Reclaiming your wild is about trusting yourself, your instincts. We get all these delicious signs, hints, nudges and what we are learning to do is listen. To trust. To act. And when we do this our lives open up in magical ways. I’ve learned to trust when to buy a one way ticket, when to have a roommate, when not to. When to eat a hamburger to help my body ground and when to juice for a few weeks. When to say yes to an invitation and when to say no. When to spend Thanksgiving by myself and when to be at a table surrounded by friends. When to stay in on a rainy night with a movie, or to sit in silence surrounded by candles and when to throw on a jacket and walk in the rain. Each moment is different. Listen and trust. There have been sunny summer days where I stayed inside all day (and a sunny summer day in Seattle is not a given) but I honored what my body and soul truly needed on that day.
This is where my freedom is: in trusting my own intuition and body over anything our culture taught me, anything from my family, from a book, a guru.
This is the sweet spot of reclaiming our wild.
Spend some time tuning into your intuition. Walk the aisles of a grocery store- forgetting everything you’ve read about nutrition/dieting (if you have) and see what your body says “YES!” to, lights up over. Forget your mind for a moment and trust yourself. I can’t tell you the number of times my body lit up over something which I then vetoed with my mind…and when I got home it was what I truly wanted and needed. I would have nourished myself in a much more profound way if I’d listened.
And I do this when I'm in Seattle too. I step out my front door and just go with no attachment, no plans. I've ended up bumping into friends and sharing meal, then walking to a farmer's market, coming home and baking. Then taking the treats to visit friends and playing with their kids. All I did was listen to keep my day open and walk outside the house and see where my body wanted to go. Then when it was in flow I cleaned my apartment, paid bills, wrote thank you cards. Everything that needs to get done, does. With so much more pleasure, joy and ease.
Walk out your front door, step off the subway with no plan. See where your body guides you. I’ve had my most incredible travel days/life days when I had no plans and let my body be my guide. One day in Florence, Italy I followed it to a leather store where the clerk was a Seattle woman working there while going to culinary school. She gave me a restaurant recommendation which felt good and led meeting the owner and then sharing a table and dinner with a wonderfully kind and interesting American man there on business. He then snuck us into a museum after hours and we finished the night off with a gelato. I could never have imagined that or set out that day that ‘plan’.
So put away the guidebooks, the to-do lists, start saying no to things that don’t light you up and see what starts coming into your life. Reclaim your intuition, your pleasure. Listen, trust and see what magic and freedom unfolds for you. It’s so so good.
Let your wild be your guide.
Finding a dairy free chocolate sorbet- thank you intuition!
Following my wild on bike in Amsterdam...a little tricky at times but the joy!
