judging myself when I roll back, and hearing my inner critic - "But you should know better by now."

Sounds familiar?

This is an old record in my collection.

It plays again, especially when I am bringing something deeply meaningful to life.
When I am wrapped up in a project that excites me, that I love and care about.

Our habits don't change because we change our environment or the work we do.
They are stored deep inside, and they peek out at moments of meaning, because we are standing at the threshold of change.

Because right here. Right now. Something new is likely to happen.

And that unknown throws us back to what we do know.

Those old habits of going without our most basic bodily needs… most of us have been indoctrinated into the culture of mind over body. Every one of these habits sits right inside it: hustle, keep up, be pure, be fertile, be good, be productive.

So I created a library of practices to deepen our relationship with our body by meeting the state we are in. Not escaping it. Not skipping ahead to success and accomplishment.

I created it because the person I knew for certain needed it is me. And if life has guided me to create this for me, maybe other women want it, need it, too.

Because I am tired of shaming and judging myself for having "done it again", or for "not having done it". For believing that everything needs fixing and perfecting. Not just my body, everything around me. And then carrying it all in my body like a backpack full of rocks that we call "powerful woman".

So today, tired, and choosing to spend no more time on my screen than this, I am writing to you. Not a big launch email telling you the library is here and available for presale until 31 October.

I want to tell you that I cannot wait for Sunday. The library goes live, I open it, I answer the question "what is the rhythm of your body right now?", and I choose a practice to sink deeper into what I am feeling. And simply be with it.

Will it stir feelings that turn to tears? Yes, maybe, sometimes. Because I'll be moving energy rather than letting it boil inside me.

Will it strengthen my pelvic bowl? Yes, likely. Because I'll be bringing breath, movement and attention to a part of our body we've been shamed for remembering exists (so much more a bowl than a flat floor).

Will it open my stiff shoulders and hips after hours in front of the screen? Yes, in more ways than one.

Will it evoke new ways of expressing joy, fear, anger, desire? It will. And it will bring new ways of being with those emotions, so they enliven me rather than suffocate me.

… and so much more.

This is so alive.

Maybe I will send you a big launch announcement on Sunday - we'll see. For now I want you to know that if you said to yourself today "I know better than this" and felt that knot in your stomach - I see you, sister. I'm right there with you.

We keep going. We choose again tomorrow.
Remember, your body already knows.

with reverence to my old habits,

p.s. you can join the library now and come in from Sunday 1 November. The founding price is 199 CHF until Saturday 31 October.
Come into the library →

Happening in the Yin Rhythms Spiral

🌀 Rhythmic Movements - Seven rhythms of movement, breath and touch, filmed for you to come back to again and again. The library opens 1 November; founding places 199 CHF until 31 October.
▸ Come into the library

🕯️ Samhain - a free celebration of the season's wisdom, Monday 2 November, 19:00 - 20:30 CET, online. The threshold into the dark half of the year. We move with the intelligence of the season and nourish ourselves through community.
▸ Save your place

🎙️ YINtentions - Ep. 13 with Ruby May, My Nervous System needs Pleasure. Seven years of charting one cycle, and then the map was gone: what a woman does when the territory she was walking disappears.
▸ Listen anywhere

📬 Field Notes - every letter, in one place.
▸ Read the archive