Something "impossible" before breakfast.

How does your intuition speak to you?

Mine seems to be speaking to me through my body lately and if I ignore the quiet messages, it gets louder.  Yesterday it got loud in the form of my neck seizing up.  Over the course of several hours, as I crunched the financial numbers and told myself "no.  can't afford it right now." about several things that I wanted to do, the range of motion in my neck, my ability to turn my head side to side, shrunk until I could only look straight ahead without pain.  

I recently saw a quote that said, "You don't get what you deserve, you get what you believe."

I don't know if that's ultimately true.  I don't even know if I believe it.  But I pondered it.  

This morning, when I woke up, I thought about this physical pattern in my life - how my neck seizes up periodically.  I thought back to yesterday and the day before and any physical activities that might have contributed to this particular painful freeze.  And when I didn't find any obvious causes there, I started looking at the mental/emotional patterns that might be associated with this pain in the neck. 

Since inability to turn my head was really limiting my ability to see to either side or look over my shoulder I asked myself, "How are you limiting your own vision?" "How are you limiting yourself?"

And the answer seemed obvious, I was telling myself no.  And then I realized that the way to say no without words is to turn your head back and forth to the left and right.  Exactly the motion that I could no longer do.  OK, intuition, you've got my attention.  

So I started to wonder, if I did this to myself, can I undo it?  Can I heal it myself?  

I started by remembering how countless chiropractors through the years have adjusted this very same issue in my neck.  And the various stretching exercises they've assigned after giving the adjustment.  

I asked the two sides of my brain to work together to help me find the solution.  I called on my experiences in yoga as a student and teacher and I listened to my body.

I experimented with small motions.  Turning my head side to side made a lovely crunchy noise in my neck.  Nodding my head, like saying yes, as I turned my head side to side slowly, alleviated the crunchy noise and allowed me to move into the tender places and stretch them.  

I spent half an hour nodding yes, very slowly.  I started out with very, very small movements and moved into deeper nods.  

And now?  There are still tender places, like muscles overused, but I have the full range of motion in my neck again.  

It seems like my intuition is trying to tell me not to be so stingy with myself or in other words, be a little more generous with myself.  

It's hard to allow myself a $15 concert ticket or a $14 drop-in yoga class or a $12 book when I'm no longer getting a regular paycheck.  

The deeper question for me seems to be, "Do I believe I "deserve" to have those things, since I'm no longer working a regular job?"  If a friend asked me the same question about herself/himself, I would answer, of course you do.

I'll be nodding and saying a quiet, "yes" to myself, over and over and over again today, emotionally, mentally, spiritually.  

It's not really the items that matter.  I don't actually need to go buy the concert ticket, the book, the yoga class, I just need to stop treating myself like a naughty child for reaching for them.  

I thought for sure I was going to have to cancel my plans for the day and go to the chiropractor and I was thinking, I can't afford to go to the chiropractor right now.  I didn't wake up thinking it was possible to heal my own neck problems, but it seems I've done one impossible thing before breakfast.  That's a good start.

Do you ever act as your own oppressor?  Do you limit your own vision of what's possible?  

How can you change and release those patterns? 

Now, instead of checking for typos, I'm simply going to post this and run out the door to help plant beautiful, delicious gardens that will feed anyone who is hungry.

https://www.facebook.com/PlantARowToEndHunger

How cool is that?