I wrote this as part of an annual update to the 21 Days of Embodiment course and thought it was worth publishing!
I once heard a line in a movie that went something like, “I don’t want to tamper with natural ignorance, because it’s the key to happiness.” It reminded me of a similar quote by Mark Twain: “To succeed in life, you need two things: ignorance and confidence.”
It’s fascinating to consider how much we should learn and then force ourselves to change—versus how much we should lean back and trust the natural flow of our lives.
What would my life look like if I didn’t have access to so much education or the countless perspectives on the internet? Without all that interference, what would I naturally have done with the tiny speck of sand each of us is given in the hourglass of time?
How do we know when to work hard to change a relationship or a trait in ourselves versus allowing something to go the way it naturally evolving? I have worked way too hard on things that needed to crumble and other times I have given up too soon and been left with a “what if?” lingering in my heart.
Which one is worse?
I also wonder about the people who, after spending all night scrolling through Reddit, conclude that their exes are narcissists. What percentage of them might be the true narcissists themselves? From my view most of the people diagnosing their exes really need to be looking at themselves.
One of my most popular social media posts said, “The most selfish person you know is sitting in therapy right now being told they need to practice more self-care.” We’ve all seen people become monsters—driven not by reality, but by the stories they create about their lives, stories often fueled by knowledge or misinformation. So in those cases they would of been better off without all the “knowledge” that only put more nails in their coffin.
How do we safely lean back into the natural course of our lives, trusting that the people and lessons we need are already right in front of us? How do we know if something super uncomfortable is merely cauterizing an old wound we need to heal, or if we’re genuinely in the wrong place? Because I know people who have had so much trauma, medication and stress that knowing that difference is VERY hard.
Often a client will become dysregulated and feel challenged by early love and want to assign stories to those emotions by finding fault with the connection when the reality is that new love is often triggering and uncomfortable especially when you’ve been hurt before.
The truth is, sometimes we just don’t know.
As someone who tries hard to live using a combination of body, mind, intuition, and emotion, I still stumble. I bring things into my life that, in hindsight, were far heavier and more misaligned than I realized—yet in the moment, they felt good to drag for one reason or another. My inner child with her daddy issues still reaches out for pure attention and my inner critic shies away from a business opportunity that feels too big, but in retrospect was the natural next step.
As I take my clients through this re-visting of the 21 Days of Embodiment I want to remind you, and myself, that the purpose of this course is to create an altar to your inner world. A time each day where you really listen to yourself.
A moment for you to stop, drop into your body and expand into the next steps and amazing experiences that life has sitting on your table at all times.
When I check in with myself and really press into embodied living - I rarely have regrets. I tend to intuitively know what to push away, press pause on and climb towards pretty effortlessly. So maybe overall my life doesn’t feel easier but choosing feels easier - I think that’s the end game of self work: making mostly better choices.
When I hear people talk about staying in the flow of your life path, I imagine being the captain of your own ship. Yes, you know where you’re going and you have a general idea of the route you’d like to take, but you also honor the weather and the condition of your vessel and crew. You make adjustments and sometimes chart entirely new courses, but it’s never about quick, wild movements—it’s steady. When you make a mistake, you course-correct and use that insight to do better the next time.
Finally, an essential part of embodied living for me has been learning how to make soft endings. Some connections and opportunities aren’t a “no,” they’re just a “not right now.” Pausing in a way that allows things to come back together later requires a certain artfulness with life—one I believe can only be cultivated through a fully developed inner world.
I hope you enjoy the rest of the updates!
Christina
I write primarily to support my small business, christinaelaine.com
I am a somatic coach, writer, and curriculum creator writing about the interior life of modern relating, weekly on Medium & Substack. I also host interviews on YouTube.