About two and a half months ago I started to wake up several times in the middle of the night with my heart pounding and thoughts of my mind trying to make sense of the toxic situation at work.

My mind was trying to help me solve this work environment that had been happening for 3 years. My mind wanted this job to work out. It really did. I loved what I did there. I loved every patient and selling programs. I believed fully that the programs could help people have better lives. My heart knew I had to leave though— and it knew this for a while — it kept lightly nudging me starting 3 years ago and the nudging got worse and worse and more intense.

But my mind kept saying “no, stick around because it might change and they might change - see?? you had so many conversations that seemed productive” but the actions didn’t follow the words at all and the more I stayed the worse it got…until due to some very disrespectful current events - I felt it intensely in my body and this REALLY caught my attention to the point I could no longer stay.

When something is not for you, your body will try to communicate this to you with all its might.

This is important and urgent information because it comes from deep in your heart. It’s saying “Hey you, it is time to take another road.”

Your heart knows exactly what it wants.

And I don’t mean this just in the ‘woo woo’ way that most people are used to hearing this.

I also mean this in the most scientific way as well. (as the coherence of your heart electrical activity is immediately and significantly altered by this - more on this later).

Your body will incessantly communicate with you in all the ways that it can until you acknowledge it and do something about it.

It starts with subtle signals. Intuitive gut feelings. Perhaps a back pain coming in more often and for no reason. Waking up once in the middle of the night with disturbing thoughts of what you don’t want to happen.

If you still don’t listen, it will make you tense. It will make you less focused. It will make you ache in weird nonsensical places. It will make you sleep poorly. It will make you gain belly fat. It will make you obsess with certain thoughts over and over again.

I have read The How by Yrsa-Daley-Ward: Notes on the Great Work of Meeting Yourself 3 times: the physical book for the first time and 2X as an audio book.

Having health coached hundreds of clients for at least 10,000 hours, I have come to the conclusion that this book is required reading and application for anyone wanting to achieve optimal health.

This book is required for a rock-solid health foundation of changing NUMBERS of blood work, micronutrient levels, VO2 max, resting heart rate, deep sleep, REM sleep, HRV, and cancer prevention.

Science can be good for many things but you don’t need peer reviewed studies to know that common sense health and life foundations are the things that will truly MAKE A DENT in getting your health to the next level.

This book has expanded my ability to not lie to myself,

The How has been a lifesaver in the weeks after I quit my job, as I put on the audio version while rucking with my dog every morning.

This book gave me permission to accept that that job was not working no matter how much I loved so many aspects of that work.

It reassured me that I did the right thing and that I need to celebrate this courage of standing up for myself.

The How also helped me get ready to relax into fully trusting what my body is telling me and taking action on that insight unapologetically.

The How helped me to go deeper into accepting the reality and owning what I like, don’t like and to discard everything else.

The How is a book about realizing how much you are lying to yourself and how this is creating incoherence in your body. Then, accepting that fully, and then it gives you many wonderful exercises you can do on how to stop lying to yourself.

AND go back to your natural state of good enough, of deservedness, of you don’t need to create resonance with other people to blossom and bloom, you can fully trust yourself.

Life is not good. Health is not good. Things are not good.

because you are lying to yourself.

At the foundational fundamental level, every cell in your body will hear the discrepancy between your heart, your mind, and your actions.

You can lie. You can have your mind make up stories about how this is good even though your body is cringing. You can try to manipulate your circumstances but it won’t work.

It will never work.

Why?

Because your body, with clear direction from your heart, will ALWAYS signal you to pivot back to what really matters - through pain, through sleepless nights, through disease, through any contrast you can think of until you accept that and then give in to what you really would like instead.

Stop lying to yourself and start to remember the things and people that truly resonate with you in life.

But not just remember in the private moments of aloneness, but remember when you are interacting with a group of people, or at work, or standing up for yourself, when faced with something that you don’t want to do.

OWNING YOU: this is crucial if any health improvement is to take place.

This is where you start the REAL work of changing your blood work, your blood flow, your micronutrient levels, improve your sleep, your stamina, your vitality!

This-not lying to yourself and owning YOU-will simplify your health journey like nothing else.

Would love to hear some comments!

How did this post resonate with you? What challenges do you have when it comes to not lying to yourself? Do you lie to yourself a lot? What happens when you do?