A Simple Definition of a Sabotage: Arguing with the Flow
Can you trust the intelligent refusal of the body?
One day when I couldn’t get out of bed, I was forced to ask the simple question: why won’t my body do what I want it to?
My mind was committed to getting out of bed and going to work. And yet my body flatly refused to move.
At first, I thought this ‘sabotage’ was all my body’s fault.
I labelled my body difficult, stubborn, wrong, weak, an inconvenience. It was a troublemaker that was refusing to follow orders and do the thing it’s supposed to do.
After years of arguing with my body and trying to MAKE it do what it SHOULD do, I realised that perhaps, just perhaps, it didn’t want to do what I thought it should do for a very good reason. I entertained the idea that perhaps, it knew better.
Who’s the smart one?
Your intellect is supposed to be the part of you that ‘knows everything’ and ‘knows what’s best’.
But my healing journey revealed to me a deeper truth.
The intelligence of the Intellect is no match for the intelligence of the Body. The Body has the intelligence of the entire cosmos on its side. It remains intimately connected to nature. It keeps time with the heartbeat of the Earth, it accesses the unseen frequencies of the moon and planets and keeps a record of every moment of your existence. It has the capacity to understand, compute and devise infinitely intelligent responses to its environment, all in the blink of an eye and beyond the awareness of your conscious mind.
And yet, the Intellect is ‘so smart’ it continues to treat the Body like an ignorant, noncompliant fool.
Sabotage and the Assumptions we make about the Body
When it comes to a ‘sabotage’, the assumption is generally that the Body has it wrong. When the Body doesn’t follow the Intellect’s ‘plan’ it must be mistaken. The Body then needs to be ‘shown the way’ – corrected, fixed, ‘hacked’ or even boot-camped back into submission.
But what if the Body is simply trying to tell you something useful? What if it’s refusal to comply is not due to wrongness or brokenness? What if it is quite intelligently taking you in a different direction for your own good?
I saw my body’s inability to get out of bed as a ‘refusal’. It was broken. It was being non-compliant. Its sickness was a major inconvenience. But, given that my intellect was forcing it to get out of bed so it could continue working 70 hours a week, getting thrashed in brutal gym sessions and surviving on sugar, nicotine, and alcohol, with little sleep…I really wonder how my ‘smart’ my intellect was? Did my body really have it wrong?
The Body’s ‘Intelligent Refusal’
A client once told me the story of how her 8-year-old daughter was being teased by a group of mean girls at school. Her and her daughter had been summoned to the school for a meeting with the teacher, principal and the girls involved. Apparently, the topic of the meeting was to work out how they ‘could all get along.’
Her daughter didn’t want to attend, and my client wasn’t sure what to do. Did she force her to go to this meeting?
My client’s logical Intellect/Adult reasoned that they ‘should’ attend because every effort ‘should’ be made to heal the rift because everyone ‘should’ get along.
But she’d begun to question this reasoning when she’d asked her daughter why she didn’t want to attend. Her daughter quite plainly stated: “If those girls don’t like me and don’t want to be nice to me, then why make them? If they’re not interested in being my friend, I don’t know why I must put effort into getting along, I’m happy to hang out with my other friends.”
That’s intelligent refusal right there.
While the Intellect/Adult brain was ready to insist on the ‘shoulds’ – getting along, being friends, being nice etc., the intelligence of the Body/Child was quite clear that it was in her best interests to simply go where her energy was wanted, accepted, and appreciated.
The child wasn’t interested in forcing anything, she was interested in finding a flow of energy that felt good to her.
This is the simplicity of the body. Beyond the assumptions, projections and rationalisations of the mind, the BODY is always interested in FINDING FLOW.
When your Intellect is insisting that something should happen, that it should happen in a certain way, at a certain time, then what it’s really doing is arguing with the flow. In fact, it’s pronouncing that it knows better than the flow.
But the flow is bigger than you. It knows more than you.
Your body knows and trusts this, your mind doesn’t.
Kids remember this, adults forget this.
How to Stop Arguing with the Flow
The next time things don’t ‘go to plan’ you have a choice:
Option #1: Argue with the Flow
Label the situation as wrong, an error or a disaster.
Beat yourself up for getting it all wrong or being a failure.
Claim that you know better than the flow and continue to force things to go according to your plan by pushing, fixing, and controlling.
Option #2: Find the Flow
Process the emotional disappointment or frustration you feel because something hasn’t gone to plan (it’s totally OK to feel this way!)
With emotions out of the way, step back and entertain the idea that no error, mistake, or failure has taken place.
Observe without judgement how this ‘sabotage’ is pointing you to the flow. In what way might your body be trying to find the flow? What does it need? What is it looking for?
Identify the changes you need to make in approach, method or timing to get you to the flow.
Finding the Flow – What you’ll need…
A heads-up if you opt to find the flow.
To find the flow you’ll need full access to your gut feelings, your heart’s wisdom, and your inner child’s enthusiasm. They’re all perfectly attuned to finding the flow and not at all interested in judging it, competing with it, or arguing with it.
And…I’d listen the next time that non-compliant fool refuses to do something.
The PROBLEM PEOPLE PLAYSHOPS will help you claim your power back from unwanted habits by helping you to STOP FIXING and START FLOWING using an ENERGY-BASED approach to self-sabotage.
These game-changing online playshops show you how to approach approach your typical sabotages such as perfectionism, procrastination and people-pleasing in a radically different way – by getting to the heart of the energetic impulse that drives them. You’ll learn how to use the energy of your unwanted habits to claim more power and purpose.
We’ll be meeting MR PERFECTIONISM soon…