The sky was bright blue as I walked across the golden grassy field to sit down by the river, where the cottonwoods grow tall and the northern flickers and magpies come to feast. But there was nothing pastoral about the wind. Gusts over 40 miles an hour buffeted me, causing me to lean forward to keep steady, and I found myself wondering why I hadn’t chosen a more sheltered location for this short walk and a sit.

Was this spontaneous healing supernatural? Did something happen that “shouldn’t” have? What about my recent healing from insomnia? Since I don’t really understand why going to Hawaii helped resolve the sleep issues, is it a supernatural healing? What about the time I resolved chronic abdominal pain by placing one finger at the source and another to a corresponding thread at my throat and wept and wept and wept? Is that a form of supernatural healing?

When you take action on intuitive downloads/desires/dreams/new information, you don’t really know what will happen. Will you get what you seek? Will there be struggle? Will it be easy? Will there be loss? Will it match what you imagine? Will you get what you came for? Which is to say: I didn’t know what would happen when we temporarily moved to Hawaii; I didn’t know if I would get what I came for.

I intended to write this long, chronological piece about why and how we came to the decision to put all of our stuff in storage here in New Mexico and head to Hawaii for the winter.

But the essence of it is this: my body spoke and I listened.

I firmly believe that following your desire and your intuition for your health journey will unfold in powerful ways that we can't even imagine yet. We don't know what will happen to you and to those around you and to the whole earth when you change the way you relate with your body. I do know that it will be an act of good in the world. 

Gaining 30 pounds in such a short period of time is no small thing. It creates an entirely different set of loads on all the tissues of the body, whether it's the feet, the pelvic floor, the lateral hips, or the arms. But this work - this showing up to myself in so many ways and this changing of how I think about and relate to the movement of my body through my environment - has had a profound impact on the way my body can handle such massive changes. 

So many of you think you are coming to exercise to fix parts of your body that aren't working. To address dysfunctions that have caused suffering. To get better. And, of course, exercise will do that.
But, over and over again, I see that what is often happening on the deeper level is that you're turning to exercise to fix yourself. Because you think you are broken. Because you want to get out of your body. Because you don't think you're good enough.
 

I can do a crazy amount of exercise in the car...when I'm in the passenger's seat. But in my 30+ hour solo drive this last week (#movetochange!), I had to get a little more innovative and work within the obvious limitations that come with being the driver.

I felt like I was making a life-or-death choice. Like choosing one place to live was a prescription for utter desolation and like choosing another would leave me bereft of my soul. I have been clearly "overreacting."

So many of you are laboring away in different ways, owning the life you seek to create, doing the work to support it. You are stretching your calves and sitting on the floor and walking instead of driving. You are going to therapy and feeling the feelings and challenging the beliefs you hold that tell you to just give up.